November 15th, 2020 at 1:17 AM ^
this season is bad. but yes. it was.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:22 AM ^
No it wasn’t. Hoke at the very end went 5-7. Harbaugh is about to 4-4 in the absolute best case scenario. Hoke was in over his head, but so is Harbaugh. Both had their best seasons with their predecessor’s recruits. But even Hoke never got curb-stomped against OSU.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:32 AM ^
Defeated with dignity attitude
Losing by 3 to OSU when you're 8-3 on the year counts for nothing
November 15th, 2020 at 1:48 AM ^
I forget, what attitude is losing to OSU by 29, 23, and 29 again? Maybe this year they can lose by more than 30. Just lost to Wisconsin in the Big House by as much as RR lost to Mississippi St, so I’d say things look promising.
November 15th, 2020 at 10:46 AM ^
While the ultimate stat is the W-L record, there is also a difference between losing by two and losing by thirty-two.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:32 AM ^
I’m not going to defend whatever the hell this garbage staff and team is trotting out there, but Hoke and Rodriguez had unequivocally worse stints than Harbaugh has here. Michigan looks like a mailable paste now, but full body of work, are still worse than what Harbaugh built here
November 15th, 2020 at 3:30 AM ^
Well, I guess you only tune in for OSU games because Hoke got absolutely curbstomped against MSU his last 2 years. Gardner having his ribs shattered over and over against MSU was definitely worse than anything we've seen Harbaugh still.
November 15th, 2020 at 4:48 AM ^
Try 1-7. It’s worse than you think.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:18 AM ^
It was worst. Remember, we could barely field a kick off return.
It's hard to defend the product on the field though. I'm a fan and trumpet for Harbaugh, but it is hard to defend what is happening...
November 15th, 2020 at 1:20 AM ^
Definitely won't argue with this. All three failed; it doesn't matter who is better than who between them. I will say I'm still not sure Rich Rod would have won in 2011.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:28 AM ^
Overall, they were much worse. I think people forget how good the 2016 team was before Newsome got hurt. And I pine for the alternate universe where his leg isn't almost destroyed entirely. With him Speight doesn't get hurt, we beat Iowa, we beat Ohio State, we beat Wisconsin again, and yeah we probably lose to Clemson. But playoff year 2 is a hell of a lot of recruiting momentum.
And we still have an All-American LT in 2017 which makes that season a lot more functional. That single black swan event killed the whole program. And it's Jim's fault that it did, but still, fuck.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:04 AM ^
All we needed was a first down vs Iowa and OSU at the end of both games in 2016 but couldn’t get it. Little did we know then it was the beginning of the end.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:21 AM ^
Stop. Just stop. I know Michigan fans love these melancholic theories about how one random moment of bad luck is what tanked the entire program, and in an alternate reality Harbaugh and Lloyd Carr are flashing 2006 and 2016 National Championship rings, but it’s just not the case. Might I remind you that OSU lost their Heisman candidate QB to injury, not once, not twice, but 3 times? Two of the times were in the Michigan game, and both times they threw in the backup and didn’t miss a beat. That’s a system. That’s how you run an elite program: next man up—not whining about how a your entire season was derailed because an offensive lineman got hurt.
Harbaugh has no system. As good as the 2016 team was, Harbaugh was behind the times in 2016 and he’s still behind the times in 2020. Whereas OSU’s elite receivers run circles (or rather, crossing routes) around Michigan’s secondary, Michigan’s elite receivers are barely used and bolt to the draft or transfer. Far from being a QB whisperer, Harbaugh has yet to field an NFL-caliber QB. Or an NFL caliber RB. And it’s year 6.
November 15th, 2020 at 3:47 AM ^
I understand your take but sometimes that’s actually how things work.
OSU was on and has been on a different level. They’ve been able to afford those injuries and missteps when it comes to losing talent.
that’s not to say that I disagree that Harbaugh doesn’t have a system, but ultimately those things mentioned above are the damn truth.
that injury cost us BIG. And if we get that win and get to the playoff undefeated the entire trajectory of this program is night and day talent wise.
amyone who’s been watching this program saw that Harbaugh was not the same after that game. Yes he had a little fire left in 2017 and even less in 18 but it just wasn’t quite the same.
that’s not to say the state of this program isn’t his fault, it totally is, but we will never know what would have been of that season goes in a different direction.
jim has been a winner and has an ego like all these good coaches do. But to me it’s like Roy Jones when he got knocked out by Tarver. He did it to prove to the world his lackluster win wasn’t a fluke.he wanted to prove that he could still dominate but that move from 175 to 200 and back down to 175 so fast sapped him so once Tarver caught that lucky punch Jones never recovered and just got progressively worse with the each fight.
Tie that together with what I believe is a program that still hasn’t figured out that this is a business and it’s a toxic mix.
Jim could have been one of the greats. But timing is everything and the timing combined with his behavior/personality was a time bomb and now we are paying for that. The guy is finished. He has to go but the sad part is that the next guy is doomed too.
November 15th, 2020 at 7:18 AM ^
100% agree. Good teams have a bad year when a key injury or event goes against them, but they bounce back the next year. Bama lost their Heisman caliber QB and they stumble a bit, but what do they do with that backup QB the next year? Roll over everybody. Saying that the entire program was derailed for up to a decade, because of one injury, is delusional fandom.
The fact is that Jim's success lives on a knifes edge - the spot, Newsome's knee, Wilton's back. Good teams have many paths to success and will not fall apart when encountering headwinds.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:30 AM ^
Harbaugh was one play away TWICE from two outright division titles and likely big ten championships
In contrast with RR and Hoke, we didn't score a td in like three straight years against MSU. We lost to fucking Toledo, Rutgers, and Maryland
This program sucks right now and Harbaugh needs to go because he missed his window, but don't act like 3 double digit win seasons is the same as going 3-9 with RR and getting blown out in the only bowl game he went to in his three years
November 15th, 2020 at 1:34 AM ^
Lets be honest Maryland is probably going to spank us pretty bad this year. The best chance we have against them is a COVID cancellation. Rutgers is a toss up.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:35 AM ^
Well based on Maryland's lack of a football game this week, never say never
November 15th, 2020 at 1:57 AM ^
I don’t pine for either the Hoke or RichRod days, but since you threw 3-9 out there...Harbaugh will most likely go 2-6 or 3-5 this year. That’s the equivalent of 3-9 in my book. The difference is RichRod did it in year one with a depleted roster which was not his own making and Harbaugh is doing it in year 6 with his roster. As far as situations go, they both suck as a fan but at least one of those scenarios had a reasonable excuse and there was hope.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:30 AM ^
COVID cutting out your two best players for the season and then injuries cutting out your next 3 isn't a reasonable excuse to some extent?
November 15th, 2020 at 3:39 AM ^
Wisconsin had played one game. Michigan had played three. Wisconsin had many players and coaches actually out with Covid for multiple weeks. They returned to practice in-full on Nov 9th.
Indiana was missing multiple players due to injury and Covid.
MSU...well...they suck..yet they are better than Michigan this year.
How exactly has Michigan been impacted to such a significant degree more than any other team?
The reality is, this is far beyond a little bad luck and a few mistakes. This can not be rationalized away.
Michigan was down 28, with the ball, with 57 seconds left in the first half, with a couple time outs, Harbaugh chose to run out the clock. WTF?!?! That is stupid and frankly is a sign of him giving up on the team. No wonder the team has given up on him.
November 15th, 2020 at 6:09 AM ^
Dude - UW had 6 players out today for COVID. We had 50pts hung on us by a team with a bunch of second stringers. We just suck this year. Coaching and recruiting (sane thing) most likely reason.
Our punter looked good though. He got plenty of game time experience
November 15th, 2020 at 10:48 AM ^
Depleted roster in RR’s first year? You should go back and look at that roster - if it wasn’t for RR’s ego running off RM - that team had more than enough quality pieces - RR was a train wreck.
November 15th, 2020 at 11:49 AM ^
lol, Ryan Mallet was never going to stay even if Michigan hired Les Miles. He hated being at Michigan and hiring a new coach was an easy excuse for him to transfer. His own teammates didn't like Mallett. RR never ran him off.
November 15th, 2020 at 3:03 PM ^
Carr told Mallet to transfer -- that wasn't RR fault. He was brought in specifically to install his exciting offense that succeded at west virginia. And mallet was a piece of shit on campus, everyone hated him. It was for the best he moved on.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:31 AM ^
Rich rod was never going to turn a corner. Let's stop with this. He never was competitive against top teams. He had the first losing record in like 40 years. Guy could not run a program at the level that michigan was back then. He lost to a bad Toledo team. We are where we are today because of him. His record "improvement" was a total mirage. He deserved to be canned.
So does the current staff. They team looked just as pathetic as the last two coaches we let go
November 15th, 2020 at 1:53 AM ^
What is Harbaugh's record against "top teams?"
Yeah, we know--it sucks.
So, what's you other point?
November 15th, 2020 at 1:31 AM ^
When is the last time we lost by 38 points? Maybe I am forgetting one, but I don't recall a margin of defeat this large since I started watching in the late 80s.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:34 AM ^
Nevermind - I just remembered we lost 42-13 to Penn State in 2017. Another Harbaugh/Don Brown classic.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:36 AM ^
One of the RR OSU games was 42-7
42 points by a Tressel offense is the equivalent of about 89 points from an Urban offense
November 15th, 2020 at 8:17 AM ^
I defended Don Brown for too long. Being Captain Hindsight, that was probably the game that should have told us it's just not going to work out and that maybe, just maybe, teams have figured out his defense.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:31 AM ^
All three failed. Harbaugh was, however, 1 game away from the Playoff twice / B1G championship 3 times in 5 years - and could have been 4 times in 5 years if not for the fluky MSU punt 6.
Until this year, he was a running a good program that could not beat an elite OSU team (2016 was a robbery and the better team lost, but so goes it.)
That said, this year has reached Hokian/RR levels of shit play.
So no, for 80+% of his tenure he was better than the prior coaches, he's just on a horrible downward trajectory and we are all falling victim to recency bias.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:41 AM ^
Harbaugh's best years was with Hoke's players. We were never one game away from the playoffs. Even in 2016, we would have had to win another game, if we had beaten OSU. Hoke WON a New Years game with a Sugar Bowl.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:53 AM ^
Hoke did win a new year's day bowl, but that sure was a janky-ass win.
November 15th, 2020 at 6:12 AM ^
Just win the game.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:57 AM ^
I don’t know what you think the 3rd time was, but Harbaugh was only 1 game away from the BTCG in 2016 and 2018. In the latter of those Don Brown’s vaunted #1 defense got run out of town for 62 points. In 2015 and 2019 they also got run out of town. In 2017 a mediocre 8-4 team somehow managed to play it close, and that might honestly have been Harbaugh’s best coaching job against OSU.
November 15th, 2020 at 8:59 AM ^
Because people like to revision in 2015 that if we beat OSU we were going to Indy which is 110% false. Michigan could have won that game by 74 points and still watched MSU go to Indy. We have only gone into the OSU game twice since Harbaugh has been here (16 and 18) controlling our own destiny.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:43 AM ^
The 2016 team was almost all Hoke recruits. The failure in recruiting (esp. in QB) has resulted in the current downward spiral. If Hoke had a hotshot OC, he would have been more successful.
November 15th, 2020 at 1:52 AM ^
Rich rod: didn’t have a D-coord he wanted and had to make due
harbaugh: endless amount of money and hires shitty coach after shitty coach.
I was for keeping RRod. Things could be different. Regardless, when a prime time game has Vincent gray listed as an impact player, you know you’re not doing something right. This is flat out embarrassing with harbaugh
November 15th, 2020 at 2:21 AM ^
Rich Rod eventually got Casteel at Arizona and his defense was still ass.
November 15th, 2020 at 7:41 AM ^
Vincent Gray is impactful, just not in the positive way this season that we would like, but dude has definitely impacted games.
November 15th, 2020 at 3:26 PM ^
RichRod thinks of defense and defensive coordinators much like restaurant managers think of dishwashers and linen service. You need them around, but you certainly don't spend a lot of time worrying about them.
For him, the best defenses were the ones that stayed on the field only three plays. If that meant a three-and-out, great. If that meant a touchdown for the opponent, not so bad, because that meant more zone-read run plays for his poor, battered quarterback.
Some coaches simply can't coach beyond mid-majors. RichRod was one of them. I don't know what to say about Harbaugh, but at least he seems to understand the job. Unfortunately, he hasn't been very good at it, and he's regressing.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:14 AM ^
RR had consistently bad defenses and the play was pathetic. Hoke came in and seem to turn the program around year 1 but he slowly decayed to having awful teams in his final 2 years. Harbaugh came in and had a decent 2015 and then took the team to a level to where they should have won the B1G. 2017 was the year where Hoke poor recruiting finally caught up with and we did not have a good QB once our starter got injured for the season. 2018 was the so called revenge tour year and we were playing great with transfer 5 star QB Shea but we go blown out by OSU. 2019 Things started falling apart, we got clobbered by WI then recovered and won some games but got destroyed at home by OSU and lost to Alabama. This year is turning into a disaster and proves that Harbaugh needs to go. This is season 6 of Harbaugh and he should have fixed the recruiting and depth holes from the 2017 season. There are no excuses and the team has performed horribly not seen since RR 2008 season. No more excuses. Harbaugh needs to be fired now or at least by the end of the season.
November 15th, 2020 at 7:56 AM ^
i agree with your post.
the hoke and Harbaugh trajectories --start fast and then fade-- suggest that the problem is deeper than a head coach.
for M to win more, the Michigan Man cult of Bo must stop with the next hire. And that is not likely given the AD is a Bo player.
BTW, I'm not blaming Bo. if young Bo were hired now, he would come in and change the self-aggrandizing Michigan Man culture.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:26 AM ^
The one thing I’ll give RR is that his records always ascended. 3-9, then 5-7, then 7-6. The year he left we had that 11 win season and BCS Bowl win with Hoke. I feel like RR should’ve been given a 4th year on the condition that he got a new DC. I think if that happened he might’ve still been here today.
I have to give Harbaugh some credit for the 10 win seasons he’s brought but without anything to show for it they feel meaningless. And at this point I’m not sure the program is better now than it was when he came. I’ve been calling for Brown to be gone for two seasons and Harbaugh for one.
I wish they could just get rid of those two tonight and let Gattis be the interim coach for the rest of the season and go from there.
November 15th, 2020 at 2:37 AM ^
Overall record trend is not a good measure of that era
They started 4-0 in 2009 and finished 5-7, absolute collapse. Repeat in 2010, starting 5-0 and finishing 7-6 with a 38 point bowl loss. This was not a team trending up, this was a team that had completely imploded when they hit the conference schedule for a third straight year. Moving on was absolutely the right decision
November 15th, 2020 at 3:12 AM ^
I think overall record is relevant to judging an era. And if you look at the losses from 2010 they were far from blowouts or implosions like we saw today. The closest was OSU at 37-7 and the bowl game of course when his fate was essentially already sealed.
I just feel like a coach should be given 4 seasons unless it’s a complete train wreck. Imo 7-6 isn’t a train wreck at Michigan when you’re in your third year and still ascending. If it’s not 9 wins or more in the 4th year then sure, show him the door.
November 15th, 2020 at 12:30 PM ^
RR was never accepted because he wasn't a "Michigan Man." Carr torpedoed him before the guy even stepped on campus, and then the press went after him. If RR had gotten a half-way decent D-coordinator, as suggested above, he still might be here.
November 15th, 2020 at 3:29 AM ^
Yes. Harbaugh's peak was playoff level. Michigan fell off from that peak brutally, but Harbaugh at his best was good, way back when. Now, the dumpster fire looks similar, admittedly.
November 15th, 2020 at 4:55 AM ^
"Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."