Jay Harbaugh as RB coach: why?
Can anyone else think of someone who never played college football much less the position they were coaching who jumped right into a college assistant coaching job?
Better yet, has anyone ever heard of a guy who never played the position of RB replacing a former NFL RB and All-American at the position with a proven track record?
I’ll hang up and listen go blue
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:21 PM ^
Michigan gave up 567 yards to Ohio State. Ohio State scored 21 points off of a blocked punt and two picks that gave them the ball in or near the red zone. They scored 62 total.
January 2nd, 2019 at 8:52 PM ^
Probably the 2nd word in the title is why?
January 2nd, 2019 at 8:57 PM ^
Not a criticism of Jay. Observation of Michigan in general though, we haven’t been elite at running back since??????
Hart?
January 2nd, 2019 at 8:58 PM ^
Playing the position <> Coaching the position
The correlation isn't always there.
Now the nepotism argument is valid and Jim needs to be careful about that as it can cause a lot of problems in the locker room.
January 2nd, 2019 at 8:59 PM ^
If Karan gets selected in the first 5 rounds he will be the highest RB drafted out of M in 15 years.
Need to put a stop to that legacy.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:02 PM ^
again, you do not need to play a sport to coach it. Nor will playing a sport make you a better coach
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:33 PM ^
Sounds like the only sports you played were on PlayStation.
It sure as fuck helps. Wonder how many coaches in any sport never played their sport at any level. I'm guessing that number to be way under 1%.
January 3rd, 2019 at 12:01 AM ^
Jedd Fisch never played football in HS or College and was an All-State Tennis player.
This board has fond memories about his coaching and seemingly would love to have him back.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:04 PM ^
Jay Harbaugh is a good coach. If you are looking for a place to deposit angst - this is the wrong bank.
1 yr of Ben Herbert and 1 yr of Ed Warriner. This offensive line is going to be where Jim wants. The question is how to maximize size vs speed which we will have. The play design needs more short and intermediate routes in the pass game to get playmakers in space. Play calling needs to take advantage of that as well. This appears solvable to me unlike the angst of the fan base.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:06 PM ^
Complaints about coaches who never played the sport they’re coaching remind me of complaints about fans of schools they never attended.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:17 PM ^
Bad thread is bad.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:18 PM ^
Because nepotism. And zero other reasons. Has he ever been on a P5 staff anywhere else?
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:23 PM ^
He was an undergrad assistant at Oregon St for four years.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:21 PM ^
How dare you start this thread then not post again in it to accept these downvotes
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:21 PM ^
You're obviously not buying enough merchandise so Jim's got to put his kids to work.
You know they are replacing Pep with Jack right?
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:23 PM ^
Here we go again.
Maybe you should get a new girlfriend. I'd rather read that blubbering nonsense than garbage like this.
January 3rd, 2019 at 1:18 PM ^
It was kinda of amazing WD had a GF in the first place. Just a few days into the relationship, he's putting his personal life all over the interwebs and making her drink the maize and blue kool aid. Nothing says relationship potential like a myriad of personality disorders.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:26 PM ^
Yes WD, you don't need to play a sport or position to coach it but don't get any quick ideas, they do have to work on Fridays!
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:31 PM ^
He was a student assistant at Oregon State under Mike Riley, a quality control coach in the NFL, then was the TE coach prior to coaching the RBs. A similar career path would be Jedd Fisch although Jay’s rise maybe slightly quicker given family ties
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:31 PM ^
Oh lovely, now we have the almighty Wolverine Devotee making new threads for his "hot takes"
Gonna be a long offseason
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:32 PM ^
He’s the only person Jim could find to reenact the simba coronation scene from lion king.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:33 PM ^
I'd have thought a guy who goes out of his way to profess his undying love for the University of Michigan (which in no way is a bad thing) despite never attending it would be a bit more cognizant of how dumb "he never played the position in college, so how can he do the job?" sounds. But I guess...here we are.
I actually thought the backs looked much better with him leading the charge than when Wheatley was at the helm. Also, shitting on a guy who couldn't play in college because of knee injuries is pretty weak. And if you honestly think he'd be a different coach had he played backup weak-side end for some D2 school for a year, then so be it.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:34 PM ^
you know as much about who's qualified to coach running backs - or what a running back coach even does - as i do, which is to say nothing at all.
MAN, it's going to be a long seven months. so many talking rectums.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:35 PM ^
This is a dumb thread I have to comment on, because Wolverine Devotee is an ass. Jay is not the problem!
Joe Pannunzio Alabama's RB coach is 59 years old and this is his 1st RB coaching job.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:35 PM ^
I thought he'd be a better recruiter, and while he has brought in some good players, I think he's been a little disappointing in that regard. With zero experience or any background to justify the hire, one would hope that he'd be a Partridge-level recruiter. But, he's not at that level or even Sherron Moore.
He's less of a concern, though, than Hamilton. Mattison has started to slip a lot too and it might not be a bad idea to nudge him out soon.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:38 PM ^
kick rocks dude. Jay is great.
Good lord these 8.5 months or whatever is going to be brutal.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:47 PM ^
He is a good recruiter and Higdon turned out to be a solid running back. Tru blocks and runs hard, Evans needs to be utilized to his talents...screens please.
He brought the train formation, which besides the pep cat was the only formation Michigan has ran that did not resemble strictly NFL.
hell, at this point, let him be o coordinator and bring Wheatley back as rb coach.
January 3rd, 2019 at 8:33 AM ^
I don't want Wheatley. Why do we want Wheatley? He didn't get along with the rest of the staff at Michigan, and the best back he could produce was De'Veon Smith. Meanwhile, he just got fired at Jacksonville because his running backs sucked there - when he had Leonard Fournette and T.J. Yeldon!
I'm not saying Wheatley is worthless as a running backs coach, but nobody should be clamoring for him to return.
If you want a former Michigan player to come back and be the RB coach, we ought to be looking at Mike Hart. And if that means moving Jay Harbaugh to another position, then that's fine, because he'll do a good job at the next spot, too.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:51 PM ^
He’s a really good recruiter. His positions have all been productive from tight ends, to special teams, to running backs.
Last year, his first coaching running backs, we had three backs run for over 500 yards with Higdon coming just short of 1,000. Two of the three averaged over 6 yards per carry. This season Higdon became our first back to crack 1,000 yards in 7 years.
So he’s coached a Mackey winner at TE. He’s had great production from his backs including an all conference year from Higdon. And to top it all off, he’s one of our best recruiters.
Lets cut the shit. If his last name were anything other than Harbaugh, we would be lauding what a great hire this was and what a productive member of the coaching staff he has been.
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:28 PM ^
sounds like an up and comer to me. Imagine where he could be in 3-4 more years.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:52 PM ^
Bill Walsh and Mike Leach off the top of my head.
The fixation this board has on certain assistants is worthy of psychology study.
Did you ever coach WD? If not how can you comment on anything pertaining to coaching? What makes you qualified to do so?
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:55 PM ^
The focus on certain assistants is because most people don't honestly know a ton about football or how a team like Michigan runs. I certainly don't. But "the offense isn't as good as I want" and "Harbaugh's kid is a coach" are low-hanging fruit that you can saber-rattle about for a bit. It's also usually the same people who demand Jedd Fisch be brought back because "the passing game was much better then" even though Michigan's passing offense this year (10th per S&P+) is better than either of Fisch's two years (2015 was 17th, 29th in 2016). And yes, the reason I used rankings was because he apparently changed his system (or the top value) in the intervening years because UM's 2015 number would have been, like, 4th in the nation this year and they barely broke 200 yards for the first half of the year.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:55 PM ^
There's lots of examples of great players who couldn't coach. You don't have to be a great athlete to understand and teach the concepts. What a shitty thread, Jay's done a fine job so far. There are enough issues with the end of the season to worry about without trying to stir up this nonsense.
January 3rd, 2019 at 9:03 AM ^
And there are also tons of examples of great coaches who didn't play the position in college.
January 2nd, 2019 at 9:59 PM ^
Oh yea, playing the position at a high level is really important to being a coach. Magic Johnson was such a great coach...uh, wait. Um, Larry Bird was...nevermind. And of course, we all remember Bill Belichek playing in 12 consecutive Pro Bowls. Wait, wait.. he didn’t?? Surely, this cannot be...
Some great players do turn into good coaches-see John Wooden, Pat Fitzgerald, etc. But there are bunches of great coaches that were mediocre players. One does not necessarily correlate with the other.
January 3rd, 2019 at 12:56 AM ^
didn't bird win nba coach of the year? i think he is the only person to win mvp, coach of the year and executive of the year in the nba.
January 3rd, 2019 at 2:02 AM ^
Wayne Gretzky would’ve been a better example.
Chicago fans realized that Buddy Ryan won their Super Bowl and not Mike Ditka. Buddy Ryan by the way played offensive guard at Oklahoma State. Guess WD wasn’t around to tell him he can’t coach defense cause he never played it.
Jim Zorn was a pretty good player and a shit coach.
Mike Leach didn’t play a single down of collegiate football.
Bill Walsh started his coaching career at Cal as receivers coach. He never played at WR. He then went to Stanford as their DB coach. He never played DB. His next stop was with the Raiders as their RB coach. He never coached or played RB before.
Moral of the story: Wolverine Devotee looks like a complete buffoon with his post and should feel like a complete buffoon. The end.
January 3rd, 2019 at 9:48 AM ^
Marv Levy . Great coach. I don't think he played the sport .Could be wrong.
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:01 PM ^
He is better at it than Tyrone Wheatley was at Michigan.
January 3rd, 2019 at 8:29 AM ^
Exactly! Tyrone Wheatley had some recruiting connections within Michigan, and that was all he offered. Pass protection wasn't great under him, and his starting running back was one of the least productive running backs in YEARS at Michigan.
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:08 PM ^
Jay was the primary recruiter on the following:
Zach Charbonnet
Devin Asiasi
Tarik Black
Mustapha Muhammad
Giles Jackson
Nick Eubanks
So yeah, he’s done pretty good for himself.
But fuck him for getting knee injuries in high school that ended his football career right?!
Wheatley has a proven track record as RB coach?
Last I checked when he was coaching here people bitched about our RBs having vision and blocking issues.
TIL you also have to play to coach football. Someone better alert Billy B about this. He played center and TE at Wesleyan University. Guess no one told him he isn’t allowed to coach defense.
Jay is surrounded by coaching. His dad is. His uncle is. His grandpa was.
So you can keep on doubting him if you want, you just make yourself look stupid.
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:09 PM ^
How did he learn how to teach running backs?
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:17 PM ^
For what its worth 247 ranked him as one of the 30 best up and coming coaches under 30.
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:22 PM ^
I see how people could be upset by nepotism, but Jay Harbaugh has done a good job. Our running game has been a strength of ours the last few years. Not to mention he just brought in one of the best running backs in the country in Charbonnet. Out of all the things to be complaining about, Jay Harbaugh is who you choose?
January 2nd, 2019 at 10:23 PM ^
He's probably a better coach than Jay Paterno was.
January 2nd, 2019 at 11:43 PM ^
Jay and the running backs are the least of our worries, literally. That and special teams.
January 2nd, 2019 at 11:49 PM ^
Karan Hidgon was the 484th ranked recruit when he came to Michigan with a mediocre offer sheet: https://247sports.com/Player/Karan-Higdon-30628/
Working with Jay got him to (nearly) back-to-back thousand yard seasons.
Jay's good. I'm excited to see what he can do with a top 50 recruit, as well as an improving offensive line.
We're adding 4 legit 4 star offensive linemen who were recruited to run Warriner's zone scheme. We're trending up everywhere on offense - especially if the rumors that Pep is moving on are to be believed. Just need a real OC.
January 3rd, 2019 at 1:42 AM ^
Why not? He’s held several positions of incremental responsibility and our backs play well, and also a good recruiter.
January 3rd, 2019 at 2:21 AM ^
When Harbaugh leaves or retires, Jay will be our next coach and I think he may do a better job than his Dad.