OT: LOL Gattis

Submitted by so bored at work on August 12th, 2023 at 6:38 PM

(SIAP) ESPN’s Insider article with anonymous coaches’ comments on college QBs wasn’t overly revelatory, but the section on Tyler van Dyke had some savage quotes:

"There was no system," one ACC coach said...“I think Rhett Lashlee did a great job with him, and then the guys [Cristobal] hired stunk," said a coach who faced Miami. 

Football

42-27

August 12th, 2023 at 6:40 PM ^

From national assistant coach of the year in 2021, to...this.  Hard to remember someone whose star fell this far this fast.  Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy /s.

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PopeLando

August 12th, 2023 at 7:42 PM ^

My hot take is that Harbaugh put him up for the Broyles Award as a way to get him out the door faster. 

It was clear - to me - that at some point in 2019, Harbaugh realized that Gattis had no idea what he was doing and started reasserting/reinventing his own offense. 2021 was a blessing because it doesn’t take a genius to come up with a “feed Haskins and Corum” strategy. Those two will make any OC look good. Good enough to hoodwink a desperate head coach into thinking that Gattis had anything to do with it.

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Magnus

August 12th, 2023 at 8:11 PM ^

For all the hate he gets - and perhaps for good reason when it comes to the info behind his firing - Michigan's offense took a turn for the better when Matt Weiss was hired and things started looking more like Baltimore's offense.

It will be interesting to me to see what the offense looks like now that Moore and Hart are the guys in charge.

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maquih

August 13th, 2023 at 1:42 PM ^

Maybe he logged onto a different coaches account to send emails or something.  Maybe as a way around NCAA recruiting restrictions? It's the kind of thing that can happen in a small business all the time, but is instantly fireable in a corporate setting.  Idk, just spitballing but there's tons of things that are not moral questions but technically lead to a firing in a strict corporate setting.

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stephenrjking

August 12th, 2023 at 11:31 PM ^

It seemed clear very early. Michigan's offense changed mid-season a lot in the mid-Harbaugh years, and the Army game, pretty early in 2019, appeared to be a situation where Harbaugh stepped in and just clamped down on the gameplan. 

Or, at least, I argued this at the time, and ramped that argument up quite a bit louder in the following season. 

But it's still not clear how much was going on. Seth argued quite passionately (and produced some decent evidence) that the offense in 2021 was Gattis, back when Gattis was on the staff. And there were, in each year he was here, clearly plays run that he brought to the table. 

But "who is in charge of the offense" can actually be a complex question and that is particularly so when Jim Harbaugh is the head coach. He doesn't like to talk about what goes on behind the scenes and there is clearly (and, it should be stated: wisely and rationally, it's a practice on many staffs) multiple sources that have influence over what plays are run on the field. 

The issue with Gattis is that when he was brought in, he was allegedly given complete control of the offense.

But it did not stay that way. As happened in 17 and 18, the running schemes started shifting substantially mid-year (in 18 and 19, Warinner years, the pin-and-pull became the staple play, a play that faded into disuse when Warinner left, take that for what it's worth). Play selection balance varied. In each of the Gattis years, Michigan deployed a large number of flare screens early in the season, which diminished substantially as the year bled onward. 

But how much of this is Harbaugh, and how much is Gattis, and Warinner, and Moore, and Weiss? 

We don't know. That's how Harbaugh likes it. 

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WampaStompa

August 13th, 2023 at 12:42 AM ^

It really feels like Sherrone Moore was the answer. Since he became the OL coach, our O-line has become so good that OHIO STATE felt they had to throw their whole defense at the line of scrimmage to stop our run game. And now the team is like 12 guys deep with quality offensive linemen. Not to mention Harbaugh has been publicly vouching for him as being ready to be a head coach 

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yossarians tree

August 13th, 2023 at 10:50 AM ^

Moore's star has been rising for several years now and there's no reason to think that he can't be a great OC and eventually HC. But calling plays on the fly is its own skill set. He'll have to prove he can do that. And we'll never know how much influence Harbaugh has game to game, but he will always effectively be the OC as long as he's here.

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blueballsohard

August 13th, 2023 at 10:06 AM ^

Fair enough. But if we're really being objective (I know this isn't the space for that) JH has been here for 8 years with what 5-6 different OCs? And the offense has looked the same every year. Why are we blaming OCs for anything? We run Bo Ball. The reason 'speed in space' didn't work is because....we never saw it. I don't think Gattis ever called plays before this year, not at Bama or UM. 

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