An unshackled Jim Harbaugh
Interesting quote in a Sports Illustrated interview, from Jeffrey Persi's dad:
"There’s a bunch of armchair quarterbacks out there," he said. "I believe Harbaugh has what’s needed if he can break out of the handcuffs that bind him. You know his past coaching styles. Do these last two years really look like they’re his choice? We’ll choose an unshackled Harbaugh to lead this team and get our boy ready for life."
https://www.si.com/college/michigan/football/michigan-football-jim-harbaugh-jeffrey-persi-parents-players-team-contract-extension-fire-wolverines
January 6th, 2021 at 4:49 AM ^
That’s a pretty cool quote from Persi’s dad. Based on what I’ve seen online, it appears this year and half of last year were a product of trying to let Gattis call the games. Things got better last year after JH and Warriner stepped in. Could be all bull shit, just what I’ve read. Regardless, the offense has always been the bigger problem for this program under JH. Nice to see the support from a parent
January 6th, 2021 at 5:12 AM ^
So the guy that's taking his time signing an extension doesn't have complete control of his program? GTFO. Harbaugh has been working with complete autonomy.
January 6th, 2021 at 5:48 AM ^
It's been a total autocracy.
January 6th, 2021 at 6:16 AM ^
The irony is that if it were a complete autocracy, to include enrollment and qualifying, Persi likely would not be recruited. The days of comparable academic requirements at colleges is gone.
January 6th, 2021 at 6:53 AM ^
Are you intimating that Persi is not a very good student? I'm confused. If this were the case it would mean Harbaugh does have complete autocracy.
January 6th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
I think he's saying that Persi's spot would be taken by a lesser student.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:51 AM ^
Correct. Don't get me wrong, I love the Persi pick up. I believe he will develop with the current coach in place. I think he loves the university too. But, how many times a year do we read about Michigan moving away from talent because they won't qualify? We also rarely hear, but I am confident they exist, that kids don't even bother because they know they won't and are not interested in putting in that work in order to do so. I know there will be some who say it is proven that the standards are not different at Michigan than others, etc. They is unequivocally false, however.
January 7th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
Can we as a board community get in the habit of putting the fine point on the matter that really does exist?
The reality is that our *qualification* standards are the NCAA minimums, no more. The *acceptance* criteria of U-M's Admissions Department is what differs. The U-M administration is unwilling to look the other way when it comes to kids getting waved through fake schools, fake classes, etc.
When we say "Michigan's qualification standards are higher," we invite scoffing from rivals, because it just isn't true. The reality is that it is in the *subjective* part of the recruiting process where our football team is disadvantaged relative to others, precisely because the U-M administration has rarely, if ever, gotten on board with fully supporting the Athletics Department.
For the record, that difference is effectively one-and-the-same with supposedly-higher qualification standards when it comes to our recruiting limitations. It is also how certain coaches who had earned the trust of the administration used to be able to sneak a couple of guys in as "favors." Lloyd was (for a while) very effective at curating this little tidbit of influence ... and it very much mattered. I won't drag players' names through the mud, but some of our best (and best-loved) players in the 90s and 00s were able to be Wolverines directly as a result of that bit of latitude the school afforded the football coach.
Go back and read some of former U-M president James Duderstadt's work (he published a book on it: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1108383.Intercollegiate_Athletics_and_the_American_University) and you'll start to see it. Nerd vs jocks has been a decades-long division in our leadership. The nerds have never given up the keys.
Compare with former OSU president E. Gordon Gee's infamous line (intended to be tongue in cheek, but more than a kernel of truth therein) about his relative lack of power to remove Tressel because of the violations:
"Are you kidding? Let me just be very clear. I am hopeful (Tressel) doesn't dismiss ME!"
January 6th, 2021 at 9:15 AM ^
I get it! Well done
January 6th, 2021 at 9:59 AM ^
I'm sorry I must have missed this but where were this years satellite camps again?
January 6th, 2021 at 10:03 AM ^
The NCAA coming down on that still pisses me off.
Joe Burrow says Beckham hands out real money after the game, and it's seen on TV, and the NCAA does nothing. We have satellite camps and 'Oh no! Have to lock that down!'
January 6th, 2021 at 10:37 AM ^
In retrospect it's easy to see that Harbaugh knew he probably didn't have the recruiting chops for a top tier program which is why he came up with the brilliant idea of satellite camps, were he proceeded to show his superior ability to judge athleticism.
Rashad Weaver, AJ Dillion
But unfortunately it wasn't enough and he had to turn the main recruiting over to Partridge which created the shit show we have had the last few years.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:52 AM ^
The satellite camps are emblematic of the Harbaugh regime to me: all sizzle and no steak. The staff wasted their time conducting the camps and not a single difference maker was signed.
The summer trips overseas have a participation trophy feel to them to me engendering a sense of entitlement.
Climbing trees on recruiting visits?
Let's face it: Harbaugh's approach has failed all the way around.
Harbaugh is, and always has been, a flake.
January 6th, 2021 at 12:01 PM ^
Damn if sizzle had the ACC/SEC scared shitless enough to pressure the NCAA to stop it, I'd like to see how they would've reacted to steak.
January 6th, 2021 at 1:10 PM ^
Summer trips are great for the players. Full stop.
His 'failure' has given us a winning record after 7 years of doom.
This is a take not supported by the data.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
I literally didn’t say any of that...
January 6th, 2021 at 6:13 AM ^
I don't think Gattis is the one holding Harbaugh back. Because it's not "Jim's offense", Harbaugh has turned in a shadow of his former self...? Not buying that. Plus, if Jim is such a control freak for the O, why has he always hired offensive coordinators and not just run the offense himself?
Why did Harbaugh hire Gattis? Because the traditional smash mouth offense that Harbaugh teams had traditionally run were going nowhere against teams with a decent defense most times. The change was needed. Has Gattis worked out? Meh, not really so far. Either way, that's no reason for Harbaugh to basically turtle for two seasons is it? If Harbs is letting his own assistant hold him back, should Harbaugh be expected to even be able to run this team as head coach?
January 6th, 2021 at 9:24 AM ^
Harbaugh hasn't always hired O coordinators. Up until Gattis he always had people with whom he collaborated, but he was very clear about not having O coordinators. Chengalis, Baumgardner, and others all pointed out (and criticized) that he didn't have an OC but rather things like 'pass game coordinators' and 'run game coordinators' with whom he worked during games to make calls.
It's worth noting that it was a fine setup for him at Stanford, San Francisco, and the Fisch years here. When Pep came on board after Speight was injured it didn't work out as well and people complained (shocker there). It wasn't dead, but it wasn't working as well. Then we had Speight get injured again and O'Korn took over and things fell apart, and people instead of blaming a crappy QB situation went ape on the 'non modern' offense (as if a spread would magically work with an injured 1st year QB and a back up who didn't live up to billing, no matter how dedicated he was to the team).
"Why did Harbaugh hire Gattis? Because the traditional smash mouth offense that Harbaugh teams had traditionally run were going nowhere against teams with a decent defense most times."
That 'traditional smash mouth offense' put up 45 on Colorado, 49 on Penn State, 32 on MSU, 32 on FSU, and 27 on OSU; and that was with a patched together O line. They did have some slower games (Wisconsin; and Iowa after Speight was hurt). But they also put over 70 on Rutgers and almost 60 on Maryland.
The 'old traditional smash mouth offense can't compete today' meme is just that. The scheme was fine when run by a decent QB. Is it as prolific as the spread? No. But get a program in there where you can have a decent O line and it can be good enough. The Oklahoma model isn't the only way.
Why did he switch? I think he was trying all sorts of things to try to put the team in a position to beat OSU. I wish he hadn't, but at the time it seemed worth the shot. Hindsight is 20/20.
Now... as to his behavior change? I got nothing. I have no idea why he's become so subdued. The inference I got from the parent was that administration came down on him; but that's as much of a SWAG as anything.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:05 AM ^
That 27 against OSU included 10 in OT. 17 points in regulation is not going to win you big games in modern college football. Switching to a spread was the right decision, the playcalling and execution of it has been the issue.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:27 AM ^
A lot of the scoring in 2016 can be attributed to an elite defense and elite special teams (namely Peppers as punt returner) giving the offense short fields to work with.
I think the spread will never work for Harbaugh. He doesn't believe in it. He's a Bo style manballer through and through. It just means that there's a hard ceiling on what his offense can achieve, and he's always going to have to rely on an elite defense to win him games like he did for most of his time in SF and Michigan.
January 6th, 2021 at 12:04 PM ^
Harbaugh has never actually been either a passing game coordinator or a running game coordinator. What were Pep and Drevno doing all those years? Just practice guys who did little to nothing come game time? Sure, Harbaugh probably had some say in the play calling and the general direction of the offense, but he was by no means the OC at any point in his tenure I think it is fair to say.
Most of those scores you brought up that the offenses scored big...yeah those are almost exclusively on retread teams. That 49 pts on Penn State... Penn State had just lost to Pitt and barely squeaked out a win against Temple the week before. 10 of those 27 points scored on OSU were in overtime on short fields. Plus, I'm not sure 27 points counts as decent offense anymore. 32 points against FSU isn't bad, but it was still less than even Southern Florida scored on FSU that year. Colorado gave up a touchdown on a blocked punt from us and they also had given up 38+ points in 4 of their games that year against a lot of bleh teams.
I don't know if Harbaugh regrets his decision to go a different direction with the offense, but clearly it was needed to get the team to where they had a shot to win the BIG. Plain and simple, until this year, the offense was clearly holding the team back until the OSU game (where both O and D would get wrecked from 2018 ad infinitum). Changes had to be made. Whether the right changes have been carried out seems obvious at this point. Does not alter the notion that nothing had to be done though.
When it gets down to it, we all want the same thing. We just want our team to kick buns again. If Harbaugh could find that fire again (I don't buy the "he's being shackled thing) and get the right assistants in place...it still might not make a difference, but hopefully we could at least field a respectable team.
January 6th, 2021 at 5:00 AM ^
I think 0-5 against OSU with no light at the end of the tunnel has broken him, not the administration.
So far he holds the distinction of having the worst record against the team he was hired to beat in program history + allowing the most points ((8 TDs + 2 FGs = 62) )in series history, despite entering the game as the #4 seed and favorite against an OSU team that got demolished by Purdue and just barely escaped Nebraska and Maryland.
Gustave Ferbert 1-0-0
Langdon "Biff" Lea 0-0-1
Fielding H. Yost 16-3-1
George Little 1-0-0
Elton E. Wieman 1-1-0
Harry Kipke 3-6-0
Herbert O. "Fritz" Crisler 7-2-1
Bennie Oosterbaan 5-5-1
Chalmers "Bump" Elliott 3-7-0
Glenn "Bo" Schembechler 11-9-1
Gary Moeller 3-1-1
Lloyd Carr 6-7-0
Rich Rodriguez 0-3-0
Brady Hoke 1-3-0
Jim Harbaugh 0-5-0
January 6th, 2021 at 9:29 AM ^
To be fair, this is not the OSU of Earle Bruce, John Cooper or even Jim Tressel. OSU used to be pretty much our mirror image, winning about 75% of their games. Now they win 95%.
We’re not on their level now and haven’t been for most of the 21st century. I don’t see how that changes if they don’t slip up themselves.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:04 AM ^
I'd argue we've never been at the level OSU is at now; other than maybe under Yost.
January 6th, 2021 at 10:05 AM ^
OSU came into The Game in the 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997:
9-0-1
11-0
10-0
9-1
No they weren't as good as now, but they still put out a shit ton of NFL talent. They had 8 picks in 1996, 7 picks in 1997, and 8 picks in 1999. Our problem is our coaching is nowhere near as good anymore and we've gone from nearly even in talent in 2016 to a huge talent gap.
January 6th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^
Nice pickin' lemme try.
Dabo's start vs superiorly talented in div rival
Dabo's start vs in state lackey
January 6th, 2021 at 5:01 AM ^
I feel shackled growing up being a life long Michigan fan
January 6th, 2021 at 10:39 AM ^
You know you can stop anytime you want.
January 6th, 2021 at 11:41 AM ^
Seriously. And honestly, this is supposed to be fun.
If it isn't anymore and the team and University just pisses him off.... don't do it anymore. He can leave. No hard feelings.
January 7th, 2021 at 2:08 AM ^
It has taken a lot to accomplish this for you, but here you go: you are now unshackled and are free to pick another team.
There are 64 other Power Five teams to pick from. But about 90% of them will make you more miserable. Maybe Alabama?
January 6th, 2021 at 6:23 AM ^
What a strange thing to say. Not Harbaugh's choice? I've assumed he is on some sort of mood altering drug like Depakote. If he has a way he can get back to being the guy Michigan hired I'd be all for it. But I don't see it happening.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:20 AM ^
Also, did something happen to his eyes? The prescription on those glasses he started wearing a few years ago must be 20-980. Them lenses are thick!
January 6th, 2021 at 8:23 AM ^
This is also my take. The anti-anxiety drugs have the same affect we've seen in Harbaugh since 2016 - leveled out mood swings, and they can zombisize a person pretty quickly if slightly wrong on the exact med and/or dosage. This is stuff I've experienced personally, in my immediate family. I have no idea if he's actually on something, but I'd be stunned if he wasn't.
And that doesn't mean he's defective, or that I want I him to stop. He needs to take care of himself, first and foremost. But FWIW, he is not the same person he was prior to the 2017 season. And this version of him has proven to be an ineffective coach.
January 6th, 2021 at 12:40 PM ^
I'm really surprised that the mods continue to allow this kind of crap. You're armchair analyzing someone you have likely never even met, and posting your musings publicly, as if you know something "we" do not. It's in bad taste, at the very least.
January 6th, 2021 at 2:06 PM ^
Yeah it's not like Harbaugh is running around the sidelines screaming "Timmmayy!" or something.
January 7th, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
right?
January 6th, 2021 at 7:03 AM ^
This is the sales pitch?? Woof
January 6th, 2021 at 7:23 AM ^
Still enjoying the narrative, “Good play=Gattis, bad play=Harbaugh”
While at the same time excoriating the head coach with accusations of meddling in the offense while absolving the defensive coordinator of blame after giving up 118 points in two games to the teams biggest rival.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:26 AM ^
Who absolved him of blame? This is revisionist history... Brown has been the receiver of many a detrimental word on this blog, and he will not be brought back for next year. He is not the only reason the team lost, or even gave up so many points - it's a team effort, after all. But he has been correctly called out as a reason for several years now.
At least be accurate with your hate-based vitriol...
January 6th, 2021 at 8:27 AM ^
Who absolved Don Brown? Don Brown is the least absolved seeing as how he lost his job here. I can see the argument for the tandem of Gattis and Harbaugh not working well but if you solely blame Gattis, then you have to blame Harbaugh for bringing him in out of desperation at the eleventh hour in order to avoid him teaming up with Locksley at Maryland.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:40 AM ^
Or maybe offensive and defensive momentum work as a cohesive whole and you can be critical of both? In any case, college and pro football went full basketball-on-grass within the last five years. If you're not driving a Ferrari, you're getting passed. It's almost to the point where if you give up a two-touchdown lead, you've lost the game (Clemson still put up 28 on OSU. Didn't matter).
My critique of our defense: Brown goes for shutouts. He wants to keep you under 300 yards offense, etc. Counterintuitively, that will get you boat-raced more not less against Ferraris. A bend-but-don't-break scheme like Mattison runs is actually better for modern offenses. You won't stop them moving the ball up and down the field, but you can wait to bring more pressure once they're in the redzone since they can't take the top off. From there, work for field goal attempts or hope for self-inflicted turnovers. That's the name of the game now. In the middle of the field, you must have two-high safety coverage to prevent the deep stuff (Even when Brown shows a two-high look, he still brings one safety crashing down, then wonders why we're getting burned. I always thought the 4-2-5 or 3-3-5 gave us more defensive backs for coverage, but Brown commits two of the five (safety and viper) to the run on almost every play. So effectively, we always have eight in the box, which is why--until this year--we've been stout against the run. Not so much the pass).
January 6th, 2021 at 8:52 AM ^
This is a pretty good explanation of modern football, and how defense plays in it. And I love the explanation of Brown's defensive philosophy - I hadn't thought of it like that before, but it makes perfect sense. All the OSU defense did against Clemson was make a few tackles to stop short plays from going long - something Clemson had been doing all year. That forced Clemson to take long shots, which don't often work when the matchups are even. You miss once and get behind the scoreboard, and its hard to make that up. Miss twice, get multiple scores down, and it's impossible. No defense is going to stop a good, modern offense, consistently enough to come back from a couple of scores down. That's just the way football is today. We knew that game was over when OSU got up two scores.
January 6th, 2021 at 2:19 PM ^
This is how Purdue beat OSU in 2018. OSU had 546 yards of offense in that game (more than Purdue) and only managed 20 points (Purdue had 49). OSU had one turnover and kept settling for field goals. Purdue's D kept everything in front of them and tightened up in the redzone. Offensively, they stayed on the gas with Rondale Moore, got up by a couple scores, and that was it! In comparison, Michigan gave up 567 yards of offense to OSU that year--so about the same that Purdue did--but gave up 62 points!!!! All this in spite of dominating the time of possession (an antiquated bo/Harbaugh holy grail of ball control offense) 35:24 to 24:36. That's almost an 11-minute TOS advantage and we still got raced. Brown's love for trying to force three and outs combined with Harbaugh's bringing a pretty nice muscle car to a REALLY NICE Ferrari race got hammered!
We will never again shutdown an OSU offense, but we could 2018 Purdue them (new verb I guess). We might also find a Ferrari of our own to race with someday.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:58 AM ^
I jump on here from time to time and read throught he happenings of the Michigan football and basketball programs, because relying on ESPN and other national outlets doesn't give much insight. I can say with full confidence that the people absolving Don Brown of his shortcomings are in the minority on here. Not sure where you are getting that.
January 6th, 2021 at 7:34 AM ^
Tell me, is Harbaugh shackled into making the following objectively awful coaching mistakes on a regular basis?
- Punting on 4th and short around midfield. All modern analytics condemn this move. Over the course of a game, you pick these up enough to keep your offensive momentum going and keep pressure on the other team. These punts only change the field about 15-20 yards anyway since most end up as touchbacks. Finally, they signal to both your offense AND your defense that you don't fully trust them. Harbaugh is too conservative
- End of half clock mismanagement. Enough said here. Points are consistently left on the field.
- Redzone "cuteness." We're supposed to believe the two wildcat plays that killed momentum vs MSU were Gattis' doing. Gattis may have called them, but I'd bet my left testicle they were added to the game plan by JH. Regardless, these kind of plays have been a consistent theme of Harbaugh's offenses long prior to Gattis' arrival. The man cannot get out of his own way with the out-of-rhythm 'cutsie wootsie' stuff .
- Antiquated ball control tendencies. This one's subtle, but you'll notice Michigan rarely takes downfield shots or even regular in-rhythm passing plays on 2nd and short situations. Jim is so used to the old ball control thinking of securing the all holy 1st down when a fullback dive or QB sneak is in range. Fine. But it kills momentum and throws an offense out of rhythm, particularly if you don't immediately succeed and have to do it again on 3rd down. (Recall Ted Ginn Jr's 39-yard touchdown catch against us in 2006. OSU has been killing us on 2nd and short for years!).
Bad offense is a choice (as OSU fans like to say) and Harbaugh chooses bad offense! I don't want to hear about his Stanford days from a decade ago (the game has changed) or his 49ers days (his best assistants -- Vic Fangio and Greg Roman -- are still in the NFL) or how his record compares to Brian Kelly's (Kelly identified his programs weak spots in a way Harbaugh seems unable to do). What has shackled Harbaugh and neutered his "fire" is his own lack of success. Also, the Big Ten refs decided during Jim's 1st and 2nd years they weren't going to tolerate getting pushed around by this NFL guy (recall the personal foul he received during the '16 OSU game). They are still making him pay for coming to this league. He knows it. That's in part why he's toned it down on the sidelines.
Time to press reset. Bring in the Soup.
January 6th, 2021 at 7:56 AM ^
People always forget when talking about the refs in 16 that Jim spent his first two years in PCs calling out ref mistakes. Most love that he did that but most didn’t take into consideration it’s a big no no in athletics. You can call them out but leave it on the field or behind closed doors not out in the open. Jim paid for his brashness, as usual!
January 6th, 2021 at 8:32 AM ^
Edit: Misunderstood the correlation of off the field ref complaints vs. on the field. Either way, there's much more egregious offenders of ref criticism and blowing up on the field or off like the way Dabo acts.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:35 AM ^
Please show me a message that was outside of a game or presser (reporters question) where he called out any call. For that matter, show me a single message where he attacked someone (or some thing) out of the blue. Just one.
Fact is, you can't. His twitter hits (that everyone of us LOVED) were always in response to someone else taking a shot at him, his players, or his program. He never instigated any of that. He takes all the blame because of something Gene Smith said, or something Huge Freeze and Butch Jones said.
You can argue that he shouldn't have harped on ref calls off the field, presser question or not, and I wouldn't disagree. But I'd still applaud him for doing so if it happened today.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:15 AM ^
If we are talking about the administration, yes.
"shackling" JH with strict admissions standards for transfers? Yes.
"shackling" JH by not permitting online classes to the extent available at Oklahoma, Clemson, OSU, Alacama? Yes.
"shackling" JH by not offering diverse and unique sets of classes to student athletes like they offer at Clemson, Oklahoma, OSU, Alabama (e.g.) getting credit for golf classes? Yes.
A Board of Regents that doesn't want to commit to winning the way some SEC schools in the SEC, ACC, or OSU want to win? Yes.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:37 AM ^
Those are fair points for debate. Some will want the University to change course on some or all of that list. Others will say they prefer some sort of purity, even if it means 9-3 and 8-4 seasons.
But...nothing on that list is why Harbaugh's Michigan teams are .500 against MSU, and below .500 against Wisconsin and Penn State, looks bad in bowl games, never win as an underdog, consistently looks flat on the road, etc., etc.
No sense having the debate about whether Michigan must adopt the model that Bama/Clemson/OSU use when Michigan is playing way below the level of its roster, in year 6 has baffling roster gaps, can't run a two-minute offense, can't manage the clock at the end of half/game, lacks coherency on offense, and a long list of other self-inflicted dysfunctions.
Fix the basics before pondering whether too few on-line classes are the reason Harbaugh can't beat OSU.