Jim Harbaugh NO LONGER coaches at Michigan

[Brandon 193]

Pretty good article on The Athletic detailing the whole James Hudson transfer situation that was previously touched on in this thread. Good stuff on our favorite coach and how they process out players, waiver for immediate eligibility, etc:

 

Spoiler

‘Coach called me a liar, Mom’: Michigan, Cincinnati remain at odds in the James Hudson saga

It had been roughly 16 months, and Glenda Hudson still felt as if something was not right with her son.

James Hudson was in the midst of his redshirt freshman season as an offensive tackle for the Michigan Wolverines in October 2018. He had been unhappy for nearly his entire stint with the program, stretching back to the start of summer 2017, when he officially joined the team as a four-star defensive line prospect from Toledo’s Central Catholic High.

Glenda was concerned her son was suffering from depression and decided she needed to talk with head coach Jim Harbaugh. What happened from that point forward is where the sides differ. Glenda is convinced Michigan downplayed James’ depression and discredited his character in the process. Michigan tells a different account.

“I reached out to Coach Harbaugh and requested to have a face-to-face meeting with him,” she said.

The meeting occurred on Oct. 22, 2018, the Monday after the Wolverines’ 21-7 victory over Michigan State in East Lansing. Glenda and her daughter, Ciara, James’ older sister, traveled to Ann Arbor for what would prove to be a contentious and decisive meeting.

Glenda maintains the purpose of the meeting was never to discuss James transferring.

“That wasn’t our goal,” she said. “We went to talk about what was going on (with James) and what we needed to do.”

Glenda felt uneasy from the moment the meeting began, in part because Michigan’s offensive line coach, Ed Warinner, was not present, which she said James had requested. Instead, it was just Glenda, Ciara, James and Harbaugh.

“And he was kind of standoffish from the beginning,” Glenda said of Harbaugh. “Like, ‘Glenda, what is this about?’ I said, ‘Coach, we need to talk. My son is down, disheartened. Something is going on.’ And Coach repeated those words back to me and to James and said, ‘Oh James, you’re down?’ Like he had no clue. I kept thinking, something is going on here.”

The Hudsons asked at that point why Warinner was not present; he soon joined the meeting. As far as Glenda was concerned, it had little impact.

“But then Harbaugh’s whole thing was, ‘James, do you want to leave? Do you want to leave?’ And, ‘I can’t keep you here if you don’t want to be here. You know where the compliance office is.'” Glenda recalled. “Coach Warinner tried to intervene and talk, and basically Coach Harbaugh told him no, shut him down. Like, basically, ‘Nope. If that’s what James wants to do, we can’t keep him here.’

“The meeting ended very abruptly, just as abrupt as it started,” Glenda added. “It ended very quickly.”

That last part is the only thing both parties seem to agree on.

When asked his recollection of the meeting, Harbaugh said it was over Hudson’s lack of playing time. Hudson had been the backup right tackle on the team’s depth chart stretching from the offseason through the start of the year. He had appeared in three games for the 2018 Wolverines, including an Oct. 13 win over Wisconsin. Harbaugh said Hudson injured his hand in that game was limited in the week that followed. So when Michigan’s starting right tackle left the Michigan State game with an injury of his own, Hudson was passed over in favor of Andrew Stueber.

“Andrew had more reps and went ahead on the depth chart for the week,” Harbaugh told the Toledo Blade at the time.

Harbaugh believed that was what precipitated the meeting with James and Glenda the following Monday.

“It became clear right away that James and his family were upset that he wasn’t the backup tackle that went into the game against Michigan State when the starting right tackle got hurt,” Harbaugh told The Athletic.

He said he explained that Hudson’s injury had caused the change in the depth chart, and the meeting ended shortly after. Harbaugh claims Hudson’s mental state or any struggles related to mental health were never discussed.

“That was really the entirety of that meeting. James really left the meeting shortly after that and went down and entered his name in the portal,” Harbaugh said. “I asked multiple times if there were other things, other specific issues. I thought going into the meeting that it would be a 180-degree difference from what he was telling me — that he was really ready and excited about the opportunity he had. I thought that was the direction. It went the other direction.”

It was reported that same day and later confirmed by the University of Michigan that Hudson had entered his name in the transfer portal. It also set off a nine-month saga in which Glenda believes her son was ostracized by Michigan and that the football program actively undermined his NCAA waiver for immediate eligibility in the 2019 season on the grounds of mental health relief. And that was all before Harbaugh went on a national radio show and suggested student-athletes lie about mental health issues in order to gain immediate eligibility.

Hudson announced on Dec. 1 he was transferring to the University of Cincinnati. On May 14, a few weeks after he participated with the Bearcats’ first-string offensive line in spring practice, Hudson posted on Twitter that his initial waiver application for immediate eligibility had been denied by the NCAA. He then went public about his struggles with depression. By late July, Cincinnati confirmed that after a series of appeals, Hudson was in fact denied immediate eligibility by the NCAA and would have to sit out the 2019 season in accordance with transfer rules.

Michigan has repeatedly stated that it was an NCAA decision and neither the school nor Harbaugh had any control over the waiver and its final outcome. “As a coach, I’m not involved in that,” Harbaugh told The Athletic.

 

“We’ve said that we do not oppose the NCAA granting a waiver for the year in residency requirement,” added Sean Magee, the Wolverines’ director of player personnel and administration for football. “But we also do not want to put ourselves in a position to judge what the circumstances have to be from the NCAA on mitigating circumstances that are outside of the student-athlete’s control.”

Glenda Hudson, her family, and many at the University of Cincinnati — including head coach Luke Fickell — believe differently.

“Here’s what I believe in the whole waiver process: the number one, most important thing, and all the power, comes from the school that a kid is leaving. No matter what,” Fickell told The Athletic. “(Michigan) didn’t back the waiver. They can say what they want to say, but the only thing they said that was positive was that if the NCAA chooses to make (Hudson) eligible, then they would accept it — that they didn’t have an angle. They are just trying to cover their ass. And I’m really, completely disappointed in it.

“They can say they didn’t undermine it, but they didn’t work to help the kid out.”

---

Glenda Hudson recognized something was different almost immediately.

“James never really liked it from the get-go,” she said of her son’s time at Michigan. “I didn’t know what was going on, but he would tell me that he didn’t like it there. I took it that it was a new environment, new school — it’s not high school, this is college. I thought it was going to be an adjustment period. So, of course, I was encouraging him to stay, you got to do this, you got to try it. But it did not improve.”

Recruited out of high school by Michigan’s then-defensive line coach Greg Mattison, Hudson was moved to offensive line a few weeks into his first fall camp. The transition was tough on James as well as Glenda, both of whom had developed a relationship with Mattison during the recruiting process. But Glenda soon began reaching out to Tim Drevno, Michigan’s offensive line coach in 2017, asking him to check in with James and how he was adjusting to his new surroundings.

“I’m sure this was something new for him. I’m sure he didn’t know what to name it, what to call it,” Glenda said. “He just knew that he was having some feelings, but he didn’t want to say what it was, or didn’t think of it as depression.”

Glenda is also aware of the stigma associated with depression and similar mental health struggles. She holds a master’s degree in community and school counseling, has worked in the field of developmental disabilities and mental health for 32 years, and is also a licensed social worker.

“The stigma of mental health, people think you’re crazy,” she said. “Especially a big, African-American student-athlete — all that stuff has stigma all the way around it.”

James never explicitly discussed mental health issues with anyone on the team’s medical staff at Michigan, something that would ultimately factor into Cincinnati’s waiver submission. He has not spoken with media since arriving at Cincinnati, with his only comments coming via social media. But he has previously alluded to the mental toll he experienced with the Wolverines, particularly in reference to the position change.

“I would definitely say my first year here was a learning process with the position switch,” Hudson told The Toledo Blade in January 2018. “Coming in and working all summer on the defensive line, and then getting into camp and working on the offensive line, it was more emotional than physical.”

It all culminated in that October meeting with Harbaugh, which proved to be Hudson’s last moments as a member of the Michigan football team.

“Coach Harbaugh never reached out after that,” Glenda said. “Not that I expected them to beg him to stay or anything, but I guess I would have expected them to dig a little deeper to understand why. They kept saying they didn’t see this coming, so I guess I expected that they would have tried to figure out what was going on. But they never did.”

Glenda instead believes the program took measures to shun and exclude James, including relocating his roommate, who was also a member of the football team, shortly after he entered the portal but was still enrolled at the university as a student.

“Once he was in the portal, they cut the umbilical cord and no coach talked to him again,” Glenda said. “It was like they were trying to isolate him from everybody there.”

Harbaugh confirmed the roommate was removed, alleging, “After James was in the portal, we received reports that James’ behavior wasn’t conducive for the best interest of the roommate.”

He would not elaborate on the specifics of that behavior but added: “It’s not unprecedented, either. There are different schedules, different priorities for a young man on the football team and one not on the football team. But the reason for the move was the reports received about James’ behavior.”

Fickell had been aware of Hudson as a high school prospect in Toledo, and the program had a connection through UC running back Mike Warren, a friend and high school teammate of Hudson’s. Fickell was not privy to the fact that Hudson was struggling with anything when the program began recruiting him through the portal, and admits they weren’t sure whether a waiver for immediate eligibility was a realistic possibility.

“The only thing we were selling him on was that we would fight our butts off for whatever we can do,” Fickell said. “But you can’t guarantee anything.”

From Glenda’s perspective, it wasn’t long after arriving at Cincinnati that things began to improve for James, including speaking with the team’s medical staff.

In late January or early February, Cincinnati’s compliance staff informed Fickell they would pursue a legislative relief waiver based on assertions of student-athlete injury or illness. This was around the same time Fickell called Harbaugh.

“I called him to say that I don’t know what’s going on with all these waivers, but I know James is here,” Fickell said. “Are you guys going to be vindictive against him, or do you want to help this kid?”

Fickell later did the same with Nick Saban and Ryan Day when the Bearcats landed transfers from Alabama and Ohio State. He also assumed based on what he heard about the brevity of Hudson’s exit meeting that Michigan must not have been too interested in hanging on to Hudson.

“I didn’t know how bad (Hudson) was struggling. I really had no idea,” Fickell said. “How would you? You have a lot of kids. How would you know everything about every guy? But then when one of these situations comes up, just trying to figure out what the issue is, what’s wrong — in my mind, a guy that you want, that’s how you go about it. I can’t speak intelligently on how that whole meeting went, but that’s why I called him, thinking they don’t really want the kid.

“All (Harbaugh) said to me was, ‘I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to lie. And I don’t know why we’re talking.’ It was really cold. I talked to Nick Saban because we have a transfer from Alabama. I talked to Ryan Day because we have a kid from Ohio State. We have a kid from Michigan, so I wanted to reach out, not to ask about the kid, but acknowledging that this kid has some issues and are you willing to help him? Or what are you willing to do? And it was pretty cold.”

Fickell was hardly encouraged by the call but was optimistic about the waiver a few days later.

“I lost so much sleep over this. But what I do remember is that on Feb. 8, 2019, at about 3:30 p.m., I thought this was a slam dunk,” Fickell recalled. “Because that was the exact time I was watching a speech at the Ohio High School Coaches Association about tackling, and I get tapped on the shoulder by one of our coaches telling me that Justin Fields was just declared immediately eligible at Ohio State. Awesome, great — it’s open doors. How can they possibly deny anybody else? You can’t say this kid’s issue is more important or bigger than this kid’s.”

---

In late April, Hudson and Cincinnati received word from the NCAA that his waiver for immediate eligibility had been denied on the basis that Hudson did not meet the specified directives: his new school was not within 100 miles of his hometown of Toledo, and there was no contemporaneous medical documentation of mental health issues or diagnosis at Michigan. It was soon after that Hudson released his statement on Twitter, which was accompanied by a coordinated #FreeJamesHudson hashtag campaign by the Bearcats football program.

Due to the circumstances of the waiver, a portion of Cincinnati’s claims was sent to Michigan to solicit the university’s response. Glenda read that response, which she said detailed that Michigan had no evidence of mental illness, though would not contest the waiver if granted.

“Kind of backdoor underhanding, claiming that they weren’t contesting, but adding all this other stuff to tear it down. That’s how I took it,” Glenda said. “They didn’t contest, but they didn’t offer support either.”

The University of Michigan would not speak directly to their response, as any personal information about a student is prohibited from release under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Similarly, a public record request sent to Michigan pertaining to Hudson and his transfer was denied due to FERPA.

As part of UC’s subsequent and bolstered reconsideration filing, Glenda claims that Cincinnati included her efforts to reach out to coaches at Michigan, as well as a letter of support from Hudson’s high school coach, and information about Hudson’s roommate being relocated. The most significant fallout, however, resulted from a return letter from Michigan in early June 2019.

“Michigan claimed that they removed the roommate because someone on their staff saw James coming out of a store — like a liquor store — with ‘a bag of goods,’” Glenda said. “A bag of goods. But they never would elaborate what was in the bag.”

Glenda characterized her and James being infuriated by the implication, which she said was also completely false and added that after James entered the transfer portal, he made the 45-minute drive home to Toledo each weekend. She even called Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel to voice her displeasure and request the university be held accountable for its claims.

“I called Mr. Manuel twice, and he promised me that they were going to investigate,” Glenda said. “To this day, nothing. Nothing.”

The Hudsons were not the only ones upset. Fickell would not speak specifically to the details included in the waiver process due to FERPA laws, but was clear about his personal reaction to it.

“It’s like a junior-high relationship: ‘You broke up with me, so I’m going to tell everybody that you did this, this and this.’ What grown-up does that?” Fickell said. “They responded with a junior-high comeback. I was shocked. Shocked. That if somebody said something about you, that you would then respond back by trying to bash a 19-year-old on things that were hearsay?

“It sounds a little bit like ‘A Few Good Men.’ Yeah, he was on the first flight out the next morning. That’s why I’m pissed and I want to say something,” Fickell added. “For you to get in a junior-high battle and say things about a kid, whether you believe him or not, you’re taking shots a kid who is struggling. And who am I to say how much? But he’s struggling, and to say that, it hurt the kid. Big time. It was hard. I know a lot of this stuff should be done behind closed doors, and I’m not calling people out. But when they took a shot at the kid, it was really disappointing. Really disappointing.”

Michigan would not comment specifically on the letter either, due to FERPA laws, though when first asked, Harbaugh initially stated: “I’m not aware of it, personally, I’m not aware of the letter you’re talking about. As a coach, I don’t know what is in those letters, other than that we are not opposed to standing in the way of anybody getting relief from the transfer year in requirement.”

At the time, those details in the reconsideration process were handled internally, and the case had remained relatively quiet since Hudson’s Twitter post in May. That changed on July 19, at Big Ten Conference media day in Chicago. It started when Harbaugh stated every student-athlete should be allowed a one-time transfer without having to sit out for a year, comments he reiterated multiple times to The Athletic. (It also elicited a response from Hudson on Twitter.)

Harbaugh then seemed to contradict himself later in the day when he went on ESPNU Radio and stated, in part, “The youngster that says this is a mental health issue, I’m suffering from depression — that’s a reason they are getting eligible. Once that’s known, say this or say that to get eligible. The problem I see in that is that you’re going to have guys say, ‘OK, yeah, I’m depressed. I have mental illness … They’re going to say what they gotta say.”

Harbaugh never mentioned Hudson by name, and still insists the comments were not directed at him. Regardless, they were received that way by Hudson.

“My son text me and told me, ‘Coach called me a liar, mom.’ I was in the middle of the store, and I hear this and I just had to put everything back. I couldn’t even check out, because I was so upset,” Glenda said. “He didn’t say his name, but who else just left from Michigan and filed a waiver and talked about mental health struggles? We’re not stupid.”

---

On July 27, Cincinnati confirmed the final appeal in James Hudson’s waiver case was denied, and Hudson would officially have to sit out the season.

UC’s compliance office worked to submit new information to support their claim up until the decisive denial, including Harbaugh’s own radio comments from Big Ten media day as evidence for why Hudson wouldn’t have felt comfortable voicing his struggles while at Michigan. Glenda reached out to a number of attorneys, one being Tom Mars, who famously represented Justin Fields (Ohio State) and Shea Patterson (Michigan) in their successful cases for immediate eligibility. Mars responded to Glenda that he didn’t have time to take on new clients. The other lawyers she contacted either wanted to be involved in the case from the very beginning or were asking for retainer fees in the neighborhood of $10,000. Ultimately, none of the efforts were able to fulfill the waiver’s specified directives and overturn the NCAA’s decision.

“The University of Cincinnati Department of Athletics is proud of our proactive approach to support the welfare of James Hudson and our more than 500 student-athletes,” the school said in a statement to The Athletic for this story.

In regard to the persisting narrative that a lack of support or cooperation from Harbaugh and the school undermined Hudson’s chances at immediate eligibility, Michigan’s Magee was steadfast in his denial.

“It’s simply not true,” Magee said, pointing out that in cases of four former Michigan student-athletes seeking immediate eligibility waivers this offseason, the Wolverines used the same language in all of their responses. One was approved, two were not, and one is still being processed.

“This had nothing to do with James as an individual, but again, we weren’t putting ourselves in position over the NCAA to judge who gets a waiver or not,” Magee said. “If you look around the country and reasons why stories like this are so prevalent, the NCAA hasn’t shown to this point what the direct precedent is. If people are looking for precedence, you aren’t going to find it.”

Mars, who is no longer taking on clients seeking NCAA transfer waivers, describes waivers on the basis of mental illness as “incredibly unique.”

“All of these categories of assertions and severity of the impact on student-athletes are inherently subjective,” he added.

And while Mars stated he couldn’t speak specifically to the Hudson case, “because I don’t know what the facts are,” he later told The Athletic, “I’m not going to tell you how I know, but I know what Michigan’s official position was with the NCAA on James Hudson’s waiver, and anyone who says Michigan was not supportive is wrong and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t know of anything Michigan could have possibly done to change the outcome in James Hudson’s case.”

Fickell, for his part, remains resolute in his belief that Michigan could have aided the situation.

“All the power is in the hands of the school a player is leaving. If they want to help, they can help them become eligible,” he said.

Fickell pointed to UC transfer Kyriq McDonald, who received immediate eligibility due in large part to Alabama supporting a “run-off” waiver, and Blue Smith, who was ruled immediately eligible last week after Ohio State submitted a waiver on his behalf in accordance with NCAA bylaw 14.7.2 (a).

“What Alabama did, what Ohio State did, they didn’t have to,” Fickell said.

Fickell takes umbrage with the NCAA’s handling of the decision as well, pointing out that the guidelines for student-athlete transfers were updated as recently as late June — changes he believes the Hudson case directly impacted.

“That’s the crazy thing about the NCAA — they have no personal side to them. It’s really a shame. You get a last-bit response that says, ‘Nope,'” Fickell said. “Do you want to talk to the kid? Do you want to look him in the face? Doesn’t meet the directives — that’s it.”

The lone patch of common ground seems to be a judgment that the current model is broken. Instituting a one-time, penalty-free transfer for student-athlete is the prevailing solution du jour, but the NCAA remains a long way off from ordering that option.

Glenda Hudson remains appreciative of Cincinnati’s efforts on her son’s behalf and has encouraged him to continue receiving treatment and counseling as he spends another season on the sideline. He can take the field for the Bearcats in 2020, with two years of eligibility remaining.

The setback has also sparked a passion in Glenda for mentoring parents and families going through the recruiting process, helping to navigate the complex gossamer of collegiate athletics — the same system Fickell believes failed James Hudson.

“They’ve opened this door, and I don’t think they’ve done a very good job with it,” Fickell said. “But what it all comes down to is, do you really have the best interest of the student-athlete in mind? Or is it your personal interest?

“What’s more important: your personal feelings, or the best interest of the kid?”

 

[Machinator 32097]

 

[Jive Turkey 12568]

 

 

[tx 3 putt 76396]

Is this the year harbough shows his worth ?

[Shaggy3.0 1695]

Losing to army right now. Might be trailing at half. To army.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wally Fairway 5524]

It might be a problem when the media is calling out Coach Harbs; but don't worry it isn't the Detroit media or any paper in Michigan.
Nope - it's the LA Times

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-09-07/college-football-michigan-jim-harbaugh-army-shea-patterson-zach-charbonnet

Quote

Jim Harbaugh’s decisions and results show Michigan isn’t as good as he thinks it is

By J. Brady McColloughStaff Writer 

Sep. 7, 2019

6:23 PM

Two times during the fourth quarter Saturday, Jim Harbaugh made a decision that indicated he did not understand the difference between the type of team he wants Michigan to be and where the Wolverines actually are in Year 5 of his coaching tenure at his alma mater.

Army had pushed seventh-ranked Michigan to the limit with the same brutal efficiency it employed a year ago at Oklahoma before falling to the Sooners in overtime. The Wolverines should have felt fortunate to be tied at 14 with the Black Knights, given the three fumbles and the inability of quarterback Shea Patterson to show real command of the new Michigan offense that was created with his skills in mind.

Yet, facing fourth and two from the Army 19, Harbaugh did not realize his good fortune and take the 36-yard field goal for Michigan’s first lead of the game. He asked a running game that averaged less than three yards per rush on the day to make him feel like these were the good old days at the Big House, when the tough yards were inevitably Michigan’s to be had. Army mobbed Michigan freshman Zach Charbonnet in the backfield, a result Harbaugh easily should have predicted and avoided.

Later, with less than three minutes left, Harbaugh had another fourth-and-two call to make, this time from the Army 43. Instead of pinning Army’s triple-option attack deep and setting up his defense with good field position to get the ball back and at the very least get to overtime, Harbaugh again decided to go for it. Michigan dialed Charbonnet’s number, and again, the former Oaks Christian standout was stuffed.

Harbaugh’s stubbornness, even confronted with what should have been mounting evidence that this was not a day for bold statements about his team’s backbone, nearly cost Michigan the game and all the good vibes his fan base has been able to muster entering this season with an 0-4 record against Ohio State.

Army missed a 50-yard field goal as the clock ran out in regulation, giving Michigan a second life it didn’t deserve.

The Wolverines won 24-21 in the second overtime thanks to a gritty effort from an exhausted defense. They won despite their $7.5-million coach.

Another fall is here, and it’s Same Old Michigan, no matter how much the Wolverines try to change.

Harbaugh finally relinquished play-calling to new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, whom he brought in from Alabama, where Gattis coached the wide receivers during the Crimson Tide’s tactical revolution last year.

Michigan had 340 yards of offense against Army.

There are reasons why the Wolverines haven’t taken off yet in Gattis’ spread attack, which is supposed to take what the defense gives instead of blindly pounding away into a wall, which is what a good portion of Harbaugh‘s offense has looked like in Ann Arbor.

First, Army should be given credit for how tough this was for Michigan. The Black Knights, their ball-control offense sucking up so much game clock, make every possession extra weighty for the opposing offense. When a team fumbles the ball to Army as Michigan did three times, it is asking to find itself in a fourth-quarter brawl.

Plus, Patterson, the hyped Mississippi transfer who led Michigan to a 10-3 season last year, was hurt in the opener and playing with an injured oblique. He was often inaccurate and indecisive, and Gattis tightened up the playbook as the game went on.

Saturday, Michigan ran plenty of read-option with Patterson and Charbonnet — who saved the Wolverines with 33 carries for 100 yards and three touchdowns — but was unwilling to have Patterson keep the ball. That made it easy for Army to key on Charbonnet.

In what has become a trend, Harbaugh made it even harder for Michigan. In Year 5, the Wolverines are supposed to be competing with Ohio State for a spot in the College Football Playoff. As it stands, Michigan runs the risk of being blown out of its next game Sept. 21 at Wisconsin.

This is the definition of a well-placed bye week, for the injured players and the program. A win Saturday kept fan desperation from settling in, but Harbaugh gets paid to know better than to feel relieved. The pain is coming.

Ohio State, with its new coach Ryan Day and new quarterback Justin Fields, demolished a solid Cincinnati team 42-0 down the road in Columbus.

Michigan, with its returning coach and returning senior quarterback, is the team that should be glad it’s only September.

(Note - the rest of the article is a summary of other games played yesterday)

 

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

2 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

It might be a problem when the media is calling out Coach Harbs; but don't worry it isn't the Detroit media or any paper in Michigan.
Nope - it's the LA Times

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-09-07/college-football-michigan-jim-harbaugh-army-shea-patterson-zach-charbonnet

 

Coming from the local media would carry a lot more weight than coming from a staff writer in L.A. I haven't read what the Detroit News or Freep or MLive has had to say about the game. The comments on Michigan message boards have been more scathing than what some casual observer 2,000 miles away had to say in the L.A. Times. 

Yet, facing fourth and two from the Army 19, Harbaugh did not realize his good fortune and take the 36-yard field goal for Michigan’s first lead of the game. He asked a running game that averaged less than three yards per rush on the day to make him feel like these were the good old days at the Big House, when the tough yards were inevitably Michigan’s to be had. Army mobbed Michigan freshman Zach Charbonnet in the backfield, a result Harbaugh easily should have predicted and avoided.

Later, with less than three minutes left, Harbaugh had another fourth-and-two call to make, this time from the Army 43. Instead of pinning Army’s triple-option attack deep and setting up his defense with good field position to get the ball back and at the very least get to overtime, Harbaugh again decided to go for it. Michigan dialed Charbonnet’s number, and again, the former Oaks Christian standout was stuffed.

Harbaugh finally relinquished play-calling to new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis

Soooo...who are we blaming here?

The extent to which Harbaugh can keep his hands out of the offense is going to be an ongoing question all season long. Ultimately we're going to get the answer from insiders and the people who cover the program every day. My guess is that Harbaugh is too set in his ways to give up complete control. But two games isn't a large enough sample to conclude anything one way or another yet. 

[Girdwood 118]

On 9/7/2019 at 9:19 AM, Shaggy3.0 said:

Losing to army right now. Might be trailing at half. To army.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

To be fair OU damn near lost to Army at home last year then went on to the playoff. 

That probably won’t happen with Michigan though. 

[LTtxfan 48979]

Harbaugh is Done After 2 Weeks to prepare for Wisconsin and that CRAP HAPPENED....

So who should Michigan hire??

 

Twitter destroyed Jim Harbaugh after Michigan's disastrous first half vs. Wisconsin

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/09/jim-harbaugh-michigan-wisconsin-disaster-jokes-twitter

 

 

 

 

 

[tx 3 putt 76396]

Just saw the score and figured harbaugh was at sleep over and missed the game. 
 

oooooopppppppppppppsssssss 

[4th&Five 41461]

It was much worse than the score too. 

[Slacks 6791]

I stopped watching one I determined wisc could run at will... so.. did they run at will?

[trza-hawk 269]

They didn't run the ball straight at some guy named Will, its more like they did a couple shifts and motions then right at the snap every Michigan backer and safety runs into the wrong gap or gets caught in the wash so it just looks like a clear path of green grass for the backs on every Wisconsin run.

[4th&Five 41461]

When the opposing RB starts cramping up in the second quarter because he’s been running so much you may have a defensive issue. 

[BigVegasHorn26 630]

Harbaugh not so good at this coaching thing.  

[Zavala 1384]

I fucking love college football

[Slacks 6791]

he's done. he isn't going to win there. might as well start the process now.

[n64ra 1078]

I'd fire Jim today if I was the AD.

[trza-hawk 269]

There were some guys joking on talk radio this week about Urban Meyer wanting to get back into coaching.

[PittsburghTiger 6137]

Need more sleepovers.

[Slacks 6791]

There were some guys joking on talk radio this week about Urban Meyer wanting to get back into coaching.

leimart and bush are trying...

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

2 hours ago, Snacks said:

I stopped watching one I determined wisc could run at will... so.. did they run at will?

til they got bored

[4th&Five 41461]

 

[VABuckeye 2472]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

That is all.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

2 hours ago, n64ra said:

I'd fire Jim today if I was the AD.

Who would you name as interim head coach? 

[4th&Five 41461]

Lloyd Carr isn’t doing anything. 

[aggie08 21434]

3 hours ago, BigVegasHorn26 said:

Harbaugh not so good at this coaching thing.  

That's the thing. We all know that he is. It isn't like you can just point to Andrew Luck to explain his success. He turned Stanford--fucking Stanford--into the toughest, most physical team west of the Mississippi. He (and pending NCAA sanctions) essentially chased Pete Carroll out of SC. Colin Kaepernick wasn't just good under Harbaugh; for about 15 months, he looked like the future of the quarterback position. The Niners completely imploded without him. He won big at San Diego. Maybe his temperament has a shelf life, but he is (was) a winner. At the time of his hire, I would have put this resume up against anyone in the college game not named Meyer or Saban.

His abject failure at Michigan is baffling. It looks like he still cares and puts in the time. It's just been a disaster.

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

27 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

That's the thing. We all know that he is. It isn't like you can just point to Andrew Luck to explain his success. He turned Stanford--fucking Stanford--into the toughest, most physical team west of the Mississippi. He (and pending NCAA sanctions) essentially chased Pete Carroll out of SC. Colin Kaepernick wasn't just good under Harbaugh; for about 15 months, he looked like the future of the quarterback position. The Niners completely imploded without him. He won big at San Diego. Maybe his temperament has a shelf life, but he is (was) a winner. At the time of his hire, I would have put this resume up against anyone in the college game not named Meyer or Saban.

His abject failure at Michigan is baffling. It looks like he still cares and puts in the time. It's just been a disaster.

Maybe he excels when little is expected of him. I don't know.

I rooted for his Stanford teams because fuck Pete Carroll. I rooted for his 49ers team because they had several Buckeyes on the roster and because I wanted him to stay in the NFL. The last thing I wanted was to see him take the head coaching job in Ann Arbor. It was such an obvious, perfect hire. I have no idea where Michigan will turn if they ever decide to part ways. 

But he's not getting fired this year. Technically, all their goals are still achievable. But despite all their goals this was always going to be a one game season. He has to beat the Buckeyes. If he does that, nothing else matters. If he doesn't, that's when the clock starts ticking on the Harbaugh era. 

I've gotta say I never realized what a weird motherfucker he is. 

[Nivek 16860]

That's the thing. We all know that he is. It isn't like you can just point to Andrew Luck to explain his success. He turned Stanford--fucking Stanford--into the toughest, most physical team west of the Mississippi. He (and pending NCAA sanctions) essentially chased Pete Carroll out of SC. Colin Kaepernick wasn't just good under Harbaugh; for about 15 months, he looked like the future of the quarterback position. The Niners completely imploded without him. He won big at San Diego. Maybe his temperament has a shelf life, but he is (was) a winner. At the time of his hire, I would have put this resume up against anyone in the college game not named Meyer or Saban.
His abject failure at Michigan is baffling. It looks like he still cares and puts in the time. It's just been a disaster.

Or he had a great support staff and maybe he was just more into it then.

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

Per ESPN, total number of Ohio State points today: 76

Total number of Michigan points this season :78

https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/1175549412363460608?s=20

Edited September 22, 2019 by J.R. Juniors Junior Jr.

[mulletpelini 5209]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I've gotta say I never realized what a weird motherfucker he is. 

https://mgoblog.com/content/unverified-voracity-plays-catch

Quote

This story from around 2000 involves Harbaugh wanting to throw the ball around with some girls at Dominicks. An observer feels this is flirting until…

He said to the first girl, “keep your hands up, thumbs down,” and he showed her the proper motion with his own hands. When she didn’t get quite right, he grabbed her wrists and showed her how to position her hands. He then paced off 15 yards, held the ball in front of him, squatted like he was under center, patted the ball hard, took three hard steps back, planted his back leg and fired the ball at the first girl. As he let the ball go, you could hear it click as his fingernails hit the ball and, I shit you not, as the ball whizzed through the air you could hear it ssssssssssss… THUNK! It hit the girl in the shoulder and knocked her down. Jim wadn’t playin’.

“Come on, let’s go!” Jim barked. While Girl #1 picked herself up, Girl#2 gamely grabbed the ball and lobbed it back. Again, Jim got in his QB squat, smacked the ball, did a hard three-step drop-back and fired the ball at Girl#3, she ducked but the ball hit off the top of her head and went into the street. Girl#2 ran after it while Girl#3 sat on the ground rubbing her head. When Girl#2’s throw back to Jim was short, Jim got a bit annoyed, and set the girls up in a relay so that two girls were about 25 yards away, and the third girl was halfway in between so that that girls could throw to her, and she would run the ball to Jim. For the next 5-10 minutes, he was firing balls at these two poor girls, knocking them down or hitting them in the face about half the time. He was 100% oblivious.

original blog is gone, but this still remains

[n64ra 1078]

On 9/21/2019 at 7:22 PM, WhatTheBuck said:

Who would you name as interim head coach? 

Urban Meyer

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

9 minutes ago, n64ra said:

Urban Meyer

Your choices are coaches on the current staff. Do you know any of their names?

[VABuckeye 2472]

2 hours ago, n64ra said:

Urban Meyer

Would never coach at that school. 

[n64ra 1078]

19 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Your choices are coaches on the current staff. Do you know any of their names?

No, nor do I care. How did Josh Gattis even get hired?

16 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

Would never coach at that school. 

I doubt it too, but that's why it'd be such a fantastic hire. UM would actually turn out good, and Buckeye fans everywhere would shit themselves.

[Machinator 32097]

10 minutes ago, n64ra said:

No, nor do I care. How did Josh Gattis even get hired?

 

Feldman wrote a long article about it this summer:

 

There was no interview. No face-to-face meeting. No get-up-on-the-board-and-show-me-how-you-run-this session. Not even a tell-me-about-your-offensive-philosophy discussion.

Josh Gattis’ chaotic final week as an assistant coach at Alabama began with the Tide, the favorite to repeat as national champs, getting blown out by Clemson. By the time Alabama returned home from California, the Tide staff was in flux.

Offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who had stayed on through the national title game, was gone, off to Maryland as the Terps’ new head coach. Several other Alabama assistants’ futures were up in the air — some by their choice, some not.

Gattis, the team’s wide receivers coach and a co-offensive coordinator, had been mulling whether to stay on the staff in Tuscaloosa or go to Maryland as the offensive coordinator. In the previous month, he’d also interviewed for FBS head coaching jobs. He felt like there was unfinished business for him at Alabama, where the Tide was returning star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the country’s top receiving quartet, one he played a big role in developing. He loved his receivers room and wanted to win a national title with Alabama. But he’d always wanted to be a coordinator and knew that the opportunity to be the sole coordinator at a Power 5 program doesn’t come around that often, especially, he says, “as a minority coach who doesn’t coach quarterbacks.”

Around 6 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 10, Gattis got a call from a search firm representative saying Michigan might reach out to him that day. Gattis had been contacted by search firms trying to gauge his interest in other opportunities, but he didn’t know what the Wolverines might be offering. He knew he wasn’t leaving Alabama to be a co-coordinator or passing game coordinator someplace else.

When Gattis arrived at the office, he and Tide coach Nick Saban had a conversation about the 35-year-old coach’s future. Gattis was hoping he’d get the shot to replace Locksley, but Saban said he didn’t want a first-time play-caller on offense. He wanted Gattis to help with the gameplan and install the offense, but someone else would call the plays.

“So, in order for me to show you that I’m good at calling plays, where I have the utmost confidence, I gotta go do that,” Gattis told Saban. 

Around 9 a.m., Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh phoned Gattis, who said he was honored to get the call but asked to talk specifics.

“This is to be the offensive coordinator,” Harbaugh said. “You run your system. You run the offense. Your verbiage. Your terminology. It’s fully in your control.”

Gattis knew that Michigan had its top quarterbacks and eight offensive starters coming back. He also was aware that the Wolverines had a Top 25 scoring offense but had finished No. 50 in total offense. More than anything, however, he knew the power of the Michigan brand and kind of players who can be recruited there. From his days at Penn State and coaching in the Mid-American Conference at Western Michigan, he’d seen the Wolverines up close. His teams had lost four of the five times they’d faced the Wolverines, and he remembered those butt kickings. 

The conversation lasted about 20 minutes. Harbaugh told Gattis he’d have a contract for him by noon. 

The sense of urgency Harbaugh and AD Warde Manuel — who helped make the deal happen despite being out of town — displayed to Gattis a level of commitment that blew him away. Harbaugh and Michigan had no hesitation. 

“It was an opportunity to get a great coach,” Harbaugh says. “He’s somebody that I’ve been following and saw that he was becoming an offensive coordinator, so we moved fast to make him our offensive coordinator.”

By 3:30 p.m. that day, Michigan had its new offensive coordinator.

It sounds so rushed. The hiring process never goes down like this in major college football. But people who coached with Gattis or played with or for him make clear that this is the most significant recruiting battle Harbaugh has won since coming back to Ann Arbor — and maybe his shrewdest move too.

Robert Arnheim was entering his senior season at Western Michigan in 2011 when Gattis was hired for his first job as a position coach. Gattis brought a big-brother mentality to the Broncos’ wide receivers room and developed strong relationships fast, Arnheim says.

“It’s like that old adage: They don’t really care about what you know until they know that you care,” Arnheim says. “His passion was consistent. Every day he was bringing the juice. His only rule back then was that you better match my intensity. He was committed to his craft and to us. He’s such a detail-oriented guy. He kinda changed the way I think in that everything is a choice in how you wake up each day and attack each moment.

“It’s crazy what the power of love and the power of belief can do for people. If there’s two words I would use to describe Josh Gattis, it was love and belief. Once I felt that, I was hanging on every word. You wanted to perform for him.”

Gattis spent his entire playing career as a defensive back. He starred at safety for Wake Forest and was the leader of the only Demon Deacons team that won the ACC title and went to the Orange Bowl. Arnheim, a converted quarterback, says Gattis constantly gave his receivers the defensive perspective, whether it was a coverage or a technique they were dealing with. “That insight was very beneficial,” says Arnheim, who went on to have the best season of his career and tripled his receiving numbers from the previous year.

Arnheim, now the wide receivers coach of FCS power South Dakota State, says he went into coaching because of the impact Gattis had on him. “I wanted to pay that forward.”

John Shoop gave Gattis his first college coaching job when he hired him as his offensive graduate assistant at North Carolina in 2010. Shoop, who had spent a dozen years in the NFL before becoming Butch Davis’ offensive coordinator in Chapel Hill, was blown away by the rookie coach’s authoritative demeanor in his interview.

“No one ever thought of Josh as a GA for one day, not a player and not another coach,” Shoop says. “He was a full assistant from day one. His intelligence and his work ethic stood out immediately. Some coaches are just yelling and screaming. There’s some charismatic people, but there’s a lot of hat and not much cattle. It’s a veneer. Josh has got charisma, but he’s got substance. He was always instructing. We had a lot of conversations about technique. He’s really a craftsman when it comes to teaching technique as well as anybody I’ve worked with at any level.”

Shoop credits Gattis for turning around the career of former five-star recruit Dwight Jones. “He was a highly recruited player and had underachieved till we got Josh,” Shoop says. “Then he set school receiving records. A lot of it had to do with Josh, not just in terms of technique but being a man. If you’re a player going to play for Josh, you’re not going to underachieve.”

Shoop called his older brother Bob, then the defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt, and told him he needed to hire Gattis. James Franklin interviewed Gattis, loved him and then called the younger Shoop back to double check — Am I missing something with him?

“No,” Shoop told him, “he’s pure substance.”

Shoop’s take on Harbaugh’s hire of Gattis as a first-time play-caller/offensive coordinator? “Michigan won’t underachieve with Josh Gattis. Just as I’m willing to bet this offense won’t underachieve.”

Zac Selmon, a senior associate athletic director at Oklahoma, was a teammate of Gattis for three seasons at Wake and described him as a fantastic leader. “He led by example daily,” Selman says. “He approached practice every day like it was the Super Bowl. People saw the success he had on the field, but what made him a great leader at Wake was his commitment to the grind when the cameras weren’t on. He fell in love with the process of becoming great.”

Gattis credits his mother Joyce for his ability to connect with and motivate people.

“I grew up in a single-parent home, my mom raised me, my brother, and my sister, pretty much on her own,” he told The Athletic. “She never made excuses for anything. I get a lot of that confidence from her. She had to wear many hats in our house. She was the mother, the father, she was the provider of the home. She had my sister when she was 18. And he still went to college and got her degree — things like that have helped shape me — just don’t worry about your circumstances. And, when you prepare and work hard for something, you got to expect results.”

He’s had failure in life, he says. A fifth-round draft pick, he lasted two seasons in the NFL before his playing career was over. 

“I failed as a player,” he says. “That’s something that is one of my biggest regrets that I wish I could have back. But it helped shape me to who I am today. When I had the opportunity to go to the NFL, I wasn’t half the player that I was in college because I didn’t do the things I needed to do to be successful. And so when you experience failure, I think, it helps shape you to to help prepare you to never make those same mistakes again. I didn’t do the things needed to be successful. It was about just the mindset of doing the little things.”

He’d gone from being the coach on the field at Wake to being one of the guys in the NFL who couldn’t even remember his own playbook. “I was too happy being a football player in the NFL, rather than playing football,” he says. “It wasn’t until years later where I realized like, ‘Man, that’s all on me. I can’t blame anybody else but myself.’ ”

Since then, he’s become determined not to let any of his players make that same mistake.

Gattis learned how big an impact coaches can make because of his own turnaround story from his Wake Forest days. He says his college defensive coordinator Dean Hood sparked a turnaround in his life. “He caught me when I was fragile and he really shaped me,” Gattis says. “And I know it wasn’t easy. He coached my butt hard. He held me accountable.”

For the first year or so of his playing career at Wake, Gattis had been a list guy, meaning that he was frequently on the lists that would go to head coach Jim Grobe and his staff for being late or missing things. Hood says it was never for doing anything crazy, but that Gattis was very immature.

“He had a rough background; had some family adversity he had to overcome, and like a lot of kids, trust was the issue,” Hood says. “It took a while for him to trust us. There’s some gray hairs in my head because of him, but there’s also a lot of pride in my heart too.”

Hood’s secret to reaching Gattis? “Just loving him,” he says. “Being real. That was Jim Grobe and the guys he hired. We’d play other schools and sometimes their coaches would ask us, how’d you get those guys to play so hard? Well, those kids knew Grobie loved them. He treated them they were all like his sons.”

Hood says in 35 years of coaching, Gattis is the smartest player he’s ever been around. “And it’s not even close.”

Michigan had done its own due diligence on Gattis. Former NFL executive Tom Gamble had helped Michigan gather intel, calling around former colleagues of Gattis and tracking the young coach for two years. One of the people Gamble connected with was Joe Moorhead, the offensive coordinator who coached with Gattis at Penn State in 2016 and 2017 and now is the head coach at Mississippi State.

Moorhead had a few examples of Gattis’ savvy as a play-caller that helped the Nittany Lions win some big games. Against Iowa, it was Gattis who during a timeout (see below) went to Moorhead and called for the touchdown pass, on Pine Stick, that won Penn State the game on the final play. 

“It was actually a corner post,” Gattis says. “So we’d run a corner-flat concept, which we had called Pine, a few plays earlier. I saw the reaction to the safety that he was jumping the corner route when we completed it. So I told him to work the double move off of it and work a corner sting. Joe looked at me, and he says, ‘Are you sure?’”

Moorhead says, “The only thing I questioned was we hadn’t run it in practice. I said, ‘Will the guys be ready to do it?’ But I think that’s part of what our system is. We call it banked reps. Maybe you haven’t practiced something during the course of the week, but you’ve run it enough times. Saquon (Barkley’s) wheel route touchdown against Wisconsin in the championship game, that wasn’t on the gameplan and we hadn’t practiced it all week. It was a situation where you saw one of their ends was in coverage against Saquon man-to-man so we went to it.

“I gave it the stamp and called the play, but it was Josh’s suggestion. Ironically enough, in the Michigan White Out game of ’17, we were throwing a ton of inside fade routes to DaeSean (Hamilton) and Mike Gesicki and we had caught a few and made some plays down the field, Josh brought up the fact that with (Michigan defensive coordinator) Donny (Brown) and their man-free coverages, the DBs were playing a little bit softer, playing a little more outside leverages. So in the second half, he said, ‘Hey instead of running the inside fade, we should go to an inside slant because they’re jumping hard outside.’

“DaeSean caught a couple of big passes on that in the second half.”

That halftime adjustment helped blow open a 21-13 halftime score as Penn State romped 42-13 against the No. 19 Wolverines. 

Gattis says he learned about leadership from the last two coordinators he’s worked with — Moorhead at Penn State and Mike Locksley last season at Alabama. Moorhead’s willingness to trust his staff even in the most crucial moments further empowers people. “Things like that show that really good people who just want to put the team first,” Gattis says. In Tuscaloosa, Locksley let Gattis install the offense in front of the team and also allowed him to script practices and game plans.

“He did a lot for me, as far as my personal growth in a year and he put me in such a leadership role that I could feel as confident as I do today,” Gattis says.

If the Wolverines are to finally overtake Ohio State and get to the College Football Playoff, Gattis will need to get the Wolverines’ offense cranked up again. The biggest challenge to do that in his eyes was to provide them with a much-needed jolt of confidence. 

“How much we’ve been able to change the mentality in practice, that has been the one thing that I’ve really emphasized to the players,” Gattis told The Athletic. “I think at times we got caught up with the being the little brother to the defense, where that was the same type of situation last year going into Alabama. Previously in the past years, their offense had always seen themselves as the little brother to the defense. We changed that mindset of the offense and installed confidence first before we installed any of the plays. That’s the one thing we did this spring.

“It’s just a mindset. It’s not necessarily a plays deal. I learned that from Joe when he came to Penn State. At the time we were perceived as having a bad offense. Our offense didn’t have confidence. And Joe brought confidence into our offense, and we ran some of the same plays from the year before, and had quite different results, you know, and it was all confidence. It wasn’t X’s and O’s, it wasn’t players or scheme, it was confidence and belief in the system.”

The impact Moorhead had at Penn State was jaw-dropping. Penn State went 7-6 the year before he arrived from Fordham and then went 22-5 in his two seasons in Happy Valley. The Nittany Lions went from No. 78 in total offense to consecutive seasons ranked No. 14. 

“To me, confidence and belief by the players is more than half the battle,” Moorhead says. “I think what we lacked was an identity. When you think of Penn State traditionally, it was blue uniforms, black shoes, Linebacker U. winning games 17-13 with great defense, special teams and not turning the ball over. I knew that Coach (Brent) Pry and those guys on defense were gonna continue to do a great job, but I wanted the offense to be as much a part of why Penn State won games as the defense, and the kids needed to know that. And that was something that we expressed to them from Day 1.”

But instilling confidence is much easier said than done. 

Moorhead’s first rule upon arriving at Penn State was telling the players not to listen to outside noise. To believe in themselves. To believe in their teammates. To believe in the coaches and to believe in the system. “Then, the tree began to bear fruit,” he says. “Once spring ball started and you installed the offense, you see Saquon split a run or Chris Godwin catch a pass from Trace (McSorley); then they really started to see ‘Alright, it’s not just Fordham film against Lehigh where this thing was looking good on tape at the FCS level, but it was something that we’re doing on the field ourselves.”

It helped that Moorhead was calling out touchdowns right before they happened. “He’d say, this play we’re gonna run right here, we’re gonna score a touchdown, and they saw that and the confidence grew and spread,” says a former Penn State assistant. “He was speaking in the affirmative ever day.”

Gattis is definitely a believer of that. 

“I think mindset rubs off on people,” he says. “In order for you to install confidence in people, they got to see that you have confidence in yourself and in your system. If they believe that you have the utmost confidence in it, then they’ll have the utmost confidence. Sometimes there were things when I first got there, guys were like, ‘Well, you can’t do that versus our defense.’ Yes, we can. Because we dictate things. Just being able to give that approach of Hey, look, we will do whatever we want to do. And then when you go out and you have success, and you have proof of doing it, then people buy into it.

“The first meeting I had, I said, ‘Guys, we gotta walk around like this. You go through our building and all people talk about is how we’re not good on offense or how we lose to Ohio State. There’s no confidence brewing in the building.’ I didn’t focus on the negatives of last year. I focused on all the positive things that they did here, like averaging over 35 points, winning 10 games, playing at a high level. The most important thing to me is being able to show confidence in myself, but also being able to instill confidence in them. I think it was a different type of edge and swagger that I kind of walked in showing them, and you can tell by the end of the spring and that it really kind of paid off and our guys bought into it.”

Taking from the Moorhead blueprint included the heavy RPO flavor he’d added to the Alabama offense with the concepts he’d brought from State College. That helped the Tide go from No. 29 in total offense to No. 6. Since arriving in Ann Arbor, Gattis has added some new concepts to the system.

Showing his new team cut-ups of early enrolled freshman wideout Mikey Sainristill ripping all sorts of big plays from various spots in the Michigan offense gave a spark to film sessions. So did seeing walk-on running backs Lucas Andrighetto and Nick Capatina, a kid who was trying out and hoping to earn a roster spot, busting big runs against the talented Wolverines defense. Those results fueled more confidence in the new up-tempo system.

Gattis also loved to show teach tape of 10 guys doing their job on the offense and how if one other player had better hat placement on a given block, there might have been a big lane for a huge play.

Gattis said the Wolverines crunched the numbers from spring practice and found out the offense doubled its number of explosive passes from last spring and had 15 more explosive runs, which almost doubled the output from 2018 — and that was without three running backs and their top two wideouts.

“They gained an edge,” says Chris Partridge, Michigan’s safeties coach and special teams coordinator. “You could see it with each practice they got more and more of an edge. It felt good. It’s like that old adage iron sharpens iron.”

Gattis will move up to the booth to handle the play-calling duties this fall. That will be a big change for a high-energy guy who has spent his coaching career looking in the eyes of his players on the sidelines. Moorhead says the biggest challenge for new play-callers is catching up with the speed of the game, anticipating and trying to stay one or two calls ahead.

“With what we do systematically, having the answers and being prepared for something that doesn’t show up during the course of the week in film and study is important,” he says. “So is having enough confidence and knowledge of the system to where you’re prepared to adjust during the course of the game.”

There is a lot of skepticism around the college football world about the hire — not necessarily about Gattis but whether Harbaugh will keep this structure intact throughout the season. Just about everywhere he’s been, Harbaugh has had two guys handling the offense, usually with one calling the run plays and another in charge of the passing plays.

“I’m curious how this is gonna work out,” one former Harbaugh staffer told The Athletic. “Jim’s never really done it like this. How’s he gonna respond the first time they struggle?”

Gattis, at this point, couldn’t be more fired up.

“I absolutely love working for him,” he says. “Just the amount of respect that we have for each other. It’s been every day, I literally can’t say it enough, but it’s literally been a dream job every day. I don’t think I could find a better situation, to be a coordinator at a place to being able to have the support from Coach Harbaugh that he’s given me. There’s not once he’s coming around and said, Hey, let’s do this. Let’s do that. Instead, it’s been, What do you want to do? How do you want to structure practice? How do you want to run the meetings? And we’ve got good kids. We have good people on staff.”

Edited September 24, 2019 by Machinator

[notre dame joe 172]

On 9/21/2019 at 2:27 PM, BigVegasHorn26 said:

Harbaugh not so good at this coaching thing.  

Michigan is not that good at the football thing.  If you follow their history, in their good years they drop 1 random BUG game and bat .500 against ND+OSU.  Some of their fans concede that 10-3 is the new normal. But at least they aren't Nebraska, yet.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

4 minutes ago, notre dame joe said:

Michigan is not that good at the football thing.  If you follow their history, in their good years they drop 1 random BUG game and bat .500 against ND+OSU.  Some of their fans concede that 10-3 is the new normal. But at least they aren't Nebraska, yet.

Since the turn of the century, they've had two seasons where they lost fewer than three games: 2006, when they ran out to an 11-0 start and then lost to Ohio State and got beaten pretty convincingly in the Rose Bowl, and 2011 when Ohio State had an interim coach and was unusually vulnerable. In every other season, for the past two decades, they've had at least three losses. 

They managed two or fewer losses more frequently in the 90s, 80s, and 70s-- four times in the 90s (including the weird 9-0-3 season in 1992), five times in the 80s (including a 9-2-1 record one year), and nine times in the 70s (including one 8-2-2 record). 

That trend is unmistakable and takes place over a nearly fifty year period from 1970 through last season, so it's not just some cherry-picked Aggiesque time frame. And, it's not just "there are more games, so there are more losses", either-- Ohio State lost two or fewer games all seven years under Urban Meyer and seven times in the ten years Jim Tressel was the coach. 

We have long-term evidence now that Michigan and Ohio State have different ceilings as programs. I have no idea how Michigan turns that around other than "recruiting", which is both facile and correct. 

[tx 3 putt 76396]

On 9/23/2019 at 8:10 PM, VABuckeye said:

Would never coach at that school. 

....for free

 

[Brothahorn 10085]

Harbaugh just watched an opposing team absolutely annihilate his squad with the exact brand of offense he failed to install in the same year that he abandoned that effort to hand the reins over to a first time play caller who is clearly in over his head. That would probably be incredibly frustrating if it wasn’t for the millions of dollars Michigan has showered him with.

LoL

[mulletpelini 5209]

8 hours ago, notre dame joe said:

Michigan is not that good at the football thing.  If you follow their history, in their good years they drop 1 random BUG game and bat .500 against ND+OSU.  Some of their fans concede that 10-3 is the new normal. But at least they aren't Nebraska, yet.

Wow that's rich.  Remind me again how long its been?  30 years?  Oh yeah, I forgot you made it to the playoffs twice by virtue of a stellar fucking schedule.  And whoa, what an appearance both times.  Still scheduling service academies....too bad it's not 1942

[WhatTheBuck 28713]

Notre Dame only went to the playoff once. And got embarrassed. Their last national championship came in 1988. Michigan's was in 1997. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

if we can get back to Michigan Misery instead of cataloging which Midwestern programs have gone the longest without winning anything of consequence (in order: Nebraska, then Michigan, then Notre Dame, then Minnesota, then the U of Chicago)

Reading rumors this morning among Michigan fans that Tarik Black and Donovan Peoples-Jones are acting like locker room cancers right now and their playing time is going to suffer for it

[BabaYaga 15212]

Haha!  Such a craptastic program right now.  Let them all choke.  tOSU is as crooked as a politicians spine.  Meat-chicken is floundering.  NU is, well NU.  

They just don't have the horses anymore.  tOSU is the only program to consistently pull top players from OOS.  Currently they have a top five class, with only 5 of their top 15 players are local (or @ surrounding states).  They are having to pull from TX, CA, NJ, WA, AZ, etc.)

[notre dame joe 172]

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Notre Dame only went to the playoff once. And got embarrassed. Their last national championship came in 1988. Michigan's was in 1997. 

That was a mediocre team that struggled with an 8 win Bob Davie team at home.  M was protected from Nebraska by the Bowl system so they claim half a title.  Their last consensus title was right after WW2.

[VABuckeye 2472]

6 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Haha!  Such a craptastic program right now.  Let them all choke.  tOSU is as crooked as a politicians spine.  Meat-chicken is floundering.  NU is, well NU.  

They just don't have the horses anymore.  tOSU is the only program to consistently pull top players from OOS.  Currently they have a top five class, with only 5 of their top 15 players are local (or @ surrounding states).  They are having to pull from TX, CA, NJ, WA, AZ, etc.)

If you’re talking about Ohio State they don’t have to pull from those states, they CAN pull top players from those states. Like Alabama they’re a national recruiting brands. When they call they get kids attention. 

[BabaYaga 15212]

6 minutes ago, VABuckeye said:

If you’re talking about Ohio State they don’t have to pull from those states, they CAN pull top players from those states. Like Alabama they’re a national recruiting brands. When they call they get kids attention. 

Yep, and their 2020 class - 10 of their top 15 players are from many state's away.  So like AL and TX, they can pick and choose from a MUCH larger sample size across the country.  

[VABuckeye 2472]

6 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Haha!  Such a craptastic program right now.  Let them all choke.  tOSU is as crooked as a politicians spine.  Meat-chicken is floundering.  NU is, well NU.  

They just don't have the horses anymore.  tOSU is the only program to consistently pull top players from OOS.  Currently they have a top five class, with only 5 of their top 15 players are local (or @ surrounding states).  They are having to pull from TX, CA, NJ, WA, AZ, etc.)

If you’re talking about Ohio State they don’t have to pull from those states, they CAN pull top players from those states. Like Alabama they’re a national recruiting brands. When they call they get kids attention. 

[VABuckeye 2472]

Dreaded iPhone double post. 

[Machinator 32097]