Harbaugh Era So Far - How do you rate it?
What are your thoughts? Is it a success, failure, in-between, or incomplete? (I got this topic idea from Cody Stavenhagen on the Athletic and wanted to hear from you all. Here are my thoughts...
I feel that it has largely been a success considering where the program was when he took it over. He overachieved with a transfer quarterback in his first season by winning 10 games and turning Rudock into an NFL draft pick. In his second season, they lost three games by a total of five points - all of which came down to the final play. Granted, they could have made plays earlier so that they weren’t in that situation. Regardless, they were one shady call in Columbus away from playing in the Big Ten championship and moving on to the playoff. That was all accomplished with a three star quarterback who was not immensely talented. Last year, they had the least number of returning starters in D1 college football. Their top two quarterbacks got injured, and they still managed to win eight games.
Harbaugh has been a victim of unrealistic expectations, created partially by his overachieving and leading the team to the brink of the playoff in his second season and partially because of his outstanding accomplishments at every other coaching job he has taken. Look at what happened to Florida State, a preseason top three team, when they lost their quarterback last season. Look at Notre Dame and Michigan State in the 2016 season, they were 3-9 and 4-8 respectively. The worst season in the Harbaugh era of Michigan is 8-5. Let’s not forget to mention that while he has not fared well against his rivals, MSU had two fluky wins. They barely won in a monsoon with 5 Michigan turnovers that still went to the final play and won on one of the luckiest plays in college football history. I already mentioned that OSU won one game on a very questionable call. Also, anybody who watched last year‘s game knows that even decent quarterback play would have led to a Michigan victory. How many teams can compete with Ohio State like that with their third string quarterback? And now this year, you have a very talented roster and an excellent coaching staff ready to compete again at the highest level. Also, he is looking at his third top 10 recruiting class in four years.
Things are very bright in Ann Arbor (despite the misleading media and jealous fan bases pointing out third-place divisional finishes without any context). And the best of the era is yet to come. Michigan fans are fortunate to have such an excellent leader for the program. Plus, when you look at their two two chief rivals off the field, Michigan fans have to be grateful to have a leader, a program, and a university that stand for something more than winning at all costs.
I feel like Michigan was not a good team last year but they still won 8 games, which is pretty impressive. The QB play was particularly atrocious but if Speight didn't go down it would've been a different season. The offense was pretty awful all around but they still won games and that's a testament to the coaching abilities of Harbaugh and Don Brown.
Last year was actually one of the more fascinating seasons in Michigan football in recent memory. Michigan had an absolutely terrible offense yet they only had one uncompetitive loss. They had leads vs Wisconsin, Michigan St., Ohio St. and in the bowl game and those were all pretty good teams. We all saw the product on the field and how frustrating it was to watch, especially in moments when they just needed a few plays on O (or at the very least to just not turn the ball over).
I think it shows that Michigan has a really high floor under Harbaugh. This year could be interesting, especially if Patterson can get in the flow of the offense and produce. Come and get it, ND.
solid rational take. i agree.
Beats the last two coaching eras by infinity (and beyond)!!
I appreciate all of the eccentricities of Coach. He is a unique individual and an awesome leader of our football team.
I rate him a 10 plus plus.
Points are working again - for now. I might get to 100 if they stay working!!
Harbaugh is off to a good start, but we do need to start beating our rivals. Only people who have no idea what they're talking about think Harbaugh is on the hot seat
2015 - Good season given what he had to work with
2016 - Great season. Losing Speight was rough and we were still an inches and a few terrible calls from a B1G championship game and a CFB playoff spot if we win against Wisconsin
2017 - Decent season. We met preseason expectations which is surprising due to our shit show of a QB situation
I don't think we met expectations last year. There is no way in hell in expected to lose to Michigan State last year, and South Carolina was seriously terrible. It is not the end of the world, and there have been some very good moments as well, but I don't think it is accurate to say we met expectations last year. And I am not buying the "shit show at QB" explanation. Harbaugh went out and got O'Korn and recruited Peters. One of those guys should have been ready to go. Also, our offensive line was a mess last year that lead to QB injuries. It may have been a shit show but it was Harbaugh's shit show.
I think he gets a 7.5 out 10. We obviously field much more competitive teams than we did before he arrived, but he needs to win big games and thus far he just hasn't done that. 2015 Michigan State, 2016 Iowa, 2016 Ohio State, 2017 Michigan State. We should not have lost any of those games and we lost all of them, and all of the losses can at least, in part, be attributed to poor coaching in crucial situations. That is really frustrating, and not something I expected when he came here.
Harbaugh was supposed to be Urban Meyer-caliber (he certainly is paid like he is) and so far he hasn't been.
I give his staff high marks for putting such a strong D on the field last year after losing so many key players. Having said that, the offense was far worse than I thought it would be. A lack of player development and even some regression on that side of the team. Couple that with some bad coaching at times and that inexplicable bowl game where Peters and Co. had 4 weeks to prepare and get healthy and they were atrocious.
Couple all of that with a bad record in 1 score games (4-7) and I can't give Harbaugh anything higher than a 7/10.
Incomplete.
Things would look a lot different if a few close games went the other way. But, they didn't and it is fair to point that out.
I think long term last season will be one of the best things to happen in the JH tenure. It seems he did a lot of self scouting and made tough changes that will be beneficial moving forward. This is purely speculation, but I have wondered to myself, if UM beats SC in the bowl if Drevno is still around. I think JH's decisions with Drevno may have been slightly clouded by friendship. Maybe not, but that bowl loss all but assured something had to be done. I think the changes to recruiting would have happened regardless and maybe Drevno would have been caught up in those. Either way, moving on from him was needed.
At the end of the day I think the goal is to stock talent and if you have enough talent some seasons will break your way. I think JH has done that and every team moving forward will have the talent to make the CFP when things break their way. And some teams will have enough talent to not have to rely on breaks.
glad to be on the upswing but at this point its a failure. highest divisional finish is 3rd place. 1-5 vs rivals with 3 of the losses being accredited to coaching. Kill me if you want
Let me see if I have this straight - you're equating Harbaugh's performance to be on par with Rich Rodriguez, Brady Hoke, and Bump Elliot? (Assuming, of course, you believe those three also were failures as Michigan head coaches.)
Do I understand you correctly?
1vablue1,
what have we accomplished?
Who did we beat that we shouldnt have?
What is our best win right now?
Why did we lose 3 rivalry games due to coaching decisions?
As I said I am happy things are on the upswing but the question was how would I rate Harbaugh to this point. I gave my opinion. I see others are thrilled with what we have done the last three years.
1. In terms of tangible accomplishments, not much. But we have achieved a certain degree of national relevance again. The Michigan v. Ohio State game in 2016 was probably one of the top 5 biggest games in regular season college football history and we played in and it and almost won it. So, the technical answer to your question is nothing, but that is certainly not the only way to look at it.
2. Nobody
3. 2016 Wisconsin
4. Michigan football hating God - Never forget
Let's not forget that in 2016 Michigan beat the shit out of a Penn State team that went on to crush everyone en route to a Rose Bowl berth.
This is where I'm at as well.
I'd give him a 7/10 for his W/L record (.71) but I'm going to drop that down to a 6.5 because of his poor showing against our rivals and two consecutive poor season finishes.
Sure things seem like they're trending up, hopefully so. But SO FAR, he hasn't actually really accomplished anything. He arrived in 2015 and pulled the team up to where their floor SHOULD have been given the talent that Hoke recruited. I'm still waiting for him to push this team beyond their floor and into their potential ceiling though. I'm waiting for him to demonstrate why he is so highly sought after as a coach and start winning games that maybe we shouldn't quite win on paper.
And you're right, we haven't really beaten anyone or won any big games outside of the 2016 Wisconsin game. Sure we're back to some sort of national relevance, but even that was tempered last year with a poor finish in 2016 and our 8-5 record in 2017 with our recruiting class tumbling as a result.
And honestly, I'd feel better going into this season if
A) The 2017 QB room wasn't such an abject failure, and
B) The 2017 bowl game wasn't an offensive meltdown.
Harbaugh is an offensive minded coach. He let's Don Brown run the defense and Harbaugh runs the offense. So it's time for time for this offense to finally start looking like a quality, competent offense, top -tier offense. And before anyone says "If only Speight doesn't get injured last season..." go back and watch his games. I just went and re-watched the Florida game last year. I can count on one hand how many good throws Speight actually made. The rest were either behind the receiver, too high, too low, way over shot, and two pick-sixes. He didn't look good. He was not the same QB from the early part of 2016. Which means that out of Speight, O'Korn, and Peters, not one was ready to go last season. Not one.That's on Harbaugh because he's in charge of the offense.
Now we have Shea coming in. Great talent. But let's temper our expectations a little bit. Shea is coming from a spread offense. So he has to learn a whole new scheme, a whole new playbook, AND develop timing with new WRs. That's not a simple task. It took Ruddock half the season to start looking good. Also, if Patterson can waltz in and win the starting job that easily, what does that say about the development and coaching up of Peters and McCaffrey?? By all accounts they should be several steps in front of Patterson at this point.
I say all this to say, Harbaugh has returned us to where our floor should be, but hasn't taken us past that yet. 6.5/10. Also, don't just assume that Patterson will be a heisman QB this year. He has a massive task in front of him in order to accomplish that, in addition to the fact that while I praise the football gods that Warriner is running the O-Line now, we still really don't know yet how much improvement they will actually show. That will greatly impact the QB production as well.
Sure I'd love to win the B1G this year and beat Ohio St., any expectations beyond that are unfair as it's completely up to subjective vote and out of the coaches' and player's hands. But we have a very tough schedule in front of us this year and, based on how we finished 2017, I'm not impressed. Yes we won 8 games dipping into the 3rd string QB, but things shouldn't have been that bad in the first place. The O-Line shouldn't have been a complete sieve and the coaches should have gotten at least ONE QB prepped and ready to lead the team and make the throws. It's going to take A LOT for us to even get to Indy this year in this congested East division.
Realistically, at this point in the pre-season, I'll be surprised if they pull off more than 8 wins this year, with losses most likely coming from ND, Wiscy, MSU, PSU, and Ohio St. Until I see actual reasons on gameday to think otherwise, this is where I'm at for 2018. Which is disappointing for me because I feel that Harbaugh should have the offense in place and humming along by year four. Sure we came close last year and in 2016. But coming close in one year translates to precisely nothing in the following season. Each season is unique with a new and different team for us and our opponents. Lloyd Carr "was close" virtually every single season against Tressel. That never magically translated into a win the next season then so it's absurd to assume it will do so now.
Hopefully I'm dead wrong and we're lights out this year, but I'm trying to be realistic rather than just assume we're a dead ringer for the conference championship because it's year 4, because Patterson, or simply because Harbaugh. We have a lot to prove first and a crazy difficult schedule with which to prove it.
Strong to quite strong.
Check back at the end of this year... I feel like this is an important year which could swing the next few years in one way or another. Must get 10+ wins and beat OSU and MSU. I will be disappointed otherwise. But make no mistake, there is no one else I'd rather have coaching this team right now.
On an absolute scale I'd say 9/10.
10-3 in year one was impressive and they definitely over performed coming off 5-7 with essentially no serviceable QB's on the team before the Rudock transfer in the fall.
10-3 in year two was a bit disappointing down the stretch - mainly Iowa since OSU and FSU were actually good teams. Holding on for that Orange bowl win would have been nice.
Last year was a bit of a disappointment - The whole "everyone knew it would be a down year" is at least 50% revisionist history. By the time the season actually started, I think a down year was somewhat inevitable. However, many of the issues in 2017 could have been mitigated through recruiting and player management in 2015/6 - playing backups more when we were trouncing teams in 2016 (defense kept starters on the field way late into blowouts) and actually getting Swensen (or a replacement), Devery Hamilton, Isaiah Wilson (or a replacement) or ANY SERVICEABLE TACKLE. The Frey/Drevno friction/duty overlap and no dedicated WR coach the year we probably needed it the most does not reflect well on Harbaugh, but it is easier to see in hindsight and he did address it this offseason. I still don't know WTF that bowl game was though, that was probably the worst performance of the team in his tenure - yes, worse than OSU 2015 (amazingly talented team) and PSU 2017 (once behind and relying on JOK to come back with that OL was not happening, also some generational talent on PSU). After thoroughly outcoaching OSU/Urban a month prior that is just a truly baffling game.
What really matters is his wins above replacement, and I don't see anyone available at the time that we could realistically get that would be doing a better job, so in that regard it is still a 10/10 home run hire.
I get that you qualified things with (replacement) and serviceable tackle, but I'm not going to hold Wilson against him in any way. The bagman argument can be overused, but in this case? It's hard to believe that an out of the blue switch from Michigan (or Alabama) wasn't the result of, um, substantial benefits.
Last season makes it a 7/10.
Qb play was wretched.
He is right on the razor's edge of great. When you think about the different perception there would be if just two fluky/shady plays went differently. The fumbled punt against MSU and the JT fourth down against OSU. Change the outcome of just those two plays and he is 3-3 against the rivals, has a division title and likely a conference title if you believe they would have won the title game. A title game win would have landed them in the playoffs. So two plays away from completely turning the program around in two years. Last year would have been passed off as a down year due to youth and expectations would be super high this year.
Agree 100%. He immediately turned around the competitiveness of the team and the program. UM has been pummeled just 2 times (OSU 15, PSU 17) in 39 ball games. Heck, UM lost by 2+ scores in 5 games in 2014 alone.
Other very good coaches have delivered far worse. Fisher lost a QB at FSU and his season crumbled to 5-6; Dantonio had team issues and produced 3-9; Kelly had a mess at ND and stumbled to 4-8; Dabo struggled early and lost 70-33 in the Orange Bowl at the end of his 4th season; Herman walked into a talented UT team and delivered 7-6.
Gets a B+ so far. Win big games this year and it goes to an A. IMHO the future is going to be very bright.
Yeah man, I hear ya. I'm onboard with Harbaugh and think he's done a great job and I think the program has some serious potential with him at the helm. But I would like to see some W's over rivals though. I'm definitely getting tired of that. We can start Sept. 1. GO GET 'EM!
Harbaugh has been an excellent coach with 2 provisos:
First he has not been lucky and luck plays a big part in college football success. Since he has been here - winning that one game against Minnesota with Speight I feel was our only lucky break. Do I have to outline all the bad luck, bad referee calls, bad fumble recovery etc. in the Harbaugh era?
He is also unlucky as both our rivals, along with Wisconsin are playing at Historic peaks. It is also frustrating that Franklin was able to turn around Penn State so quickly. Although he made some good hires, I believe Franklin got lucky and has over preformed.
Second I would like to see an actual top 25 Michigan offense. I believe a Harbaugh type offense can succeed and prevail in the modern era. But once he has his offensive pieces in place I would like to actually see it.
Why do you feel that Franklin simply got lucky and has over-performed? He's posted back to back 11 win seasons in the B1G East!
I see so many Michigan fans dogging on Franklin with little reasons other than "I just don't think he's a good X's and O's coach".
Well that crappy X's and O's coach has out-performed our very own X's and O's wizard so far, so there has to something more to it than that. And can we please stop devaluing the results he managed to accomplish at Vandy? That's not easy to do....it's VANDY people.
Its a B- and if not for literally a handful of 50/50 plays it would be an A.
Im hopeful for this season because the defense is again stacked but mostly because of Shea. I feel like he is insanely underrated by people around here.
"I feel like he is insanely underrated by people around here."
Who is "insanely underrating" him around here? Most MGoBloggers are assuming he's going to be the difference-maker we've needed at QB.
I dont read that at all. In fact no one mentioned him in this thread til I did but I saw a couple of "QB and Oline" still a problem comments
"In fact no one mentioned him in this thread..."
The title of the thread is how we would rate Harbaugh so far.
Shea Patterson hasn't played a single down for Michigan, so why would people be mentioning him when evaluating the past three seasons?
I could also be extra defensive/aggressive about it because I was banging the Shea Patterson drum when the transfer rumors started. At least half the members of this blog were against bringing him in.
If anything, I think people might be over-rating him here. I'm sure he has great inherent talent and ability, but he has to learn a whole new offensive scheme, whole new playbook, AND develop timing with the WRs. All in one off-season. That's not a simple task in front of him.
Maybe we should pump the breaks a bit on the Patterson the savior train until we can actually see him on the field.
6.5 out of 10.
Harbaugh has been a success. I'd give him a B+ if I'm grading - knocked down from an A because of whatever the hell happened to the offense last season.
Michigan fan angst is almost exclusively due to the record versus rivals which is stupid. Michigan was better than MSU in '15 & '16. They were better than OSU in 2016. At worst, Harbaugh should be 3-3 if not for some of the most incredible breaks going against him.
And if so, we'd all feel way better about everything.
Being better makes it worse...
If Michigan were the scrappy underdog that loses that way it is one thing but when you are finally a better team after a decade of mediocrity you cant lose those games.
Disagree. Hoke/Rodriguez teams were scrappy underdogs. That didnt make me feel any better about Gardner's failed 2 point attempt. Just made me hate football more because we were destined to get our heads kicked in the next year.
We have been dead even with OSU the past two years. Keep playing that way and we'll win our fair share.
Incomplete.
If he has been building a program that is ready to succeed at the high level I expect Michigan to be able to achieve, that will bear fruit this year.
If he has not and this season is a disappointment, the trials of the past couple of years will have been signs of things to come rather than natural pitfalls of rebuilding from a difficult prior administration.
I have a lot of confidence in this coming season. But if my confidence is misplaced and Michigan struggles, that bodes poorly for the future.
Much hangs on this season. No grade until we see how it goes.
You are right about this season. I am not predicting this, but in the hypothetical where we go 8-4 and lose to MSU, ND, OSU, and somebody else. Oh boy. Things would get tricky around here.
Agree that much hangs on this season, not so much that we need to win all our games, but because we get to see Jim's first product after his off-season course correction. JH is an incredible coach with no close second in terms of who is best for Michigan, but he made critical preparatory miscalculations the first three years on offense which were understandable given his last college QB was Andrew Luck and he just returned from the NFL.
In sum, I'm of firm belief that Jim projected a level of competency on college kids that didn't exist, but was required to run his complex, "card castle" pro offense, which ultimately led to it all coming apart last year. He was humbled and has learned from the experience and has now hopefully course corrected with the off season changes. We get to see what that course correction looks like this year and if we struggle with the firepower we have, I agree that bodes very poorly for the future.
I think this is too simplistic an approach. The details of why we get this season's results should matter. Did we fluke our way into some big wins to make the playoff when we didn't deserve it? Maybe we're not an elite team yet despite a great record. Did we lose the entire OL to injury *knocking on wood* and lose 4 games by a total of 12 points? Maybe we're on the right track despite the disappointment.
10/10
We are definitely on the right path.
8/10. Room for improvement. We have given away 1-2 wins each year with stupidity. I expect much improvement in the next few years
Wish it was easier to post the Monkey Rodeo gif.
But seriously, solid B. Turned the program around and has recruited well, but haven't gotten the hardware or a win over OSU.
He probably walked into the toughest time in Michigan football history. The programs had basically been lost, no identity, locker room split, fan base not happy, ect.
2015 was a 9/10. The Utah game Michigan really had no reason to be in that game and was close to winning it, the MSU was won until that last play, and really the only blemish was getting blown out by OSU.
2016 was a 5.9/10 maybe worse in my opinion. You had 11 NFL players who were drafted and lost three games? That's a failure in my mind. I know bad calls in the OSU game, but they still lost it. Iowa was a blown game. I don't really think Michigan was ready for what a fight that game was going to be. And the FSU game really shouldn't have had a chance to win it at end but somehow managed to have the lead at the end but ended up losing it.
2017 is a tough one was rate 6 or 7/10. I think coaching was not good last year. I believe they were using too difficult of concepts and having things be too NFL for a group of younger college kids. MSU game plan was terrible but on the other hand the OSU plan was great. A qb who was average would have won that game by 2 tds.
This year will say a lot. Yeah there have been a lot of tough games on the road but this team is probably more talented then the 2016 teams. I feel like this has to be the year where break through. If so I think the Michigan train is ready to make a Clemson/Alabama/OSU breakthrough, if not then I don't know if it will ever happen.
I agree with Indy Pete on all his points. Patience is missing in college football. I believe Bo once said that a coach needs five years to be fully evaluated and I agree. This year’s schedule, on paper, looks to be daunting. However, I am extremely optimistic and excited for it to play out. I’m expecting more wins this year with what looks to be an accomplished quarterback, more depth, and some crucial changes in the coaching staff.
I have to believe that the vast majority of the UNACCEPTABLEs would be far happier if Urban hadn't stepped into Columbus and found instant and massive success, such that should not be expected by any rational fanbase. There's what happened with Urban and what happened with Saban at Alabama, and then there's the rest of college football.
It's probably about an 8 for me. I'm not sure people are remembering just how bad 2014 was, some of those games were unwatchable. To go from that to 10 wins in one season, with an Iowa QB castoff, is remarkable. And then to follow up with 2016 is also extremely impressive. If you think 2016 was a disappointment, I agree but only insofar as results are concerned. If you've watched a lot of football you know that sometimes the ball doesn't bounce your way. We were the victims of a bunch of bad luck and I'd bet if we played that Iowa game 10 times Michigan would win 8-9 times and we'd probably beat OSU 6/10 times. The fact is luck is always involved in these things, but the team was exceptionally talented and well-coached.
Last year was the exception, and it brings down the overall ranking for me. We didn't have a WR coach, we didn't have a coherent OL in spite of decent experience, and our QBs seemed to regress year over year. That was all on Harbaugh, but to his credit, I think he's repaired all of those issues. I think this year has a chance to be special.
Love Harbaugh, but if the parameters are judging on the field performance, I'd give him a 7.5.
1-5 versus MSU/OSU
no B1G championship appearances
1-2 in Bowl games.
C+ to B-
Their highest season ending poll finish is 10, their highest ending conference position is 3rd.
His win average is slightly over 9 a season. His winning percentage is almost 72%. Bowl record 1-3. Record against MSU and OSU 1-5. He is 2-1 vs. Franklin (PSU).
All not terrible, just slightly above average. Which is the UM football program for about a decade.
I think 2018 may be just as big for Harbaugh's coaching reputation as it is for Michigan football.
As most people are saying it's about 8/10, if we finished in 2016 it would be a 10, just with the B1G championship and playoff appearance. This year has everything we need to get those last two points.