Rank the greatest UM football HCs?

Submitted by greymarch on January 24th, 2024 at 11:23 PM

I am going to get a serious amount of thumbs-down for this.  Bite me. I want honest answers....

 

Over the course OF THE ENTIRE EXISTENCE of UM football, rank the best 5 coaches?

 

1) Bo. Dont care if he never won a NC.  His winning percentage is amazing.  He coached UM for 21 years. Got got screwed out of winning two NCs.  He had a winning record vs The Great Evil, he retired from UM football instead of leaving for another college team or the NFL. Most importantly he defined what it means to be a "Michigan Man."  If you polled every person in Michigan who is the greatest sports figure in the history of the state of Michigan, Bo would win that poll.  Bo created what Michigan fans expect from even modern Michigan football: strong defense and RUN THE GOD DAMN BALL.

 

2) Yost.   Duh.  Sure, he crushed it 100 years ago, but who are we to decide how serious, or how important winning was to the players and fans who participated in Michigan football in the early 20th century?  Yost's success is nearly as important as any other UM coach.

 

3) Here's where I get down-voted: Lloyd Carr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Carr  Winning percentage 0.7530864198.  Just a touch below Harbaugh.  Won a NC like Harbaugh (1997 UM with Woodson would've defeated Neb by a touchdown.)  Far better recruiting than Harbaugh.  Didnt quit to coach another team.  Didnt get fired.  Retired a Michigan man.  Also had a better record in bowl games (not a good record) than Harbaugh.

 

4) Harbaugh. Took UM to 3 CFPs.  3-5 vs The Great Evil.  Won a NC.  Better winning percentage than Carr, but not any of the other 5 on this list.  Did not finish his coaching career at Michigan (He's not coming back to UM, so dont even reply with such a stupid idea)  Due to his constant obsession to return to the NFL to win a SB, cost Michigan in recruiting and the 2024 transfer portal.  Plenty of scandals during his tenure.  I personally think all the scandals are garbage, but I dont control what the majority of college football writers and fans believe.

5) Chrisler.  Not even going to get into why he is #5.  Google it.  He's clearly #5 after what Harbaugh accomplished.

 

#GoBlue

 

 

 

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jmblue

January 25th, 2024 at 9:05 AM ^

He was 3 and 5 against OSU.

It's worth noting that he faced better OSU teams than his precedessors did.

During the 1980s, for example, OSU never had fewer than 3 losses in a season.  Since 2012, OSU has never had a 3-loss season.

Ryan Day has lost three Big Ten games in five years as a head coach.  All three were to Michigan!

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UMinSF

January 25th, 2024 at 11:28 AM ^

That just shows what MIGHT have happened had harbaugh stayed.

Don’t forget bo took over when OSU was an absolute juggernaut. They beat us 50-14 the year before he took over, and returned basically everybody - that 1969 osu team was considered one of the greatest all time.

Then woody and Bo traded blows for a decade; basically a draw. Those osu teams were all loaded. 
 

By the 80’s Bo and successors had basically won control of the rivalry - much like harbaugh finally did. Bo took on peak osu and won right away - took harbaugh awhile, though harbaugh also finally won a national championship as Bo never could.
 

imo the challenge both coaches overcame was similar. Bo beat woody right away; harbaugh never quite got past meyer. Bo stayed and sustained longer, harbaugh reached higher peak. If only he’d stayed...

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crg

January 25th, 2024 at 8:48 AM ^

No... but he had the *opportunity* to get there had he stuck around.

He was like the guy who took an old car that needed some TLC, got it back to top form, took it out a won a few races, then left to work on another car rather than trying to really go on a tear with the current racer.

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Brodie

January 25th, 2024 at 9:26 AM ^

I think it is true that Big Ten coaches felt that way and that probably explains why OSU and Michigan combined for two in the final three decades of the 20th century but it is clear with hindsight that nobody else in the country felt that way and their focus on the natty won out and influenced the entire direction of the sport in the past 30 years. 

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BlueKoj

January 24th, 2024 at 11:58 PM ^

Born in ‘69 and loved Bo. But Harbaugh is better — by a skosh. He got it done in an era when it was much more difficult for Michigan to win it all. Bo won a lot but had it easier. Without Bo, there’s no Harbaugh so it’s close.

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MgoBlaze

January 25th, 2024 at 1:09 AM ^

Honestly it's not even close. Harbaugh by a long shot.

The responsibilities and job description of being a college football coach now is orders of magnitude more difficult than it's ever been. Yost and Crisler and Bo weren't dealing with NIL, the transfer portal, fundraising collectives, or social media.

Even Lloyd was playing a completely different game.

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rc90

January 25th, 2024 at 8:03 AM ^

Yost and Crisler and Bo weren't dealing with NIL, the transfer portal, fundraising collectives, or social media.

Is this really true about Yost and maybe Crisler? OK, there was no NIL or transfer portal, literally speaking. But my understanding was that the rules we all knew and love about paying the players and joining/leaving teams were created because back in the day it was much more of a wild, wild west than it is even now.

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Brodie

January 25th, 2024 at 9:28 AM ^

This is definitely true for Yost, especially in the first half of his tenure. Less true for Crisler, though there were some quirks including conferences trying to make paying players legal and older players coming back from the war which paralleled the COVID eligibility extension 

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Blinkin

January 25th, 2024 at 6:23 AM ^

I agree. Taking into account the much higher degree of difficulty in CFB, and the state of Michigan's program (especially relative to OSU and MSU) and I think Jim's body of work is more impressive. He had to haul Michigan from the very bottom of the pyramid up to the pinnacle in a deeply stratified era of CFB that has seemed deliberately calibrated to reward the successful and punish the struggling.

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M-Dog

January 25th, 2024 at 10:07 AM ^

And Harbaugh adapted, even when he didn't want to. 

Bo never did.  He just focused on executing the same thing even harder.

I have always said that if Bo was willing to pass the ball on third and short just a dozen times in his entire career, he would have won multiple National Championships.

Those specific dozen plays are a little fuzzy in my mind, but someday when I have time, I am going to research them and identify them. 

Here are some of the games they are in that come to mind:

1971 Stanford

1973 OSU

1994 OSU

1976 Purdue

1976 OU

1978 MSU

1978 USC

1980 ND

1980 SCAR

1985 Iowa

1986 ASU

1988 Miami

1988 ND

1988 Iowa

1989 ND

1989 USC

There were many chances to change history if Bo was not so rigid.

 

 

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Brodie

January 25th, 2024 at 9:14 AM ^

people are genuinely forgetting how much easier the Big Ten was in the 70s, no PSU and Iowa/Wisconsin had not yet decided to take football seriously

Jim winning 77% of his games against superior competition is more impressive than Bo winning 80% of his games against inferior competition

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MaizeBlueA2

January 24th, 2024 at 11:35 PM ^

*It's "Crisler."

 

And those are clearly the 5 (and I say big gap after them)...but the order? I actually thought about this last night and gave up. It's just too hard when you're comparing guys who coaches in 1910.

For me, Harbaugh is over Carr though. I was able to figure out that much.

Carr got Michigan when it was MICHIGAN. Back when we walked into a stadium up 7-0. That went away after Henson/Terrell.

What Harbaugh had to do was legendary. Build Michigan from ass average in an era of super teams, when the M brand wasn't enough to get top recruits off of name alone, when the SEC dominated everything, in the era of the CFP.

You say far better recruiter..that's garbage for me. Again, Carr could walk in a living room with a block M and that was enough. At least during the 90s. Michigan, ND, OSU, PSU, UF, FSU, Nebraska, Oklahoma, maybe Miami...we were the powers and the M brand was bigger than ever.

Carr also never had to deal with a transfer portal and certainly not NIL.

TV contracts weren't big enough when Carr was coaching, schools didnt have money like they do now...so cheating schools was like a car, a job for dad, and/or $10K. That often wasn't enough to swing a kid from going to Michigan - that would be laughable these days. Carr was never going up against anything close to Saban's machine at Bama (and everything that goes along with it).

Harbaugh cleared Carr with ease for me.

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Double-D

January 24th, 2024 at 11:35 PM ^

For me it’s Harbaugh and Bo neck and neck with Harbaugh having an edge for the National Championship 

The success Harbaugh has had to me is more challenging in the modern era with more parity and smaller rosters. The past three years sustained were extraordinary.

Lloyd’s National Championship is to be celebrated but he did less with more talent. Too many 3-4 loss seasons. Honestly I think Moeller was a better coach.

They named our basketball arena for Crisler.

Let’s hope we have this same question with Sherrone in ten years. 

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othernel

January 24th, 2024 at 11:46 PM ^

Lloyd's reputation is damaged by him intentionally hurting the program because he didn't hand pick his successor. 

Don't get why people consider him the ultimate Michigan Man after that. 

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crg

January 25th, 2024 at 8:58 AM ^

I like Carr, but we need to be honest: he was a caretaker coach.  We was able to accomplish great things taking over a team that others had assembled (yes, he was involved but wasn't the main party) and was able to sustain most of the momentum for almost a decade.

Yet, it was plainly obvious that the momentum was decreasing each year and, more importantly, Carr was unable/unwilling to adapt to the changes in cfb offensive strategies during his tenure.  Coupling that with his penchant for internalizing hires and thinking, rather than diversification, he allowed the program to decline.

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Brodie

January 25th, 2024 at 9:34 AM ^

Because subsequent events have shown RR was a shitty person and ultimately the architect of his own demise. The line that Carr, having initially suggested him for the job, turned on him after seeing how he ran the program now seems much more realistic 

Also clearly the Michigan football program in the Bo-Mo-Carr era was full of catty personalities who hated each other and I take all of the bitchy rumors about so-and-so actually being evil with giant grains of salt because we will never know the sources

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Frank Chuck

January 24th, 2024 at 11:50 PM ^

1. Yost
2. Crisler
3. Harbaugh 
4. Carr
5. Schembechler
6. Moeller (my personal favorite, his firing changed Michigan's long-term trajectory for the worse)

I value winning National Championship a lot. Hence, Schembechler is #5 behind the first 4 who won it all. If this was just modern Michigan coaches (so 1960s and on then Schembechler would be 3rd on my list.

Schembechler had many National Championship caliber teams but could never find a way to go perfect. One year a reliable kicker missed a makeable kick. Another year, a sure-handed WR dropped a (TD) pass that would've sealed the game or won the game. Another year, the beef with refs led to a phantom call. There was always something. 

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bluesong

January 24th, 2024 at 11:54 PM ^

I get emotions may still be a bit raw, but why are you giving coaches credit for not leaving for the NFL. Does anyone think that Carr could have gotten an NFL job even right after the 1997 season? BTW, I'm a Carr fan. 

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Class of 1817

January 25th, 2024 at 12:04 AM ^

Yost, Bo, Harbaugh, Crisler, Carr

Fun topic but the biggest black eye in M football history happened under Carr’s watch in his last season. No way he’s above the man who took our program from a dumpster fire spiral, made it to 3 straight 4-team playoff berths, and won a national championship.

HAIL

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