Update: Offensive Coaching Staff Overhaul

Submitted by MichiganSports3 on

Reading more and more that Dan Enos and Greg Roman will likely be the newest additions to the Michigan coaching staff, replacing Drevno, Pep, and Frey (all of which rumored to have accepted jobs elsewhere). This basically confirms what our "insider" MGoBlog accounts have been posting throughout the day with regards to the coaching changes. In bringing in Greg Roman, it appears that Harbaugh is planning on switching to the pistol offense that he ran with Colin Kaepernick in SF. He's got the QB's for it in Patterson, McCaffrey, and Milton, as well as athletic WR's in DPJ, Black, and Collins. Let's hope it revitalizes the offense for next season.

Note* Nothing is confirmed but I highly doubt that every UM Insider who's been tracking these moves is wrong 

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Scottwood

January 3rd, 2018 at 1:53 AM ^

Enos had a top 5 offense his first year at Arkansas on S & P and around #40 the past two years. Roman’s offenses ranked by DVOA in the NFL: 2011: #18 2012: #5 2013: # 8 2014: # 16 2015: # 9 2016: # 10

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newtopos

January 3rd, 2018 at 4:56 AM ^

It's important to remember that there are only 32 teams in the NFL, unlike the 130 in the S&P rankings.  So that #16 in 2014, for example, would be the equivalent to a #65 ranking in the S&P in college.  There's only one year in that six year run in which his offense finished in the top 20% of NFL offenses.  Given what appears to be an absolutely awful hire last year (from one of the worst NFL teams), this hire might be an improvement, but it is definitely Harbaugh doubling-down on people he or his brother know, instead of looking for who is producing the best offenses (like he did when he went after Don Brown as a defensive coordinator).

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lhglrkwg

January 3rd, 2018 at 6:13 AM ^

Every team in the NFL is very good and there's not a huge talent gap from top to bottom. College isn't the same. The teams competing for CFP spots generally have huge talent advantages over their competition and the entire bottom half of the FBS is essentially ineligible for the playoff

Being middle of the road in the NFL at something is probably more equivalent to being average to above average amongst P5 teams

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newtopos

January 3rd, 2018 at 6:29 AM ^

I'm not sure I follow or agree with you, but either way, I don't how that recommends Roman.  Even though the talent is closely aligned in the NFL, he could only coordinate an offense into the top 20% of teams once over six years.  That is not stellar.  Admittedly, that is better than hiring the OC of the Browns, with one of the absolutely worst offenses in the NFL.  

Also, P5 teams do appear frequently in the bottom half of the 130 teams when it comes to Offensive S&P+ ranking.  For instance, we were 86th this year.  (I believe we were 44th in Al Borges's last year.)

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wildbackdunesman

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:46 AM ^

I get your point, but you are seemingly selectively choosing top 20% as the cut off for a good NFL offense, which just misses 3 of his 6 NFL seasons. 

If you were to choose the top third as a good NFL offense, then his offense was in the top third 4 of 6 years, which sounds a lot better than 1 out of 6 for the top fifth.

His first NFL offense missed being in the top half, but they were taking over a dumpster fire in SF at the time.  Do you really want to hold that first year against him, when he improved the offense?

After that first year his offense finished in the top half every year and in the top third 4 of those 5 years.  That is not a bad 6 year stint in the NFL, which has lots of parity.

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APBlue

January 3rd, 2018 at 8:56 AM ^

SF was also playing in the NFC west, which had St Louis, Seattle and Arizona.  If I remember correctly, those teams all had pretty good to great defenses during Harbaugh's time in SF.  Running on Seattle and St. Louis, especially, a total of four games a year (25% of his schedule) couldn't have been easy.

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lhglrkwg

January 3rd, 2018 at 10:01 AM ^

If this Michigan team played in the MAC, they'd have the #1 defense and probably a top 10 scoring offense. NFL teams for all 16 weeks play teams that are effectively at the same talent level as them, so it'd be similar to Michigan playing teams in the top 30-40 of S&P every week of the season. It makes comparing college stats and rankings to the NFL very difficult because NFL teams don't have 3-6 games against bad competition every year

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RobM_24

January 3rd, 2018 at 1:56 AM ^

Can't be any worse. QBs sucked. OLine sucked. RBs couldn't block. Highly rated WRs did nothing. Play calling sucked. At least Roman has been a successful OC at some point in his career. That's more than Drevno could claim, and I'm not sure to that Pep was ever committed to the job. It seemed like this was just an apartment he was living at in the time between selling his old house and waiting for his new one to be built.

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Blue in Paradise

January 3rd, 2018 at 9:48 AM ^

lineup to the NFL.  And unlike OSU in 2016, we did not have a ton of 3rd and 4th year players ready to step in.  We had a sh!t ton of 1st and 2nd year players in key roles, it was not shocking that we struggled.

I get that it was a disappointing year but let's not exaggerate.  Georgia and Auburn were both 8-5 last year, ND was 4-8, MSU was 3-9, etc...  It happens!  We had an extremely young team that got flustered whenever we ran into a bad break.

If we are not top 10 next year and a CFP contender in 2019, then I will rethink my viewpoint but I still like the trajectory.

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Blue in Paradise

January 3rd, 2018 at 1:40 PM ^

- Michigan looked good week 1 but that was due to Florida being worse than anyone could have expected. - They were terrible the next few weeks (I was at the Cincinnati game) - The team started playing better after the PSU debacle I thought they had really improved until the 2nd half of the Outback Bowl. Just as they were about to blow out SC, Higdon fumbles and the team falls apart. I think they were improving but they just couldn’t deal with adversity. In 2018, Patterson will bring some swagger to the team plus a year of experience for nearly the entire 2 deep. If they can handle adversity, they will contend for the B1G and CFP.

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BroadneckBlue21

January 3rd, 2018 at 8:47 AM ^

Well, he and his wife just had a new kid that was a preemie, so maybe his perspective changed a bit., there. Again, speculation, and something I have wondered since reading about the newest Harbaugh and seeing Coach’s toned-down personality this season. The only thing we can know is what you wrote: that a majority of his life is private, and that we have very little idea about what has made for his changed demeanor.

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Scottwood

January 3rd, 2018 at 2:07 AM ^

It sounds like a special teams coordinator is being brought in too. I haven’t heard much rumbling about a safety coach or WR coach. There was some on a new OL coach. A bunch of teams are going after Partridge so he’s probably going to get an increase in pay and added responsibilities.

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Birdman

January 3rd, 2018 at 2:07 AM ^

Is this possibly really happening? Seems like an enormous upgrade at every position based on track records. Sounds to good to be true...

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big john lives on 67

January 3rd, 2018 at 2:25 AM ^

Roman is not a Don Brown hire in that he is not an innovator and seems very conservative in his approach. However, I think that is what this offense needs at this point after all of the tinkering and divergent approaches over the last three years. A coherent, simple approach is appealing to me at this point. Get the QB moving a little bit to keep opposing defenses honest. This goes a long way to opening things up - just ask Rudock and Lewerke. Neither are prolific runners but get needed yards with their feet when required. Also, if he works well with Harbaugh, and I can only assume he does after all of the time that they have spent together, it will help the play calling issue. Let Harbaugh innovate and let Roman drive the execution at the player level. I can see it working well, but I am the king of wishful thinking at this point.

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Matte Kudasai

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:25 AM ^

A coherent simple approach is not what this offense needs.  

Simple approaches are for middle school and some high schools.

We need a stud OC, and Roman somehow doesn't thrill me.

Enos I'm cool with.

We also need to retain Partridge and add a dynamic RB & WR coach.

I still would love to know what went wrong with Wheatley...We need someone with his appeal and recruiting abilities.

 

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JFW

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:37 AM ^

is that better (Honest question. I don't know much about these guys). 

Dynamism in the playcalling for skill positions and more conservatism in the O line might work? Especially when we have guys on the O line that seem to just need to get the fundamentals?

I admit to being worried, but am hoping its a stab at getting everyone pulling in the same direction. 

This has to be an embarrasing year for Harbaugh. We went from the first two years where we were dynamic (B1G quotes where everyone said we were very tough to prepare for because of our unpredictability) to this year where we are very predictable and unable to produce. 

Harbaugh had more of a hand in the OSU game, I've read, and that looked better. Maybe he is getting guys that will accept more of his oversight? 

I hope this isn't grasping at straws.I woudn't think so with Harbaugh. I don't think Drev himself is the issue because of the counter-indicative data of the first two years. I think the Pep for Fisch switch cost us. Were we gap? Zone? Kinda spread? read option stuff? What were we? 

I'll admit to being worried. I trust Harbaugh, but man this season sucked offensively, and way outside of play calling we have just structural problems (QB play. O line play...).

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UMFoster

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:43 AM ^

A simple approach does not mean a vanilla offense, it means that it is easier to pick up.  It has been noted multiple times that some of the younger offensive players were overwelmed because of how difficult the playbook/schemes were. 

The game is changing, you no longer have 3rd, 4th, and 5th year players starting across the board.  There are many other teams that are starting young players and have a lot of success.

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1VaBlue1

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:55 AM ^

I agree that young players can step up, and many are counted on producers for really good teams.  Witness Jake Fromm at UGA!  But also consider that UGA surrounds Fromm with 31 seniors, and doesn't ask him to win games.  They ask him to manage them with short throws, and easy routes a little further downfield.  UM was asking it's 3-headed QB monster to option routes based on safety and corner coverages, when the WRs couldn't even read those coverages.

Watch Bama shut down UGA Monday night.  They'll do the same thing they did to Clemson - stack the line to stop the run, and force a freshman QB to beat thier secondary through the air.  Fromm won't be able to do it...

My point is that young players can be really good, and relied on, but they still need to be surrounded by more experience.  Something Michigan just didn't have this year.

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UMFoster

January 3rd, 2018 at 8:50 AM ^

I agree, a lot of Fromm's success was due to him having 2 of the best RB's in the country.  A lot of it also has to do with the coaches making things simple for him.  It can't be easy for a group of first year starters to understand option routes.

Also, it's not just Fromm, and not just QB's, it's happening on most teams and at multiple positions.

I thought the young receivers were underwelming this year.  Mainly due to the inability to get them the ball in space.  DPJ is a dynamic athlete, but we were rarely able to get him the ball in space.

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JacksFootball

January 3rd, 2018 at 8:26 AM ^

Most college offenses are simple now days. Coaches call a play, QB looks to the side line, they tell him where to hand it off or where to throw it. Most exciting plays are made on broken scrambles by guys like Baker Mayfield. Harbaugh seems like he’s trying to make the QB’s make the calls at the line, as they would at the next level. This is probably why we have a lack of talented QB’s in the NFL.

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RobM_24

January 3rd, 2018 at 2:58 AM ^

So stepping away from the actual field ... how do the changes affect recruiting? It seems like Bush could be a big time recruiter. I know nothing about Enos, but everyone keeps commenting on him being a plus recruiter. Obviously Partridge is a beast. Jay's best attribute has to be recruiting. Brown and Mattison are solid. Roman can't be any worse than Drevno at recruiting. It seems like this should be a decent upgrade in that department, no?

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newtopos

January 3rd, 2018 at 4:45 AM ^

Overall, it seems like we might gain a slight bump in recruiting prowess (assuming we can hang on to Patridge) with these changes.  But plenty of folks are saying Roman hates recruiting (he has only spent two years coaching at any level in college), so the bump is limited.  If Harbaugh doubles down on the old NFL friend approach this off-season, I sure hope he demands that they pull their weight on the recruiting trail, even if it doesn't come naturally to them.  A conservative NFL offense not geared to the college game combined with lackluster recruiting is unlikely to lead Michigan to the results the fans are looking for.

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wildbackdunesman

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:53 AM ^

"If" it is true that Roman hates recruiting as you say, well it is hard to be successful day after day at something you hate.  However, we heard the same about Harbaugh before we hired him and he seems to enjoy it a lot.

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RP

January 3rd, 2018 at 5:46 AM ^

Good lord. Not being able to fire Greg Roman was one of the bigger friction points between Harbaugh and the 49ers brass/fans. Now we're bringing him here? I'm getting an uneasy feeling that this is just more of the same, and we'll be having this same conversation in 2 years.

What's the process even like? Flip through the contacts on his phone and realize an old NFL friend is still floundering as an assistant to his brother?

Even Alabama had the willingness to after the Patriots' TE coach instead of hiring some failed retread from the NFL ranks.

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1VaBlue1

January 3rd, 2018 at 8:01 AM ^

Not even close...  Nuss was brought in by Brandon, after Brandon fired Borges.  I don't think Hoke had anything - or wanted anything - to do with that whole situation.  Nuss and Hoke never stood next to each other that season, and I doubt they ever worked together well, at all.  Completely different from Harbaugh hiring the guys he wants.

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UMChick77

January 3rd, 2018 at 7:23 AM ^

I admit, I don't know anything about Roman but so many dividing opinions about him makes me a bit uncomfortable. I would have to think there would be other (better) options?

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