Great ESPN Article and Really Sums Up Where our Program is Now and Waiting for Next Year.

There are some very good football minds who post here now and again on here and have for years. Love reading their stuff.

Then there are bunch of people who haven't exhibited much knowledge. And they are the most pessimistic, dramatic, and work the hardest to make weak equivalences with past coaches or other programs to belittle Harbaugh and Michigan.

It's a waste of time reading their comments and dialoguing with them. It always ends in the same place: "blah, blah, blah v. our rivals", ""blah, blah, blah 9 million dollar salary" or a conclusion about how players apparently don't improve as they advance classes during their career and will always struggle like they did as freshmen and sophomores. 

Same tired script. And facts don't matter.  Really looks like the stuff of scalded whiners who can't deal with smack from MSU fans or something.

and I will have none of it!

from being true B1G contenders. I look at the toss up games being @ MSU, @ NU home against PSU, WI and @ ND. I'm even a bit worried about a Frost lead NE team stealing one at our place. If we get one of our young QB to come out of the competition as a QB who will complete more than 60 percent of his passes and be able to throw the ball downfield, then I say we have a good chance of beating all 5 or at least 4 of the 5 toss up games.  OSU at home will be tough to win but not impossible but I'll put that one in the loss column. Overall a drastic improvement in QB play and an improvement in OL will lead to a much better rushing attack and combine that with next season's stellar D, we should win 10 games. However, if all our QBs turn out to be so/so and we keep changing QBs and the OL does not make progress and teams still keep 8 or 9 in the box to stop our running game, I could see Michigan going 2-3 in the toss up games and losing to OSU on the road for a 4 loss season or may be even a 5 loss season.  I just hope one of our QBs turn out to be good to great and helps the team improve to a 10 win season. Then with the better 2019 schedule, we will have  good chance of winning the B1G and making the playoffs.

There are always issues and concerns about a team and its development over the course of a season and where it is and what it needs to do to get better.

This team needs a qualified qb who can move the team at will and an Oline that can protect him and move the ball consistently. Those issues retarded the team's growth this past seasob. Qb play throughout the year was directly impacted by injury from poor Oline play.

Playcalling suffered because of poor Oline play and qb injury. I don't know enough about the gameplans and playbook to know why certain things were called and others weren't. Maybe others can assess this and make a more valid connection between calling long, drawn out pass plays instead of others that minimized protection issues both on the line and in the backfield.

Clearly, this team hasn't performed the way anyone wants or expects it ought to based on  this coach's reputation for achievement, which, to me, is the bigger expectation than the actual condition of the program and its future under this coach. It's the anticipation of greater success that drives most of the angst here. And clearly this coach needs to perform and exact certain results because this isn't a patient fan base, Not that any fan base is.

But at the same time, this coach has never bowed to the presssure of the situation and has always maintained a forward-looking approach. Consider that after three NFL championship seasons with the 49ers and then a subpar season he came to Ann Arbor. I still think it was a marvelous and fortunate hire, and that his salary is what it is because that's what it took to bring him to campus. He's getting paid market value for his services. Period.

You don't win in football at any level without a good quarterback who can make plays. And outside of one great quarterback at Stanford, Harbaugh has never had a franchise quarterback. He's had to coach up whomever he had or inherited.

This has been his experience at Michigan. And in all three years of his tenure, he has never relied on what the roster already provided, he went out and got a transfer to enhance the qb competition. He doesn't give automatic redshirts and fifth-year eligibility has to be earned.

Those are competition perameters fir players. He's altered his coaching staff yearly since first putting it together. There are certain constants but his staff has changed annually with guys moving in and out of their own accord or otherwise.

I find it ludicrous for an article to suggest uncertainty about an upcoming season, when uncertainty is always the certainty about an upcoming season. Except for schedule, which, for Michigan while difficult next year with many road challenges, sets up manageable gameplanning. In any case, there is nothing to be done about it, and complaining about it is rather silly at this point.

Harbaugh didn't choose to put ND back on the schedule, and he won't shirk about playing another rival, even if it's an opening night game. This team will be ready for that contest and I expect a dynamic season next year filled with the kind of success that we all seek.

THIS! Been saying this for almost 2 years and it's the first time I've read it somewhere. Teams that make as many mental errors as we do are NOT coached/drilled in fundamentals. Its just the way sports works. You can't build the house without the foundation. That's why Alabama is elite. Not only do they get the top recruits, but then they coach them up with fundamentals before heading to technique and scheme. In every sport, there is a huge jump from high school to college. Its part physical, mental (both on and off the field), as well coaching them on fundamentals to correct previous coaching (not everyone had a great coach in HS).  If Harbaugh wants to continue with this offensive scheme, then he must coach and demand excellence in the fundamentals. They are kids, not proferssionals. They are kids who have potential, but are nowhere close to finsihed products. Yes, you can mask some of that with a proper scheme and athleticism in today's sporting world, but winners are fundamentally sound. We are not there yet on the offensive side of the ball.

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverin…

Michigan's offense was complex, yes. It was an NFL offense that works with NFL personnel, or seasoned college players who are ready to take the next step. Michigan had neither.

This was a young football team that needed more skill development. The next version of this coaching staff must adjust to this. 

I'll write this until I'm blue in the face: You can adjust scheme and change concepts until you're blue in the face. But if players aren't fundamentally sound, it doesn't matter what you run. None of it will work.