Baumgardner Doubles Down
As I read him, a certain critical edge has been creeping into Nick Baumgardner's reporting on Michigan, particularly on Jim Harbaugh's unexciting play-calling. This tends to confirm what a relatively unsophisticated watcher like me THINKS he's seeing, but I am really more interested in what other, more knowledgeable fans think.
The thing about Baumgardner is that he really seems to know his stuff; he breaking down last Saturday's play-making here with a sophistication that puts many other football writers to shame.
The bottom line is interesting--not wildly critical, certainly, but more measured:
"This offense puts a lot of pressure on everyone on the field to do their job perfectly on every play. That's why it's called pro-style — professionals run it.
Whether or not Michigan can accomplish that will determine how this season ends."
The piece seems important to me, for two reasons:
1) It tends to confirm the lessons and wisdom I have observed from some of the better posters here. But
2) if correct it really suggests that what Harbaugh's trying is something of a gamble. He's going to need bright and talented players, a little luck and continuity to succeed. (Learning his big-a** playbook takes a while.)
Does Baumgardner have it right? Are the risks Harbaugh's taking worth it? Or is the NFL style he's trying to roll out just too damn boring, with too many variables to ensure success?
I can see quite a lot of potential upside (long-term powerhouse in the making?). I can also see how all these things tend to suggest it might take Harbaugh longer than, say, an Urban Meyer, to start rolling up wins. . . But how do others see it?
October 2nd, 2018 at 6:32 PM ^
I'd have to go back and look, but I seem to recall a much more dynamic short passing game in 2015. It could be my own selective memory as well because I remember being surprised that a) we were running those types of passing plays, and b) they seemed to work pretty decent.
October 2nd, 2018 at 7:32 PM ^
Thank you. Anybody remember struggling to move the ball against UNLV at home? How about being up 6-0 against Maryland at halftime? That season did include games other than the Citrus Bowl.
October 2nd, 2018 at 11:58 PM ^
No doubt. I was at the Minnesota game on Halloween and we had no business winning it. VERY fortunate to pull that one out.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:15 PM ^
Did you forget last year's double screen against Ohio that would have had Wheatley Jr. either murderously trucking a lone safety or running by him?
I hope they keep all of that for PSU/Wiscy/MSU/OSU.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:33 PM ^
By that point in the season I was hammered 24 hours a day so yes, I forgot.
October 2nd, 2018 at 8:52 PM ^
You are expecting the level of complexity from Pep Hamilton as we saw from Jedd Fisch?
Let it go man!
October 2nd, 2018 at 9:58 PM ^
You do remember that Fisch was our PGC when the offensive shitshows happened at Iowa or against FSU in the 2016-17 season, right?
Edit: No, you don't. I read your other posts in this thread. You clearly have a hard-on for Jedd Fisch and think he's the answer to all our problems.
October 2nd, 2018 at 10:46 PM ^
I think what of Jedd Fisch? LOL! You're just another typical commenter on this blog. Think much before you talk?
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^
Except when you look at the metrics, our offense is better than 2015 and 2016
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
He's got us discussing his article on MGoBlog, so I guess he's done something right.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:50 PM ^
WD (discussman) had us discussing oranges or apples, so not a big accomplishment.
October 2nd, 2018 at 8:54 PM ^
You must be stopped docblueburg. There's something up with you.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
The guy's critique is that Michigan didn't show lots of new looks against a team we were supposed to beat, several weeks before things get rough(er) in our schedule. Okay.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:07 PM ^
Don't think this is accurate. He suggests that it's risky in its complexity and boring. That's what I solicited opinions about.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:21 PM ^
I think Nick, like alot of people, can't stand the fact that we don't run the spread, and don't have a named OC.
If you look at S&P we are doing okay, with an improving if dodgy offensive line. And IIRC doesn't S&P take SOS into account?
But, it's not as exciting looking. A run that blows up just stops. Its like a wet fart in a car on a long trip. We all know what happened and it just looks bad.
A bad spread pass, or read option, has more motion, more glitz!
I'm a scheme agnostic. I trust Harbaugh A) Has way more knowledge than I do and B) is looking at the film so he can win.
What will never happen, but it would be fun, would be for Harbaugh and the O coaches to bring in Baumgardner and maybe some of the more critical fans, and walk them through the film of a game. And maybe let them in a practice and show them why their great ideas won't necessarily work.
It is what it is.
October 3rd, 2018 at 12:03 AM ^
Baumgardner would LOVE that. Nothing pisses him off more than the fact he can never see a practice. I just don’t think Harbaugh gives a fuck.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
Nick B Has a unique opinion because he is one of the few guys on the beat who actually despises Michigan. Most of the writers are so pro Michigan that they have trouble being objective. When they say bad things about Michigan, it is often based on emotion and not on verifiable and objective observations. Of course, his bias is in the opposite direction. He went to Michigan State, and his subversive disdain for UM is implicit in a lot of things that he tweets and writes. I always take his information with a grain of salt, but I find that I glean more from his writing then anyone else's on the beat, with the exception of this fine blog.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:06 PM ^
Sometimes it’s nice to get an opinion from someone who doesnt have a horse in the race. Someone who is neither a Michigan fan nor a fan of a rival. But someone who is local enough that they aren’t getting just a glimpse of the program.
Unfortunately, those opinions are hard to come by in the form of informed journalism.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:55 PM ^
He certainly does not despise Michigan, although it might appear that way due to his melancholy demeanor. Almost everybody who covers Michigan roots for Michigan. It's clear Nick does not root for Michigan, but don't confuse that with him rooting against Michigan.
This neutrality allows him a certain credibility that other people covering Michigan don't have. He'll critique the coaching staff when appropriate and give them credit when appropriate. When he is complimentary of players/coaches it means more, because he is willing to go the other way.
If you disagree, read some of his stuff (or listen to his podcasts) on Beilein, and I imagine that will change your perspective.
October 2nd, 2018 at 6:32 PM ^
I respect this take, but I disagree. I follow his writing, listen to his podcast, and follow his Twitter, and I am convinced that he has the natural sparty disdain towards Michigan. He was an even more overt hater on his previous Wolverine Beat podcast with Brendan Quinn (which was awesome, IMO). His rare compliments towards Michigan are usually passive aggressive and also usually have caveats or a let’s see them prove it tone that is classic for an insecure sparty fan with a chip on his shoulder.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
Things would be much better and we probably wouldn't be having this conversation if Michigan had an elite, or at least well above average OL. But such is life as a Michigan fan, we can't have nice things apparently.
Not sure if I'd call it a "gamble" but Rome wasn't built in a day and yeah, it seems like his playbook and style doesn't lend itself to quick and easy implementation. Still, I'm not gonna go chicken little here. 10, 10, 8 and potential for 9-10 wins this year (with some luck) isn't exactly run for the hills and cry territory.
Given the prior 7 years to Harbaugh I have no problems with what he's doing here so far. OL has been an issue but it's only year 4, the cupboard was bare (OL-wise) when he arrived and couple that with some really bad luck (Newsome injury was really devastating) and some big misses on the OL recruiting trail (it happens) and unfortunately the Death Star is not quite operational yet.
October 3rd, 2018 at 12:09 AM ^
I was glad to see Devery Hamilton playing Guard in the ND game last weekend. Makes me feel better about that recruiting “miss.” Haven’t heard much on the Isaiah Wilson front to this point either. Maybe just an oversized guy playing poor competition in HS? Love our OL recruiting the past year or two. Have high hopes we’ll get back to the days of a dominating OL year in and year out.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:43 PM ^
If (when?) Harbaugh gets his pro-stuff rolling with experienced players across the field, the vast majority of college defenses will be powerless to stop it. It takes a seasoned QB to run something with a lot of checks - finally, we have an NFL worthy QB - and backups - that can run it well, but are still learning it. Experience for DM and BP this year will only help next year. Finally, we have upper classmen RBs that have more of the checks and reads downloaded, and can cutback well. Finally, we are gaining experience and depth at the WR positions. Finally, we are rebuilding depth and talent at TE - they are becoming much more involved than they were last year. The OL is finally gaining experience in this scheme as under-classmen, rather than upper-classmen undoing years of Hoke's OL prowess.
Harbaugh wants to roll experienced players, just like Saban and Sweeney are doing. But he's just now getting to the point of having an experienced team - with experience in his offense (not Hoke's). The offense will be okay. (And don't even try comparing the defense - Hoke left a good defense with an excellent DC in Mattison.)
Offenses like OSU's can be stopped/slowed by good college defenses, like Michigan's fields. And when stopped, they are so simple as to have nothing to fall back on - other than outstanding athleticism across the field. When Harbaugh's offense is rolling, it will be far more resilient against a really good defense than anything Meyer fields. It will be Saban-like, in that it will have something to fall back on that works.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:49 PM ^
Finally, I got to the final usage of finally in your first paragraph. Excessive use of a word that should inherently only be used once notwithstanding, your post represents a valuable opinion that is underrepresented. Excellence takes time to build, and we are under construction with some promising early results.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
Excellence takes time to build, and we are under construction with some promising early results.
Why does every one of your posts sound like you're applying for a job at hallmark?
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:17 PM ^
Nah, they don't, but I am not ashamed to admit that I am a pro Michigan fan. I try to be objective, but error on the side of optimism - because I think spectator sports are primarily for entertainment and pleasure. I derive a great deal of pleasure from Michigan sports, and I try to share my positivity with other Michigan fans on this blog. Maybe you should go to a buckeye or sparty blog to satisfy your taste for bitterness towards Michigan.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:13 PM ^
Yeah, but heres the problem. The teams that win it all do it off of the backs of the super athletes. It doesn't matter what scheme you run if the other guys are bigger and faster to the point that their athleticism makes up for their mistakes.
In order to get those guys, you've gotta recruit well. In order to recruit well you've got to win. Another few years of finishing with 9-10 wins but losing to ND, MSU, PSU, and OSU and our recruiting is going to be poo.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:33 PM ^
I think if Michigan keeps winning 10 games a season they will continue to recruit in the top 15 in the country, which is good enough to win with.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:10 PM ^
Keep telling yourself this buddy. OSU is an elite offensive team that is rarely slowed or stopped even by very good college defenses. Clemson is the only team ever to really stop them.
Harbaughs offense has not even been close to elite. How many years should it take to build this? And why in the fuck should we run an offense that is so complicated that it takes upperclassmen in every position to succeed.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:36 PM ^
Harbaugh's first recruiting class are now Juniors. Everyone knew this was going to be a 5 year project when he came on, it's just that he raised expectations immediately and now people like you won't stop bitching that we aren't Alabama yet.
October 2nd, 2018 at 6:40 PM ^
"Everyone knew"? At least two years ago, lots of people here were confidently predicting we'd contend for a national championship in 2018, and that was before we got Patterson. Not sure who this "everyone" is.
October 2nd, 2018 at 7:17 PM ^
"Everyone knew" That is total horseshit, everyone on this blog when he was hired was predicting a big ten title by year 3 and contending with OSU and Alabama. Don't give me that crap. Nobody is upset that we're not Alabama, we don't even have a winning record against our in state rival, that is why we are upset.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:51 PM ^
"Everyone knew"
HA. What a load of absolute crap. 99.99% of Wolverine nation was predicting beating MSU, OSU, and conference titles by at least year 3. Get out of here with that revisionist history. Bottom line is Harbaugh hasn't lived up to virtually anyone's expectations since taking the Michigan job.
October 2nd, 2018 at 7:11 PM ^
I love JH as our head coach. During his first 3 years plus 5 games, he has a 32-12 record (72.7%). We should be happy with that. Unfortunately, UM is in the same conference with Ohio State. During Urban Meyer's first 3 years plus 5 games, he was 43-3 (93.5%) with a National Championship. During his last 40 games, Urbz has cooled off to 35-5 (a "lowly" 87.5%). Tough act by our arch-rival for JH to follow. Plus most of us MGoFans agree that we see no coach we would want to replace Harbaugh.
In some ways, Jim is an exact coaching philosophy flip-flop from RR. RichRod was hell-bent on developing a spread offense. He insisted his DCs implement his favored 3-3-5 defense despite its continued failure, because he thought we'd simply always score more points than our opponents. Didn't work out. Now Harbaugh insists on a difficult to learn pro offense which has its learning shortcomings, but its not important because our D is so dominant. The jury is still out on its ultimate success.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:15 PM ^
Um, we haven't been able to stop OSU's offense 2 our of the 3 times we've played them under Harbaugh. And one of those was with a very good experienced defense.
October 3rd, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
Exactly.
Everyone always wants to talk about how Harbaugh is an Xs and Os genius compared to Meyer, Dabo, etc. and the rest of the spread guys. But here's what I contend:
The best scheme is
- A scheme that's easiest to implement and simplest for your players to learn quickly and execute properly.
- A scheme that your opponent can't stop, even if they know what's coming.
Well we all know that Harbaugh's scheme is anything but easy for players to learn and execute. Same for Jimbo Fisher.
We also know that LOTS of teams stop our offense all the time.
But by contrast, teams like OSU and Meyer's spread system are much simpler for players to pickup and execute and hardly anyone can stop them. For cripes sakes we KNEW, the whole damn stadium KNEW that JT Barrett was going to keep and run the freakin ball. And we STILL could hardly stop the man whenever we played them.
THAT'S what I call the best scheme. We know what Meyer wants to do, it's hardly complicated...and yet he still beats us every time.
Bottom line is our offenses haven't been able to execute, and opposing defenses have been able to stop us. Whereas other offenses HAVE been able to execute, and our defense hasn't been able to stop it. At least not enough to actually win the game.
Therefore, I contend that we are not running the best scheme possible for college athletes.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^
Thanks for the post Jimmy! Hope you are right!
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:57 PM ^
You must be joking? Our offense could be harder to stop than OSUs?
OSU has a terrific offense. They statistically crush us. We are literally years away from their level of effectiveness.
Their offense is not simple. Every play has a counter. Lots of misdirection. Most importantly, it is all quick hitting.
Our plays take too long to develop and require lots of things to go right. Multiple people must make the same read. Blocks must be held too long.
There is a reason even the NFL has moved away from 1990s era offenses. The world figured out how to stop them.
I am not saying I want us to go spread, but we need an offense (and play callers) that can take what the defense gives us. All those NW run blitzes, for example, were just begging for us to throw slants at them. Instead, we kept running into the run blitzers.
October 3rd, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
If you want to see an example of a ludicrously complicated "pro-style" offense that's virtually unstoppable and shreds opponents left and right, go back and watch Jimbo Fisher's 2013 Florida State team. They put on a clinic of the same kind of offense that Harbaugh wants to run.
One massive problem with this offense though: It's almost impossible to "reload" year after year. Even with the same QB 2014 Florida State saw significant drop off in offensive production and a loss in the playoff. 2015 saw even more drop-off.
I agree that this "pro-style" offense that Harbs wants to run is absurdly lethal when executed properly, but I just don't think we can keep it up year after year with high output consistency. It's not as easy to pick up on and execute like the PSU, OSU, Clemson style offenses are. So while these other teams are "reloading" every year and hardly missing a beat, we'll be stuck in a more dramatic cycle of high output, drop off, drop off, drop off, high output, drop off, drop off, drop off. Obviously there's room for variance there but you get my point.
I'm concerned with how well we can maintain a high level of performance with Harbaugh's offense compared to a simpler "power spread" style offense. It can work in the NFL because all guys do is live and breath football and you can often have the same guys for longer than 4 years. In college, you've got maybe 4 years of actual onfield playing (if you're lucky) plus these are kids coming right out of high school. Much steeper learning curve.
I'm in no mood to become Iowa 2.0 and only put together a great season once every 4 years.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:45 PM ^
Those who stay will be champions. Trust the process stay calm. Win. The. Game.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:45 PM ^
What is the point of this article?
He spent all this time to "analyze" the offense to come to the conclusion that Harbaugh is unwilling to make drastic changes to his base offense.
I think everyone here could have told him that.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:00 PM ^
On the contrary, word was that big changes were afoot this year.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:52 PM ^
Was that straight from anyone on the coaching staff or from insider reports?
October 2nd, 2018 at 6:02 PM ^
Did Harbaugh ever say that?
Most assumed because of Patterson's arrival it would change, but in reality Patterson is here to NOT run the spread.
October 2nd, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^
I mean Michigan has immediately started operating out of shotgun more because of Shea.
But that doesn't mean the offense is fundamentally different than before.
October 2nd, 2018 at 9:02 PM ^
Shea Patterson's ability to run is why Michigan beat Northwestern. Or Michigan would have lost like last year in that game.
October 2nd, 2018 at 4:46 PM ^
It seems like Harbaugh is treating UM football more like a professional organization - not as much emphasis on recruiting and more on coaches and analysts.
Urban Douche has it figured out - recruit elite talent, keep it simple, let the kids take over on Saturday, and simply win with superior talent.
College ball is all recruiting, just ask Saban.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:23 PM ^
You hit on what I think the most important thing that distinguishes Meyer from other great coaches -- he's a master at putting his players, especially his QBs, in the best position not to fail.
This is not the same as putting them in the best position to succeed, although he's good at that too.
In other words, his game plans work even when the players do fine or average b/c they rarely make killer mistakes. And they rarely make killer mistakes b/c they're rarely asked to do things that run that kind of risk.
I'm not saying that's the only reason he's a good coach or the only reason he succeeds, nor am I saying he's not a complete scumbag (he is).
October 3rd, 2018 at 2:15 PM ^
I would argue that this IS putting them in the best position to succeed. It's the simplest, easiest plan, and their opponents can't stop it. Complex != Better.
October 2nd, 2018 at 5:32 PM ^
Everyone who has every played, coached, or watched a team sport at any level has figured out that obtaining top talent is a priority.