Your opinion of Harbaugh: what went right, what went wrong, and what's next?
I think the program is where most thought it would be, at least in terms of overall records: 10-3, 10-3, and 8-5 were pretty much expected outcomes. Below, I've included things that I think are reasonably within his control
I'll start things off.
The Good
- Don Brown, Ed Warinner, Ben Herbert, and Chris Partridge--generally awesome hires
- Solid recruiting--tailing off a bit right now, but that probably gets fixed with a good season
- Generating buzz--added some pizzazz and visibility to the program
- 2015-2016 playcalling
The Bad
- Tim Drevno & OL--Not sure how Harbaugh could've seen that coming with Drevno's history of results, but in the end, he put program loyalty over personal loyalty and made a change
- 2017 offense playcalling--I know that the OL was rough, but Harbaugh successfully schemed ways around those kinds of weaknesses in previous years; this is probably an artifact of QB play
What's Next
- 2018 is going to be a rough year, especially in dealing with the fanbase, given the schedule. Harbaugh will probably survive but not thrive. However, plenty of excellent video games and chess will take place during the year, so there's that.
- But 2019 is looking very Natty-like, especially with the OL/QB/fully weaponized WRs. ND, Michigan State, Ohio State at home. South Africa. Non-chaos Indiana before The Game. Tasty.
Edit: Army is better than I remembered.
Thanks
A young defense was the story in 2018, but Brown made it happen.
even if players like Gary leave early, Hinton is coming in behind him
2019's talent will be every bit as good as 2018
I wouldn't go that far.
Gary is a junior, 2 year starter former #1 recruit.
Hinton is going to be really, really good, but he'll be a freshman. Those things aren't equal.
Winovich might not be the pure talent that someone like Vilain is, but he's departing senior while his replacement will be someone who got 20% of the snaps this year. That's also a drop off.
DBs will be fine assuming only 1 of Hill or Long leave. If both depart early then it's just Thomas and... someone to be figured out later. But regardless, that TBD is not going to be All-Big Ten level right away. Especially because all of the 2018 recruits are middling 3 stars with the exception of Sims. Though stars aren't the end all be all - but it's harder to project someone like Sims (or Green) being Hill level quality as a sophomore.
LBs will be fine with Singleton, Anthony, Ross, and McGrone.
DTs will be equally good if not better because they'll be returning starters (Solomon and Dwumfor).
Safeties... eh? Losing Kinnel and replacing him with Woods or JKP would probably be about equal.
So maybe equally talented overall, but not equally proven.
It COULD be rough...it's a tough schedule. Still a lot of "ifs" out there. If the OL improves, if we have a national average QB performance (or better), and if we aren't bit by the injury bug too badly...
...then yes, we could have a very good year!
What went right: Marketing of the program and the defensive hires (Brown, Mattison, Partridge)
What went wrong: The offense's complexity, philosophy, QB coaching and OL coaching (see 2nd half of Ohio State game 2 years ago where all were exposed)
What's Next: Hopefully an effective reboot of all of what has gone wrong and a simplification of the offense.
Great point about the QBs, considering what Harbaugh said about recognizing zone coverage.
This is 1,000% accurate. Sums it up perfectly.
My opinion on that and I'll take the bad guy role here as I often do but I'm starting to sense a lot of player toxicity. Meaning simply that it's best that Speight and O'Korn have moved on to different stages in their lives. Just reading some of the stories and seeing some of the comments made by those two make me think of myself after a pretty busy stretch of work where I'm not myself. The boys were probably wore thin some trying to get a very young and inexperienced team moving in 17. It's no ones fault. Just how things go. 2018 will not be anything like 2017 though. Too many moves in the right direction were made along with progress.
The Amazon series did nothing to help the fan's perceptions of Speight. He really did not come across well no matter how scripted it may have been. If he was willing to say those things on camera, I can only imagine what he was saying the rest of the time.
I hate to say this about a kid that worked hard for Michigan and subjected his body to a lot of punishment, but if he is really anything like what he was portrayed as in that series, it is probably a good addition by subtraction getting him off of the team.
I think it's getting worn down to your 3rd string guy because of a turnstyle OL. Even a competent guy gets happy feet when he can't trust his line.
I don't think Speight has looked right since he got hurt in the Iowa game
I'd expand that slightly to say he hasn't looked the same since the 2nd quarter of the Iowa game. That was the first time he constantly started missing wide open guys downfield by a large margin.
I'm going to echo the comment made upthread—I believe that Speight was never right after the injury to his shoulder he sustained at Iowa in '16. His performance in the first part of '17 was a reflection of that.
Speight never seemed the same after the injury. I was mildly shocked he started against OSU.
We had a game ready QB... We expect too damn much from QBs who aren't runners tbh. What we needed was a run game above anything else last year which we did not have. This year should be a different story.
Considering how pathetic our passing game was last year and did nothing to help the run game, the run game was decent.
We had a good running game post-MSU. The complete lack of a passing game hampered the offense once the good teams on our schedule knew the only thing we could do well was run. Even when we dominated some teams on the ground we struggled. Look at the IU game - 44 carries for 271 yards at 6.2 YPC, Indiana was 29/80 2.8 YPC. We even had a 35/25 TOP advantage and we barely scraped out an OT win with O'Korn going 10/20 for 58 yards with a terrible 2/13 on 3rd downs. On top of that he had a pick called back for questionnable PI, a wide open miss of Gentry for a big play and his long of the day (17 yards) being a circus scramble dime throw to DPJ. That is how you manage to barely beat a team you are otherwise whupping - bad QB play.
We actually had a decent running game despite having a passing game that threw fewer TD passes than Air Force. With even an average passing game the running game could have even been elite.
Yup. While we had decent run numbers against the cupcakes on the schedule, every single decent team we faced shut down our run game completely because we couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean to save our lives. The sieve on the o-line and the epic failure of the coaches to get any QB ready to play all year is what shut down what run game we did have. One dimensional teams are never successful against quality competition.
Very true if we had an average QB, the only loss would probably be @PSU.
Lol. You know, you’re probably right. Those darn Bo glasses derailed the whole offense. Haha
we couldn't get Harbaugh in soon enough to build a good 2015 class, leaving us with 2 small classes that were low rated back to back in 2014 & 2015
Wrong: exceeded expectations early but hasn’t continued to exceed them. This is more a criticism of the fans’ expectations. He’s 28-11 after 3 years and people are shitting themselves because a few bounces went the wrong way in rivalry games.
Next: A more balanced team. The offense will start to catch up to the defense this year. There was a MASSIVE upgrade to the QB position since last year. The OL has the talent to be at least average, and the coaching to be above average. Everything else is set. They might not win every game, but they’ll win a lot of them and crush a few teams along the way.
Balance is a nice way of putting it, because I think it implies that with less strain, the defense will get even better.
In terms of personnel, JH has done well for most units, but the OL has been a struggle, and thus the QB play has suffered and the running game has not been what is could have been.
OL coaching - 2 coaches, really, who does that? The OL recruiting, where are the 5 stars and high 4 stars - which is NOT a guarantee of success, but generally a good predictator, and thus the OL player development as a result of these first 2 issues.
Michigan's OL Recruits under Harbaugh (not including 2015 becuase that was a shit show of what can you get in 30 days).
2016:
Ben Bredeson (4*), Michael Onwenu (4*), Stephen Spanellis (3*)
2017:
Cesar Ruiz (4*), Chuck Filiaga (4*), JaRaymond Hall (4*, yes he left), Andrew Stueber (3*), Joel Honigford (3*) - Also in this class were James Hudson (4*) and Phillip Paea (3*) now playing O-line.
2018:
Jalen Mayfield (4*), Ryan Hayes (4*, yes he may play tight end)
2019:
Nolan Rumler (4*), Trente Jones (4*), Karsen Barnhart (3*), Zach Carpenter (3*), Jack Stewart (3*)
In four classes thats 17 recruits, of which 10 are four stars and the rest are 3 stars.
I think people's perceptions are skewed more by who wasn't signed (Devery Hamilton, Isaiah Wilson, Alex Leatherwood, Wills, etc) than who actually did sign.
Harbaugh has signed very good classes for the O-line. If Onwenu holds his spot the starting interior this year will all be 4 stars. If Hudson works his way in at tackle, that is four 4 stars.
If you want to talk coaching issues, fine, but talent pool is not the problem.
Army has beaten Navy the last two and won the Commander in Chief trophy this year. I wouldn't say they are the least threatening option team right now
I was under the impression they were getting killed by Navy/Air Force. Thanks for the info.
They've really improved the last couple years, but are completely one-dimensional, whereas Air Force and Navy will both pass the ball every once in a while. So in a sense, they're still the least threatening of the option teams, but they have improved from where they were.
I mean, every option team is scary, so here's to hoping Michigan clobbers Army early.