Revolving Coordinators/Philosophy

Submitted by wildbackdunesman on November 15th, 2020 at 12:02 AM

It seems like we've had a lot of bad turnover and philosophical changes with our coordinators.

If Wisconsin lost their head coach this year, they would find a coach and they would have the same philosophy and likely even keep one or both coordinators.  They have an identity.

What is our identity?  What is our philosophy?

If we were to lose Harbaugh this year, we could expect to get any philosophy under the sun except the triple option.

Look at our Coordinators since Lloyd Carr's last year, it seems like we are all over the board with philosophy and we lack strong consistency.  The best coordinator that we have had during this stretch was Greg Mattison and we demoted him down to Dline coach and he then left us for Ohio State.

Look at our coordinators.  Many subpar names, many changes, and many philosophy changes.

2007
OC Mike DeBord
DC Ron English

2008
OC Calvin Magee
DC Scott Schafer

2009
OC Calvin Magee
DC Greg Robinson

2010
OC Calvin Magee
DC Greg Robinson

2011
OC Al Borges
DC Greg Mattison

2012
OC Al Borges
DC Greg Mattison

2013
OC Al Borges
DC Greg Mattison

2014
OC Doug Nussmeier
DC Greg Mattison

2015
OC Tim Drevno
DC DJ Durkin

2016
OC Tim Drevno
DC Don Brown

2017
OC Tim Drevno
DC Don Brown

2018
OC ???  Pep Hamilton? Harbaugh himself? Jim McElwain?
DC Don Brown

2019
OC Josh Gattis
DC Don Brown

2020
OC Josh Gattis
DC Don Brown

jmblue

November 15th, 2020 at 12:54 AM ^

I thought we had a solid offensive identity in Harbaugh's first two years.  We were a tough, physical team, but still mixed in a lot of different formations/packages.  But we started going away from it in 2017 and seem to have been flailing around ever since.  Was Jedd Fisch that important?

oakapple

November 16th, 2020 at 10:32 AM ^

What good is an “identity,” if it is losing? Rich Rodriguez was brought in because people thought Lloyd Carr had failed to keep up with the modern game. Brady Hoke was brought in because Rich Rodriguez failed. Jim Harbaugh was brought in because Hoke failed.

In the Harbaugh era, Don Brown was brought in because Durkin failed. Josh Gattis was brought in because the strange three-headed non-coordinator 2018 beast failed, which was brought in because Tim Drevno failed.

When you fail, you don’t stick with it because your “identity” says so. Identities are only great when they win.

I agree that the demotion of Mattison stands out as a mistake. But all of the others happened because the previous philosophy was deemed to be not working. To paraphrase the old saying, it is insane to keep doing what you are doing, and expect a different result.

Nobody would be happier than I, if Michigan had a system it could just keep running year after year. But that would be because they had a system that worked, and right now they don’t.