Has Harbaugh Invented a New College Offense?

I would say that pretty much every coach/coordinator has their own system to some degree.

To me what defines the Harbaugh systems is a willingness to merge old concepts with what’s new at the time. All coaches do this to some extent, but Harbaugh likes to pull things out that seem somewhat archaic. The power of this approach is that it throws things at defenses that they’re not used to stopping and sometimes aren’t designed to stop due to personnel.

Merging historical concepts allows Harbaugh to be novel without completely reinventing the wheel, which is what a lot of coordinators (Rich Rod) depend on. There’s only so much novelty you can implement while staying within the rules of the game, so it makes sense to cycle in things that worked in the past. Defenses have to primarily design themselves around the popular offenses of the day, so anything you can do to create mismatches or give them a novel challenge gives the offense an advantage.

I guess that’s my long way of saying, yeah, I pretty much agree with your take. I would just point out that there are many other coaches also doing unique things. 

Shhhh! Competitors might be reading this.  
 

thanks for posting-definitely different but I have no idea if new.

When the pieces all come together on the game board and you have talent and skill at key positions, it enables you to do a variety of different things with success. 

I'm not one to complaint about posts but it's a banner day out here with this one, the 'reffing crew' one and the vague post about PSU with no link. Bye week, I guess. This post might not be bad - I didn't read the whole thing because I couldn't get past the vasectomy part...which I'm not sure was necessary information for a post on this here mgoblog.

Anyway, I'll go back to doing more important stuff in my real life now. Thrilled to see what pops up on the board next!

It's definitely unique in CFB right now but doesn't feel new.

And, as great as it is, I do think we need to be able to hit some long passes if we are going win a MNC, and even beat Ohio.

Hoping we start to see more of that soon.

BTW--Ohio won an MNC with a "power spread" that was basically running down 'Bama's throat and then hitting long passes when their safeties got sucked-up.  I believe our offense can be even better than that 2014 OSU version.

I don't have the trained eye that Seth and Brian have for football plays but the offense doesn't look any different than it's looked since Harbaugh first took over.  There might be wrinkles here and there to base plays but it's all just blocking, tackling, throwing and running AFAIC.  I just think we're executing everything better over the past two years than we did previously.  And that starts with the OL that is going from really good last season to potentially great this season.

I don't think Harbaugh invented anything.

What we're seeing at Michigan the past two years is a complete and utter rip-off of what John Harbaugh has done with the Baltimore Ravens. I've been saying this since last season. Last season's offense was more Matt Weiss than Josh Gattis. 

We're seeing guards and wide receivers and tight ends pulling. This is exactly what the Ravens have been doing with Willie Snead, Patrick Ricard, etc. for the past few years with Lamar Jackson. Michigan just doesn't have a Lamar Jackson. The only thing we haven't seen much of is power read/counter read (although there have been small doses), because McNamara can't run it and they probably want to keep McCarthy from running too much.

The short answer is only if many other teams copy this type of offense.

Some teams are much better at facets of offense, like how well the Buckeyes QB & passing attack is. Others use the run, the way Wisc did about 5-15 years ago. Then there's the triple option in which only a few teams specialize in.

Great post, I think, but a new rule is needed.

any post longer than a paragraph-ish needs to include a ld;dr feature as well.

A really interesting point. I don't know enough x's and o's to really say, but it does seem clear that Michigan has a lot in their arsenal (when they choose to really trot it out) that teams simply aren't used to seeing. And one constant with Harbaugh at Michigan is that he often unveils unique/rare run plays throughout the season, sometimes with mixed success. So there's probably an argument to be made that Harbaugh has synthesized something new here

"...and that was when Dickens decided it was time to put the football fandom aside to pursue more substantive literary endeavors."

What I took from it was don't get a vasectomy or I'll stop watching football. Thanks for the advice.

I'll add my voice to those who don't know enough about the bits and bytes of football X's and O's to specifically answer the question but...I am Harbaugh's age and I grew up in Ann Arbor going to every game with my dad in the 70's, watching Bo's Dennis Franklin/Rick Leach teams run the option over and around everyone (until the bowl games, but that's another story).

Harbaugh watched the same thing from the sidelines while his dad was on Bo's staff and of course went on to a very successful college and pro career as a QB. Is it any surprise at all that he's married to old school football based on strong OL/DL, power running and somewhat select use of the passing game?

What's fascinating to me is that as offenses have evolved over the decades and the rules have opened up to favor more scoring, Harbaugh has remained committed to his old school concepts. I accept that he's also incorporated 'modern' concepts in ways that I'm not knowledgeable enough to describe, but he's primarily a power guy.

Even Nick Saban realized a few years back that he needs to be able to score 40+ points to beat the high powered offenses they play in the BCS/CFP (although now he apparently needs to be able to score 50+ points...)!

I can't think of another Power 5 program off the top of my head that is as committed to what I'm loosely calling the power game as Michigan is with Harbaugh at the helm. And not only is it amazing to watch, perhaps more so for those of us that remember watching Bo's teams in person, but I agree with OP's suggestion that it's quite unique right now. Even if it's not actually revolutionary.

It's kind of crazy that you don't see more teams using multiple TE sets. Good TEs act as both lineman and receivers. Super versatile. The Patriots built a dynasty on the back of their TEs. 

In CFB, I know Georgia has a ridiculous TE room. Haven't watched them enough to see if they are running 3 TE sets. If not, they should be, they are stacked. 

This might be a good place to drop this excellent video analyzing many of UM’s run plays. 

Whew.

You lied. You don't have kids or you wouldn't have been able to write that whole thing. 

"Who's got it better than us?" Anyone who didn't bother to read this thread. Foolishly,  I fell for it.

Bunch of dudes in here really weirded out about another mentioning his vasectomy.  Of course some "I can't read for 3 straight minutes" comments too.  Par for the course.

I think I follow what others are mentioning in that yea, nothing on its own is novel or invented.  At first I would disagree with your initial premise/question but thinking on it and realizing the bonding of elements new and old it is a bit of an outlier of am offense.  Again maybe not "new" but it isn't as far from a novel offense as we might initially think.  The lighting of downs on fire over some seasons has grown rather annoying but hell, it very well may be part of some grand scheme we're unable to see in the micro right now.

I make no claim to expertise, but it seems to me that Harbaugh and his staff are choosing to deploy formations that make best use of their resources.  Since these include a dominating o-line, great RBs, and strong TEs, it is unsurprising (but very gratifying) that they have found ways to use them effectively. It is equally unsurprising that these ways have been used before, but they deserve credit for doing the research. Or using common sense?

It does mean that some talents seem underused, but I suspect that they will be developing them in practice for when they are needed. Meanwhile, we roll along.

Go Blue!

Excellent, interesting OP, especially for a bye week.

What I want to focus on is something JBL, and maybe SKJR and others, have touched on, but what I think is the most important point. It's the vase......no, I'm kidding. 

In an era, where everything in CFB is progressing to more speed, faster tempo, more passing, more scoring.....Harbaugh has chosen to focus on power, physicality, and methodically grinding down a defense with the run game. Thankfully, he has now began integrating more QB runs, zone reads, and RPOs, and also speedy receivers, into this while keeping the physical elements in place as the main course. In other words, Harbaugh has primarily run back the clock to focus on something other teams are ill-equipped to deal with. Just as Michigan had (and still has) trouble with a running QB and spread concepts, other teams are finding that they can't deal easily with Michigan's physicality.

To fully develop this offense, we need to be able to have a viable plan B if a top team commits to, and is successful at, slowing down our run game. I thought it would happen against PSU, but it might happen next week against the Spartans - who will show an improved front seven with the two starters returning (Slade and ???). We did well changing our gameplan against Indiana in the second half, but it's Indiana. I'd like to see it happen -- and more quickly -- against a tougher team. If we can pivot easily to a pass-focused O, we can be the match of anyone in the country.

You’ve thought about this a lot more than I have. You might be on to something. Whether it’s new, or whether it’s just manball, if it means we beat the crap out of people, I’m all for it. 

I don't know if he has invented a new offense, but if the offense repeats last year's performance against OSU in the 'Shoe, then I expect at least a few coaches around the country to start adopting it.  The last couple of years it has been really hard to stop and we seem to have found a great niche for high school tight ends that aren't Gesicki types (i.e. 250 pound guys who can block really well).  In all of the years that I have been watching football, I have never seen an offense that has so much of their run game built around their tight ends.