The Unfortunate Pivot Point

And the negs confirm it....

Hard to look too much into cherrypicked records and timelines. I can't give too much weight to this turning point or 9-8 record in the transcribed window.

That said, the one sample size that is becoming not so small is a disturbing inability to finish games under Jim Harbaugh; something that falls mostly on the offense, but also on the defense in some of these games. 

Michigan gave up late second half leads to:

• MSU 2015 (flukey, I know)
• Iowa 2016
• OSU 2016
• FSU 2016
• Indiana 2017 (yes we won, but we allowed them to charge back rapidly to send it to OT after a decent 4th quarter lead)
• Ohio State and Wisconsin 2017 we had late 3rd quarter leads, but were completely ineffective in the 4th of both. 
• South Carolina 2017

That list is becoming long enough to signify that we are a decidedly poor fourth quarter team in close games and at least some part of that is a combination of mentality/culture/coaching/conditioning. 

The only real examples of close game resilience were against inferior Minnesota and Indiana teams all the way back in 2015. Suppose you could maybe add Indiana 2016 in there after we were trailing early in the snow bowl. Even our one, 4th quarter game win against a good team (Wisconsin 2016) we dragged it out because the offense couldn't get a first down and we had missed 3 field goals to keep the Badgers alive anyways. 

I think the biggest issue has been leadership, not from coaches but from players.  Up until that Iowa game everything went pretty good in all the games.  Then the closest thing we had to a leader gets hurt and starts to doubt himself.  Same with the start of this year.  Once Speight went down, there was really no player who took the baton and gathered the troops when stuff started to spiral out of control to refocus the team and make it stop.  That was clearly evident in the bowl game.  In 2015, I think the leadership Rudock provided was taken for granted.

Jesus, this might end up being a rant, but can we stop with the HAWT TAKES. This idea that Harbaugh is somehow a terrible coach because of a handful of results is just idiocy. The general consensus was that this was a 9-3, maybe 10-2 if they catch a couple of breaks, type of year. That was assuming that we'd get pre-Iowa Witlon Speight. 

I think it's fair to lay the blame at Harbaugh's feet for bringing in O'Korn in the first place and the fact that Brandon Peters didn't look great in the bowl game. Fine. But, how many teams go 8-5 if they lose 10 defensive starters, their entire receiving core minus one slot type, and 3/5 of their OL AND lose their starting QB. Does MSU go 10-3 if Lewerke goes down in Game 4? Unlikely. Look at FSU and Jimbo Fisher. Not heading to the playoff when they have to throw a Freshman QB in there, are they?

Also, I've written an entire diary basically demonstrating that Harbaugh has had terrible luck. Go to Michigan's Football Study Hall page. Their expected TO margin was +5.2. They ended up -4. Harbaugh's lost 11 games in 3 years. Those are:

1. A 7-point loss on the road at a good Utah team.

2. A 5-point loss at home to a Michigan State team that makes the playoff only because of a 1-in-a-million fluke play.

3. A 30-point loss at home against Ohio State in a game that was within 4 at halftime.

4. A 1-point loss at Iowa at night in a game that featured 100 different things that went wrong for Michigan (and let's remember the vaunted OSU team got destroyed at Kinnick this year)

5. A 3-point loss in Columbus in OT in a game where the officiating could kindly be described as "shady".

6. A 1-point loss in the Orange Bowl to FSU in a game where they're missing their best defensive player AND a walk-on blows a Special Teams tackle at the wrong time.

7. A 4-point loss at home against MSU in a game where their backup QB throws 5 INTs in a rainstorm. 

8. A demolition in Happy Valley (that was 14-13 at the half).

9. A two-possession loss in Madison in a game that Michigan leads deep into the 3rd Q before the starting QB gets knocked out.

10. A two-possession loss at home vs OSU where Michigan has the ball down 4 with 3 minutes left WITH JOHN O'KORN AT QB.

11. A loss in the Outback Bowl against an average SEC team in which Michigan blows a 19-3 lead.

If there's a trend that I see, it's a mixture of just crap luck:

- The Play That Shall Not Be Named

- Ron Coluzzi, Golden God (remember Michigan is up 10-0 and showing zero issues with Iowa before Coluzzi's punt bounces at the 1, straight up into the air, leading to the safety that turns the game around)

- The Spot and the Refereeing in Columbus

With some really untimely TOs thrown in:

- Issac's fumble in this year's MSU game (remember Michigan is marching down the field for the 2nd time in two drives when Issac coughs it up, leading to a MSU score). 

- Higdon's fumble in the bowl game where Michigan is poised to go up 23-3 and probably be able to salt it away

- Speight's fumble on the 1 at Columbus where Michigan is poised to go up 24-7 or Metellus' dropped INT in this year's game

Yes, I'm not thrilled with the way this year ended, but they spent most of 2016 in the Top 5 and bring back basically 17 starters next year.

The offense the last couple years under Hoke was pretty atrocious.  At some point we have to quit playing hot potato with coaches and let someone run their system, and build something.  Harbaugh is doing fine, the sky is not falling, and in my lifetime Michigan hasn't been a 11-0 team every year.  There is a ceiling, and there is a floor.  I think this season we just hit our floor.  The ceiling?  Hopefully its more than 10-3.  

I just opened this thread to look for the dead horse.  I think he needs some more beating.

The post-Iowa record is rapidly becoming the new "1-5 against our rivals" talking point for hot take artists arguing Michigan/Harbaugh sucks.  My dad (a lifelong Michigan fan who's been increasingly complainy about the state of the program this season) a couple days ago pointed out this same stat line after some click-bait seeking sportswriter used it to build a narrative (I forget who, because I didn't pay attention to that part of the conversation).  So (a) good job just passing off someone else's hot take as yours and (b) everything Seth and other people have said above.  There's no pivot, there's no team psyche issue.  There's a couple of bad bounces, a bunch of QB injuries, and like 13 guys sent off to the NFL.  This season sucked, no argument.  Most people kinda expected it to suck (wasn't our pre-season over/under 8.5 wins?), then some bad stuff happened, and shockingly the bad stuff resulted in the expected sucking.  Am I disappointed in the lack of development from Peters and the receivers?  Yeah.  But they're all young, and I'm not willing to posit that Harbaugh has forgotten how to coach and develop or evaluate players.  Next season has a tough schedule, but I believe we'll be a much better team than this year, and I honestly don't think there's a game on the schedule we can't win (not saying I think we're going undefeated, just think there's no game we should be uncompetitive).   

and now you want to debate it? Makes no sense to me. No one knows for certain what a certain injury takes out of any given player. Although we don't know the particular injury, we sure in hell know what it took out of the man and no one can say they would have reacted any differently. It makes perfect sense, to me anyway, that new into a changing of the program, we would be severely deficient as to depth, at all positions. I say the play with Hoke's leftovers with two decent qbs is far more indicative of the play minus those, replaced by freshmen and without any decent qb.....to date. This will be the year to make decisions. There is no reason for anyone on this site to say 'Next year" He'll have had plenty of time to have made his case. 

My money is on him and fuck any pivot point.