Question for MGoCoaches: Why doesn't the offense run more 11 personnel?

That full thread is interesting ... he goes on to talk about how once the game unfolds and things don't go according to plan, the plan is abandoned and it becomes a "deer in the headlights" posture offensively.  Spath admits he's not sure if that's on Hamilton or Harbaugh.

My guess is it's related to the "play calling by committee" approach.  I've worked in a large corporate setting for 35 years now, and I have yet to see a consensus/committee approach produce results rapidly.  It may produce better results when time is not a constraint, but under pressure what's needed is someone who makes decisions and everyone follows.  I freely admit the success or failure of that depends on the decisions being made.  It's possible to drive off a cliff with a forcefully decisive person calling the shots.

In no universe that I can conceive of does a college football team operate well without a good offensive coordinator who's nimble on his feet and makes good decisions under fire.  I can't think of a worse structure than a decision-by-committee approach in today's faster-paced and dynamic game of college football.

That validates the eyeball analysis. Michigan looked ok in the Florida game until things started going against them. Then the wheels came off, things went crazy, and it looked like nobody knew what to do. 

It also confirms that Gregg article talking about how Harbaugh lacks credibility with his players. If he's saying one thing, and doing another, that's going to get players checked out fast. 

Clearly no problem here though. We're on the precipice of greatness and Harbaugh is the guy to lead us there. He just needs more time. His three elite WRs and QBs just aren't sufficient. We need Alabama's OL and an amazing RB. Just wait guys! 

Gregg Henson also posted an article on his web site with a similar theme - JH is dealing with some credibility issues with the players. Some of it falls in the category of crootin, but it is something that he may have to fix. Yes, I know, Henson, looking for clicks, but he says this is coming from his #1 source and some of this sounds viable.

Not sure how accurate any of this is but key points:

- James Hudson wanted to transfer before the season but was not granted his release along with a promise that he would start in 2019. When JBB went down and Steuber started, he bailed immediately. Seem very feasible based on how that went down.

- Nordin has been kicked of the team for calling JH an M-F'er. Has anyone else heard this?

- Gentry will bail. While JH has made him into an NFL TE, was never happy he wasn't given a chance at QB after decommitting from Texas. Thinks he could have beaten out JOK and Speight.

- Henson has another posting stating that Solomon transferred primarily because of the distance from home and the cold weather.

Interesting read. Click at your own peril. http://gregghenson.com/

'Didn't we want to get those guys involved more?' You're going to hear some rumblings this offseason, and you might see some players leave for opportunities to be more involved in the offense elsewhere. You can't keep telling guys they'll get touches and then not get them touches

— Michael Spath (@MichaelSpathITH) December 31, 2018

Can't wait to see some really talented guys go elsewhere because we insist on trying to manball the other team to death like it's 1978. I don't want to start throwing out names, but it's a fairly short list of really talented guys who seem to get 1-2 targets per game

This makes perfect sense based on what we're seeing, and it is the single reason Harbaugh needs to replace Pep.  He desperately needs someone in-game that can balance his lizard brain.  Pep is decidedly not that person.  Jedd, just as an example, was.  

IF this is accurate, and Harbaugh doesn’t hire an ace in the hole OC (with full control of the offense) ASAP, then I really don’t like the outlook for next season. This program just doesn’t seem to have any positive momentum at all going into the offseason right now =(

Amen on the jet sweep working and then being forgotten.  Why?  It is the exact opposite of many coaches who will keep running it until the other team shows it can stop it then give it a tweak that fools them.  It seems like we never repeat plays that work and frequently repeat plays that get stuffed (and stuffed again).

I honestly can't imagine all three sticking around.  This offense seems to generate around 100 catches a year for the top three pass catchers, and a third of those go to the TE.  Its been that way every year Harbaugh has been here.  One of the DPJ/Nioo/Black trio is going to get left out and wind up with a dozen or so catches, and it feels kinda obvious which one its going to be.

To be fair, Mason did have a first down that was taken away by an atrociously bad spot.  I am NOT saying the game was on the refs.  It was close  mind you - and he may have been pushed back from the forward progress but he did have a clear first down.

Harbaugh is good at winning 10 games.

He's a very good recruiter.  He's probably a very good QB coach (all evidence said that prior to the last couple years but Speight seemingly regressing in year 2 as a starter, JOK/Peters not being useful after a couple years in the program and Patterson not improving have brought that into question just a tiny bit - but again, he's probably a really good QB coach). 

He does well delegating the defense. Good coaches seem to want to coach under him for the most part and he runs a good clean program which is something to be very proud of.  So he does A LOT well.

He just needs to swallow his pride and delegate more of the offense.  Do what he did with defense: find a really good coach, hire him and hand over the keys.

As an offensive guy, that might be hard for him to do so we'll see.

And maybe hire a 12 year old Madden player to help with the clock management cuz that's also...yikes.

Agreed, but then why recruit so many athletes like the three receivers mentioned?

Or have Jim step away from being part of his OC by committee and allow one lead guy(you know like the rest of the nation does) to run whatever offense they are accustomed too?

If this isn’t done this year and we still have an OC by committee room it’s time to part ways with Jim. Jim can’t handle all the responsibilities of an OC, Podcast participant, PCs, and interview obligations. Not to mention recruiting added in.

He has said in his weekly in season Monday PC that he hasn’t watched film on weeks opponent yet wants to be part of calling plays. Anybody associated with football knows coordinatiors are in that film room immediately following game into Sunday for meetings. That must be want the 15 analysts are for

I disagree, great coaches should play to the teams strength, they are brought in to win games not run a style of offense or defense, not saying Michigan is best suited for 11 personnel. Also Rich Rod used a lot of FBs at WV, remember Owen Schmitt?. There’s a reason why guys like Belichick switch between 4-3 and 3-4 on a weekly basis, although his own pride got in the way of winning a super bowl last year by sitting butler. Every year nick saban brings in new guys to show them a few things. After Alabama lost to OSU he had Tom Herman come , Rich rod has been spotted down there, Hugh freeze just to name a few.

Good observation Magnus.

But Harbaugh has the qualities of a good head coach.

All he has to do is fire himself and Pep as Offensive Coordinators. Then he can find someone who has that skill set and let them make the decisions.

Even Saban was able to do that.

"Why would he be one now?"

Because he wants to win.  Pretty simple.

It's not at all like Rich Rodriguez changing his scheme.  Rich Rodriguez has had many very good offenses in his career.  His way is/was proven.  He was also an OC (and remained a good OC but bad delegator as a HC).

Harbaugh is kind of the opposite. He has never been an OC and even as a FBS college or NFL coach he has never had a good offense except when he had Andrew Luck at Stanford and Andrew Luck is arguably one of the top 10 QBs of the century.  Harbaugh is a good delegator (see his defenses) and a meh "OC".

It's also not difficult to change what he's doing because he's the head coach, not the OC.  It's not like asking Greg Robinson to run something he doesn't know. He doesn't need to and shouldn't be running the offense.  He has like a $2+ million budget to hire a good OC. 

His job is to recruit and delegate, first and foremost.  And be the QB coach - which is something he is proven to be good at.

Besides, they're already running a hybrid offense with zone reads and RPOs and spread concepts. Their QB has experience with and is much better suited to running a spread offense. They're just not doing it frequently enough and they're wasting scholarships to run heavy personnel just part of the time.  They need to jump in fully instead of just dipping a foot in the water.

John Beilein was a 1-3-1 guy when he was hired.  It got torched in the Big Ten, he switched it up, eventually also delegated that to a great coach and now he's about to have a top 5 defense for the second season in a row.  A John Beilein team.

As a head coach, you adapt to win if you want to be great.  Look at Saban!