Your opinion of Harbaugh: what went right, what went wrong, and what's next?
I think the program is where most thought it would be, at least in terms of overall records: 10-3, 10-3, and 8-5 were pretty much expected outcomes. Below, I've included things that I think are reasonably within his control
I'll start things off.
The Good
- Don Brown, Ed Warinner, Ben Herbert, and Chris Partridge--generally awesome hires
- Solid recruiting--tailing off a bit right now, but that probably gets fixed with a good season
- Generating buzz--added some pizzazz and visibility to the program
- 2015-2016 playcalling
The Bad
- Tim Drevno & OL--Not sure how Harbaugh could've seen that coming with Drevno's history of results, but in the end, he put program loyalty over personal loyalty and made a change
- 2017 offense playcalling--I know that the OL was rough, but Harbaugh successfully schemed ways around those kinds of weaknesses in previous years; this is probably an artifact of QB play
What's Next
- 2018 is going to be a rough year, especially in dealing with the fanbase, given the schedule. Harbaugh will probably survive but not thrive. However, plenty of excellent video games and chess will take place during the year, so there's that.
- But 2019 is looking very Natty-like, especially with the OL/QB/fully weaponized WRs. ND, Michigan State, Ohio State at home. South Africa. Non-chaos Indiana before The Game. Tasty.
Edit: Army is better than I remembered.
Harbaugh's first recruited QB was a redshirt freshman last year. I'd say the verdict is still out on whether he can grow QBs at Michigan.
Longer look back says Brandon hiring Hoke is what went wrong-est.
Right: Harbaugh is the right coach for Michigan
I admit, it may be a little out there but this is how I see it. The Notre Dame game is critical for the team in terms of narrative and pressure, if they come out and lose that one, then I see the season spiraling down as a lot of other teams will smell blood, much the way they did in Hoke's last year and the team can't respond every week to the various do or die scenarios.
I just need to see this team play a road game where they actually look settled, the offensive line able to pass protect against a wet sack being blown down the field, and for someone, anyone on the team to make a big play when it matters. Without those things, I see 5-7.
The 2014 season didn't spiral down because teams "smelled blood" or because the team "didn't respond". It spiraled because the team stunk.
Fine, a lack of self-belief led things to spiral the moment anything went wrong in a crazily pressure packed year, see Maryland game. Along with teams figuring Michigan was vulnerable and then playing at an elevated level of play, see Rutgers game.
Either way, the parallels right now aren't my favorite.
Even if you think the team will lose all of it's games to ranked opponents (ND, Wisc, MSU, PSU, OSU), they would still need to lose 2 more games. How? Nebraska at home? At Northwestern? Maryland at home? Indiana at home? C'mon, man.
The luck is eventually going to run out against Indiana and NorthWestern.
Nebraska is going to be fired up for their first Big Ten Road game under their own hot new coach who came home.
There's space for something bad to happen.
Not a big gambler, but appreciate the internet tough-guying.
I could understand picking us to lose @ND, @MSU, @OSU, and vs. Wisconsin. Maybe you throw PSU in there because of last year, although I counter that with the previous year and PSU losing a lot. So, on top of those 5, I struggle to see where you get 2 more losses between WMU, SMU, Nebraska, @NW, Maryland, @Rutgers, Indiana. Our defense alone will probably outscore most of those teams.
Look at last year's schedule. Even if you think that this year's team will be worse than last year, you've already got 4 of the 5 losses and the 5th is trading a loss @ND for the win over Florida. You could point to Indiana, but we get them at home instead of on the road. I suppose you could look at Purdue because that game was such a fluke for O'Korn. That's literally the only way to get to 7 losses based on last year's schedule unless you think that Michigan will be worse this year.
One(or even two) loss(es) between Nebraska or @ Northwestern. Nebraska is going to be fired up in their first year under Frost and will want a big scalp for that first year, either that or Michigan's insane luck against NorthWestern finally runs out.
Something stupid happening against one of the other three Big Ten teams. Michigan's luck against Indiana is eventually going to run out, and Maryland and Rutgers may just have a big day.
Anyone who assumes we’ll beat ND, MSU, OSU, PSU, or Wisconsin is either utterly clueless or hopelessly delusional about the reality of Michigan football right now. At this point in the year, there is ZERO reason to expect wins in any of those games. There just isn’t. You can HOPE we win all day but to EXPECT a win in any of them is just absurd until proven otherwise.
As far as the rest of the schedule, um, have you watched Michigan football since Lloyd’s last season? Indiana takes it to us virtually every year and we need a miracle to escape with a win. Nebraska won’t be a cakewalk either with Scott Frost at the helm. And Northwestern won 10 games last year man. They’re no pushover.
And it’s not like our defense gets many take aways. We may be a top 10 unit but we were 87th in takeaways per game last year. That’s hardly anything to rely on for our defense outscoring opponents.
Until this offense demonstrates on game days that they’re actually capable of executing the offense, we have zero evidence based reasons to expect any sort of big time wins.
The first three years I expected the players to be able to execute simply because Jim Harbaugh and his coaching reputation and prowess. But at this point, I expect nothing and will require proof before I will believe and proclaim our greatness or winning capability.
has been a major chink in JH's armor. The issue has been one of recruiting, yes, but also the lack of improvement among the players.
Yes, a lot of that might be put on Drevno, but, combining gap and zone shemes with Frey last year was a major F up.
There might be something to Dan Antonio's comments about UM having run 35 different sets in last year's game. The O line looked confused a lot of the time.
Hopefully. Warinner will repair the issue. I remember thinking a lot of years that OSU's line would suffer due to youth but they always came through. It all starts with the O line IMO. UM's lack of offense over the past two years has hung the D out over and over again.
Some might blame Drevno for the issues we've had but this is big boy football and it all rolls uphill. Drevno, IMO, is an example of why the "meritocracy" line is somewhat bullshit. He got three years which was at least one year too many.
I have similar doubts about JayBaugh.
I really wonder how that happened. Frey on his own is a great hire, though the way he was deployed and how things got complicated in the offensive scheme--that was a downer. Was that Harbaugh forcing Drevno into a bad decision? Was it a way to transition Drevno into more playcalling/coordinator duties by reducing his position group workload? I'm not sure.
I see no issue with it, honestly.
Well, actually, while they might not have been in the plurality of MGoBloggers, there were some 8-4 / 9-3 people in the numerous prediction threads last summer and many of those people, as I recall, were skittish (rightfully so, it turns out) about what the team would look like when it had the ball. Granted, there were also a lot of people that thought we were a shoe-in for a high-end bowl if not the CFP, but a fair number of people - however frustrated they may have been - kind of (key words, "kind of") called it in August.
of mgoblog. going to be a long summer
Seriously, what the hell else is there to talk about?
MGoBlog, when things are not talked about...people bitch. When things are talked about...people bitch.
I love baseball as much as the next guy, but I don't want to see it all over the blog every day either.
That's the idea behind this post. Also, there's only a small part of it that asks to make predictions.
In general, I was hoping that if people thought about what exactly was under Harbaugh's control, the amount of being pissed off about rivalry games, etc. would decrease.
He did the right thing coming back to Michigan and as a fan I am happy that he is our coach. In 90% of the games played we have been competitive and that's about all I can ask for after the Rodriguez and Hoke years.
What we right: he stopped wearing those "Woody Hayes" glasses.
What went wrong: he started wearing them in the first place.
What's next? Lasik.
2. The ole “going to be rough year, but in 2 years watch out”......you do realize the talent that will likely be gone after this year, right?
3. Discrediting a service academy team
1. Herbert has had, and continues to get, strong reviews from without and within the program
2. Talent will graduate from the defense...which did fantastically in 2017 under similar circumstances
3. Not sure what you mean by 'discrediting,' but Army has done worse than GT, Navy, and Air Force; as such, I've categorized them as the 'least threatening' of that sub-group.
Edit: I think Army was stronger than I originally thought. Apparently, they've beaten Navy the last couple of years.
But it was this guy's reviews from other programs that you can turn to, perhaps.
We can look at 17 as a "transition year". Combination of bad QB play, weak and inconsistent OL and inexperience at WR led to bad offense. Amazing how much of an impact the Newsome injury had on OL. Lot of pressure on young D to keep them in games, which they did, but spent too much time on the field.
Patterson hopefully solves the QB issue, hopefully DCaff coming on to be the back up over Peters. Coaching, experience and Black coming back makes WR's better. Hopefully the same on OL especially if Warriner develops T's. Excited about TE's, combo of McKeon and Gentry could be incredible. D is going to be scary good.
Even with tough schedule, could be talking about 9-10 win team this year.
I'd rather have coaching the maize and blue then
Coach Harbaugh. Go Blue.
-84k is nuts.
I remember when you posted about Charles Matthews something to the effect of: "He's gone. It is what it is."
That's exactly the kind of bullshit, sky-is-falling, panicked nonsense this place needs more of. I'm sure your Harbaugh takes are just as hot.
Criticism of Harbaugh's QB coaching from somebody with the handle of "Sugar Shane."
No one could predict that in year 4 of Harbaugh our offense would not be much further ahead than during Hoke's time.
I'm not having this conversation with this board during this off season. Some of you are able to rationally discuss the nature of things and the rest of you listen to too much Michigan sports radio.
It can get kinda rough, but if you ignore the crap, there are plenty of interesting and generally worthwhile conversations to be had.
I hear you, but I'm starting to think it's more for PR than personal vendettas. I imagine that football culture is very machismo, so he's doing his thing for those stakeholders, especially recruits.