We all thought about it: What did this game make you think about our team?
I usually hate-watch national title games because they're important to a sport I love but they wind up just reminding me how disappointed I am that Michigan is not good enough to be there. And they're harder to skip now that the coaches film room is must-watch viewing every year.
But if you're like me you watch these games with one eye on the teams we all jealously wish weren't there and one eye on the strengths and particularly the weaknesses of our own team.
So let's just get right out and admit stuff that the title game highlighted for us about Michigan in the past and going forward.
What sort of things about our team came to mind when you watched the national title game?
January 9th, 2018 at 9:28 AM ^
a team of true freshmen
January 9th, 2018 at 9:45 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 10:00 AM ^
But no, we weren't a team of true freshmen. We were a team of true freshmen and redshirt freshmen/true sophomores
January 9th, 2018 at 8:51 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:02 AM ^
...I know the "UCF National Champion" stuff is fun and makes us all feel better, but UCF loses to either one of those teams by double digits. They played a flawless game against a pretty good Auburn team. If they play Auburn 10 times they lose 7 or 8. If they play Alabama 10 times they lose all 10.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:02 AM ^
They only identify as National Champions.... so bascially they can choose which ever restroom they want now.
January 9th, 2018 at 8:54 AM ^
It makes me really appreciatte what a good OL can do. Then I wonder how this staff inherited such little depth on the OL and only took 3 in the '16 class with zero OTs.
January 9th, 2018 at 8:55 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 1:59 PM ^
it's just that it's a whiny, easy take to make.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:00 AM ^
- Whenever Alabama is done with this dynasty (probably when Saban retires), there will NEVER be another Alabama and anybody that expects their team to be on that level is delusional.
- Our talent evaluations are good, look at all the kids that had us in their final group that did well yesterday. Nauta, Najee Harris, Leatherwood, etc... Makes me feel good about the talent we have here.
- People are going to be insufferable with their "Start Joe Milton!!" takes, since it "worked for 'Bama." A pre-emptive STOP IT.
- B1G refs SUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
>Our talent evaluations are good, look at all the kids that had us in their final group that did well yesterday. Nauta, Najee Harris, Leatherwood, etc... Makes me feel good about the talent we have here.
Aren't these all 5 star guys? Seems like a pretty safe talet evaluation. Not sure I follow how 'we were recruiting 5 star dudes' leads to 'feeling good about the talent on the roster'.
January 9th, 2018 at 8:59 AM ^
...that we need a QB and youth is no excuse at that position, I thought the Alabama D-Line would have absolutely destroyed our OL, and about any OL we faced this year. Those guys were big, athletic, and strong.
I thought our DL was probably the best in the country this year until I watched those guys.
January 9th, 2018 at 11:09 AM ^
Not only would the Tide's DLine have destroyed our OLine, they also would have destroyed Wisconsin's (and those guys are also big/athletic/strong). They would have destroyed OSU's and PSU's O lines too.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:00 AM ^
Michigan? Seems they only want to go on spring break to Europe. I jest, I jest.
I will always hope for the best for Michigan and always root for the team but there is a culture at Michigan that, for some unexplained reason, doesn't bode well for the football team.
Alabama won with a true freshman QB. Michigan couldn't seem to get much out of experienced QBs.
Harbaugh has a lot to figure out in the coming months.
God save the Wolverines.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:04 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:06 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:08 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:11 AM ^
and UGA had the team we had last year with some better luck (like not playing Alabama in the regular season).
January 9th, 2018 at 9:14 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:15 AM ^
Those are the dumb things I think about. I think Harbaugh can get there, but he needs some fucking dudes and he needs a lot of them. I still don’t know what to think about the offense, but watching two freshman QBs whip ass in a NC game, makes me wonder why our guys can’t learn the playbook.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:32 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:33 AM ^
To compare the clean up effort of a program that spent 7 years fumble farting in the darkness to programs like Alabama and Georgia. Georgia under Richt was comparable in some ways to Lloyd Carr Michigan, and instead of hiring Rich Rodriguez to follow their Carr, they hired someone who is really good, especially with the defense, and hasn't changed all that much about what made Georgia's offenses good since Richt saved the program from decrepitude. Saban's been operating a death star for over a decade now. Neither situation is comparable to Michigan.
People have to be realistic about how deep the hole was and how toxic the culture was for Michigan before Harbaugh was hired, and how much work has been done to change that and bring in high level players who are constantly sharpened by competitive high level guys behind them.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
Explaining why our coaches can't put together a cohesive game plan? Why the offense looks like they can't do anything right? Why a coach who is supposedly a QB whisperer still doesn't have the position settled in his FOURTH YEAR?
Enough of hearing about the hole, the toxic program, all that crap. If that was all true, Michigan wouldn't have been pretty darn good in JH's 2nd year.
Excuses are done. Time to put together a championship season.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
They didn't look very good on offense this year, no. Please don't pretend the year before didn't happen or the massive improvement in year 1 of Harbaugh compared to Hoke's last year.
Harbaugh put Rudock in the NFL when the guy had spent his career at Iowa looking like a mediocre turd, and Speight went from "hopelessly incompetent" to "hey wow he's pretty decent if he doesn't get hit." He inherited a pathetic quarterback situation specifically, a pathetic offense in general, and yes, a deeply toxic locker room culture from his predecessor. He inherited a lot of guys used to clapping and excuses instead of competition, and that takes time to infuse.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:20 AM ^
"If that was all true, Michigan wouldn't have been pretty darn good in JH's 2nd year."
Make sure you read this all through. You cannot talk about all this toxic crap and turn around and talk about how well things have gone in JH's first years. That's speaking out of both sides of your mouth.
If things were THAT bad, the seasons would not have happened the way they did. Which completely ends your argument that this is some slow build up and things were just freaking awful. JH was left with a ton of pros to work with.
All of this stuff your talking about has nothing to do with what actually happened. That toxic culture, the bad attitudes, whatever, that stuff should be gone by Y3. What happened this year had NOTHING TO DO with that intangible BS. It was coaches who couldn't gameplan for anyone, and a team that seemingly shrunk when they got punched in the mouth.
The excuse making has got to stop. It's incredibly damming that the HC still isn't settled on a QB in his fourth year and has gone through an incredible offensive regression. Could you imagine this current team on the field with one of those other 3 teams in the playoff? I don't think they would have crossed the 50.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:46 AM ^
Rebuilds can go one of two ways: a total blow up year 0 start from scratch, or you can take what you've got and coach it a hell of a lot better than your predecessor. If your philosophy is wildly different from the guy before you, you're probably going to blow it up. If your philosophy aligns with the guy before, but you think you can do it a lot better, you'll probably go the 2nd direction. If the previous guy was a total Derek Dooley, you'll have to blow it up whether you wanted to or not because well, Derek Dooley.
When a new coach takes over a power program, he almost always recruits well out of the gate. There's a new hope and new sense of optimism around the program, unless it's just a dire bad hire like Riley to Nebraska (which was a real first for me. I think you'd have to go back to Schnellenberger at Oklahoma to find something that was that toxic that quick, and he was an alcoholic). But if you hire a lemon, results start to peter out quickly, and those last few classes tend to be real bad.
So if you get a 3 and out or 4 and out, you take over a team where the upperclassmen were usually highly sought after, talented kids who were misused by the previous staff. If your philosophy lines up with the previous guy and those pieces fit what you want to do, you can do a pretty quick turnaround and win some games. Then in year 3 or so, you hit the point where the kids who could play have graduated, and you're left with upperclassmen who are kinda stinky and underclassmen who are inexperienced. That usually means a big step back.
All that is to say, nothing about how this is going for Harbaugh is all that extraordinary or unexpected to be honest. This is pretty much how this would be expected to go unless Harbaugh pulled some miracles out of the hat, or unless you didn't really have a realistic appraisal about the state of the program after the RichRod/Hoke years. This wasn't Kirby Strong taking over after a solid decade of excellence but not quite excellent enough Georgia, and it wasn't Urban Meyer taking over for a perennial Big 10 champion/contender Jim Tressell. This was a pretty sizeable rebuild after one "Michigan is BACK" rebuild had fizzled and fell apart.
Harbaugh's time at Michigan looks a heck of a lot like Nick Saban's at LSU, and that turned out pretty good, I'd say.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:49 AM ^
and how long Harbaugh stuck with him even though he was miles worse than Jalen Hurts, and even though Harbaugh had a 2nd year guy in the wings and not a true freshman. And how Saban had the balls to debut his guy in the NC game when the narrative was that Harbaugh was reluctant to introduce his QB-of-the-future in the high profile game at PSU.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:30 AM ^
That line of thinking makes sense until you remember the team's inability to keep the QB safe. You can't debut a new starter in a big game and expect success unless you have the protection he needs to succeed.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:37 AM ^
Made me think we have a long way to go in terms of strength and speed. Those two teams looked as tough and physical as nails. I remain optimistic, however, with a defense that will be older, a more experienced O-Line, recruits that are faster, and hopefully a more wide open playbook.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:38 AM ^
We are light-years away. I saw two freshman QBs that blew all of our QBs out of the water and offenses that were cohesive and had a game plan.
Our offensive line didn't appear to play the same game as the lines in the game last night. There is a huge difference between the 5-star players on the field last night and 3 and 4-star players we have on the ofeensive line.
And I believe Alabama and Georgia each have one OC and the head coaches let their coordinators call the plays. This offensive play-calling by committee is horseshit. At the moment we have three offensive coaches that could potentially call plays and that's before the HC has a veto.
Our offense is very young, I get it, but a true freshman QB stepped on the field last night and won the game for Bama. Having 5-star linemen, RB and WRs around him helps. We can't get that talent because we aren't surrounded by it and the closest ones go to their home-state school. We are at a significant disadvantage.
And, by giving out 4-year schollies (the right thing to do) as opposed to one year scholarships like Saban does, we get weaker every year compared to them. The gap is widening and I don't see it closing any time soon.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:52 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 10:04 AM ^
There is a huge difference between the 5-star players on the field last night and 3 and 4-star players we have on the ofeensive line.
Let's see if we can put this narrative into better perspective...
Alabama's starting OL consists of one 5-star, three 4-stars, and one 3-star.
Georgia's starting OL consists of three 4-stars, and two 3-stars
Michigan's starting OL consists of four 4-stars, and one 3-star
I don't see an appreciable difference in talent level recruited....I do see an appreciable difference in performance.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:44 AM ^
Peters hasn't mastered it, nor has he shown the poise or precision to breed confidence long-term. Some chinks in the armor showed this year, especially in the last game, which--given that S. Carolina had more talent than most acknowledged--might have been a loss but did not have to be a debacle.
If Patterson does not prove out next year or if the line cannot protect him, real possibilities, it will be a long year in which Harbaugh has to earn his spurs. The following year will then be for all the marbles. A very good team next year could still lose 3 games.
I have been delighted with Harbaugh, the person. But we have yet to see whether Manuel is the guy to ask the tough questions when and if the time comes.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:49 AM ^
What sort of things about our team came to mind when you watched the national title game?I was thinking that if we had Alabama's offensive line, we'd be playing in this game right now.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:51 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:51 AM ^
by the violence that Alabama playes with. They just play so fast. I though when Harbaugh came in we would be building to that kind of play, but it just hasn't happened yet. His last Standford team played that way. Unfortunately Michigan's culture has been to lay down when things get tough. Here's hoping that starts to change this year.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:51 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 10:10 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:53 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:54 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 9:57 AM ^
Sadly, I would feel like we won a National Championship if we could just beat OSU.
January 9th, 2018 at 9:57 AM ^
I broke down and watch this game on a casual level during the first half, then a little more closely at the end as it got interesting. At least when it comes to offense:
- You can do this with a QB who is basically fresh out of high school if you've got solid talent (and deep talent) around him, a consistent scheme that can be scaled for your opponent, and quality coaching at each position. We have pieces, but not all the correct ones, I would say.
- Getting to that game requires a better offensive line than we currently field. I kept trying to imagine our OL with Hurts or Fromm and it would not be playing in this game. A top-flight OL and even just a serviceable QB seem to be able to mitigate at least some issues elsewhere in the offense. Again, we have pieces, but not all of them.
- Daboll was calling all the shots on offense for Alabama, I believe, and while I think you can make a "committee" somehow work, the calls have to be consistent and make sense. I'll live with the multi-headed OC, if you will, if I can get that level of consistency.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:01 AM ^
All schools still talk about the games they have won. The NCAA is shell company. All they do is launder the money that Alabama, Duke and Kentucky bring in to promote their sports. They can't and don't poilce these sports like they should. If they did, Miss. State and Ole Miss would be dead in the water. Their coaches build reps off players they bought and then move on just before the NCAA starts sniffing around and then the NCAA hits with minor stuff.
How can Saban win an unheard of number of championships in the this reduced scholarship era and stay so far ahead of everyone else? He cheats. The grey shirting policy makes for an unlevel playing field. If he was forced to give 4-year scholarships and play the hand he was dealt instead of tossing aside 10 players each season that he feels don't live up to their billing, he wouldn't have basically NFL teams to put on the field every Saturday.
And all conferences should have to play 9 conference games and NO FCS schools on their schedules
January 9th, 2018 at 10:07 AM ^
Harbz having an offense that taks a QB 2 years to fully grasp shouldn't be a source of pride, but rather shame; especially if it still doesn't work!
This isn't 1997, and freshmen should be competing for playing at all positions, including QB. The offense needs to be designed in a way that can be well run by a freshman, or even backup freshman QB, as we saw in both teams tonight.
A good program should be losing players when they're draft eligible, it's a sign they and the program are good. These vacancies should be filled with minimal consternation.
Michigan isn't remotely close to either of these teams. OSU is in the conversation.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:18 AM ^
How about the NCAA shutting down satellite camps because the SEC didn't like Harbaugh coming into their backyard and poaching their players?
The NCAA should be a caretaker of the sports they oversee and encourage efforts for parity and improved competition. Instead they just set up rules that help the rich get richer, and that's great for the Alabama's, USC's, and Georgia's of the world, but it's bad for the sport overall.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:06 AM ^
The fact is UM has failed to develop an O line for a decade. Say what you will but this year's coaching it was a total chit show in that we wandered around between gap and zone blocking.
That is on the head coach.
And don't get me started about the abject failure in getting even a decent QB behind center.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:07 AM ^
came out throwing the ball to loosen the Bama D and create running lanes for Chubb and Michel (98 yds, a long of 26), both of whom are a talent level above Karan and Chris, as good as they are.
January 9th, 2018 at 10:09 AM ^
January 9th, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
I don't buy into the notion that the program is snake bitten, or doomed no matter what we do. Its not just the QB, its not just the OL, its not our lack of playmakers at WR. When Michigan was at its best in 2015 and 2016 our QB was savy enough to get the ball out on time most of the time, we had veteran WRs and TEs that could help a QB out when things broke down, and our OL wasn't the greatest but they'd run block pretty well most of the time and when they didn't, the QB could move around enough to let them off the hook.
I don't know what happened when Speight got hurt in 2016, or if this is a coaching mishap, but towards the end of 2016 the QBs stopped buying time with their feet when things broke down and started watching the pass rush. But the #1 thing that is paramount in the NFL, and mostly in college in pro systems is getting the ball out on time, and pretty much the cardinal sin for QBs is to take their eyes off of the receivers down field and watch the rush. This type of thing is what causes GREAT college QB prospects to fall off the face of the earth. Once they lose confidence and start watching the pass rush, its pretty much over for them.
Its not just the QBs either. Every part of the offense can take some blame. And we aren't as far off from competiting than everyone makes it sound. Getting push up front in the run game, translates into the play action opening up, which creates confidence for the QBs and WRs. And its a lot easier for a young WR to flourish on a team with 3 other upper classmen showing them the way its done. A big issue for Michigan this year was once Speight went down we had two guys behind him that didn't have much experience, all of the WRs were relatively young, our TEs were relatively young, and we had lost a ton of experience and effectiveness on the OL.
Losing the amount of starters we did is hard to over come. Losing 1 WR, TE, maybe a guard and a tackle would maybe be something we could handle. But we lost much more than that all at once. Then we had the catastrophic circumstance of losing without a doubt our best LT in Newsome last year, our most experienced QB played a few games then was out, then maybe our best WR was hard to overcome.