Let's Check In on Jim Harbaugh at Michigan

[Wally Fairway 5523]

9 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

Because it got a lot of replies? I am not searching around for some mega thread. Those are terrible. Fresh thread and fresh replies. Fuck mega threads in the ass.

I haz lulz because Vic's POW thread (plenty of whales)

I like Jimmah, think he should get a lifetime contract. He is perfect for the job, Michigan Man, gets lots of good 'cruits, great off season hype, jumpman, etc. 
Sure there is a let down at the end of the season, but the off-season is the best season to be a Michy fan
(this lifetime contract message is a paid political ad authorized and endorsed by the Buckeye and Spartan fanbase)

[aggie08 21434]

21 minutes ago, Chad said:

One good year at Stanford and even during that year his only win over a team that finished the year ranked was against VA Tech in a bowl game. The majority of the PAC teams he beat won 6 or 7 games at the most and Notre Dame finished 8-5, the only quality team he played blew his fucking doors off by 21 points. Harbaugh is a fraud.

Terrible, this take. He took over a 1-11 team that had won 16 games in their previous 5 seasons. He went 3-1 against USC, and, by the end of his tenure, a bunch of Stanford nerds were easily the most physically imposing team in the conference. He completely changed their ceiling to the point that annually competing for conference titles and BCS bowls was a realistic expectation. He was also nails at the University of San Diego, to say nothing of his pro success. He's sucked shit through a straw at Michigan and deserves the criticism he's receiving, but he can coach.

[Valmy77 13094]

12 hours ago, ClubWhatever said:

I think Harbaugh is a really good coach but when I watch him in his second go round as a college coach he doesn’t seem as edgy or hungry as he did the first go round.  His inner douche does not come out as much as it used to.  Those Stanford teams reflected his inner douche.  He needs to get that back.  Maybe he’s content to just hang out in A2 and be a zillionaire and doesn’t feel it as much anymore. 

Yeah. He just lacks the same crazy intensity at Michigan he had at Stanford and San Francisco. His Stanford teams were so desperate and hungry to beat USC and somehow his Michigan teams just lack the same energy against Michigan State and Ohio State. I mean how can you not get Michigan up to play Ohio State?

Edited September 23, 2019 by Valmy77

[Valmy77 13094]

42 minutes ago, Chad said:

One good year at Stanford and even during that year his only win over a team that finished the year ranked was against VA Tech in a bowl game. The majority of the PAC teams he beat won 6 or 7 games at the most and Notre Dame finished 8-5, the only quality team he played blew his fucking doors off by 21 points. Harbaugh is a fraud.

Is this some kind of spoof post? Because this is ridiculous.

[VABuckeye 2472]

9 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

Yeah. He just lacks the same crazy intensity at Michigan he had at Stanford and San Francisco. His Stanford teams were so desperate and hungry to beat USC and somehow his Michigan teams just lack the same energy against Michigan State and Ohio State. I mean how can you not get Michigan up to play Ohio State?

Because he says they approach it like every other game.  Since Tressel arrived Ohio State does something every day that is focused on beating them and it has continued through Meyer and Day is doing the same.  Obviously, that approach is working.

[aggie08 21434]

14 minutes ago, Valmy77 said:

Is this some kind of spoof post? Because this is ridiculous.

Seriously. The only criticism that you can levy at Harbaugh for his tenure at Stanford is that he left too early and let David Shaw continue the run of 11+ win seasons that Harbaugh had set himself up for.

That's not to discredit Shaw; he's a great coach as well...but talk about being set up perfectly for success.

[Loco 3752]

Can someone post all the years Harboughs teams won their conference...  shouldn't be too taxing

[Francisco 2.0 32341]

9 minutes ago, Loco said:

Can someone post all the years Harboughs teams won their conference...  shouldn't be too taxing

2005 and 06 University of San Diego Pioneer League Champions

[Francisco 2.0 32341]

Stewart Mandel weighs in this morning on The Athletic:

 

https://theathletic.com/1232677/2019/09/23/mandels-forward-pass-five-theories-about-what-has-happened-to-michigan/?source=dailyemail

 

Quote

On Nov. 26, 2016, No. 3 Michigan came within a few inches on a fourth-down spot from beating No. 2 Ohio State at the Horseshoe and advancing to the Big Ten championship game to play for a College Football Playoff berth. That team suffered three losses by a combined five points, produced 11 NFL draft picks the following spring and looked every bit like a program on the cusp of perennial national contention.

But rather than building on that promising Year 2, Jim Harbaugh’s program has somehow descended to its lowest point in Year 5. On Saturday, No. 14 Wisconsin went up 35-0, at one point outrushing the Wolverines 200-0. Final score: 35-14, making it slightly more respectable than their past two games against Power 5 opponents, the infamous 62-39 blowout at Ohio State last November and 41-15 Peach Bowl loss to Florida. Wedged in between: A double-overtime escape at home against Army.

There’s no sugarcoating it at this point. Michigan — which just last year strung together 10 wins in a row — is in a free fall. It’s been an abrupt and baffling turn of events.

 

Spoiler

Harbaugh performed an all-time turnaround at Stanford. He took the 49ers to the Super Bowl. The $7.5 million-a-year coach began his tenure in similarly promising fashion … until things suddenly went so jarringly wrong, leaving much of his previously adoring fan base up in arms following Saturday’s latest indignity.

Because Michigan is as closed off as any program in the country, and because Harbaugh speaks only in vague shorthand when discussing his actual football team (“outplayed, out-prepared, outcoached” was his assessment Saturday), it’s near-impossible to get a good read on what’s happening behind the scenes there.

But I do have a few theories — some obvious, some less so.

• Ohio State broke Don Brown’s defense. Most have focused on Harbaugh’s thus-far bungled attempt to remake his offense, but the most stunning aspect of Michigan’s last five football games is how drastically its previously dominant defense has imploded. The Wolverines finished No. 2 in the country in total defense in 2016, No. 6 in 2017 and entered last year’s Ohio State game ranked No. 1. That now seems like eons ago.

Yes, the Wolverines lost a lot of key players from last season (DEs Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich, LB Devin Bush). But watching Badgers star Jonathan Taylor run for 203 yards and QB Jack Coan do whatever he wanted, it looked less like a case of inexperience and more like a unit that lost all its swagger and confidence that fateful day in Columbus and has yet to recover it.

• Harbaugh and his OC are not on the same page. When Harbaugh, a tried-and-trued Bo Schembechler smashmouth disciple, hired former Alabama receivers coach Josh Gattis to remake the Wolverines into a 2019 spread outfit, it seemed like his concession that times have changed. What we don’t know is: Does he really believe that?

LSU coach Ed Orgeron, who’s seeing astonishing returns from hiring pass game coordinator Joe Brady, has been clear he wanted a more wide-open offense since the day he got the job. USC’s Clay Helton went to the Air Raid not just to save his job, but because he knew his receivers were the strength of the team. Did Harbaugh choose Gattis because he truly believed in his vision? Or just because he felt he had to try something after the way last year ended?

Because three games in, Michigan has less of an offensive identity now than it did most of last season, when QB Shea Patterson was at least having modest success. So far, he’s regressed badly.

• Staff turnover. It made relatively modest waves at the time, but in hindsight, should we have waved a red flag last winter when D-line coach Greg Mattison, a Michigan assistant since 2011, left to be co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State of all places?

Assistants come and go across college football, but Harbaugh has seen a lot of churn for an ostensibly successful program. Gattis is the fifth different offensive assistant in five years to hold “coordinator” in his title, none of them lasting more than two seasons. The only remaining holdover from Harbaugh’s original staff is his son, Jay.

Some programs (hint, Alabama) can withstand constant staff churn just fine, but most eventually feel the effect.

• The message has worn thin. I’ve lived within 20 minutes of Harbaugh’s two most recent employers since 2011. One thing that’s always struck me is that despite leading both to glory, he is not at all missed. I remember being puzzled at the time how he fell out of favor with the Niners so quickly after leading them to three consecutive NFC championship games, so I asked around with people who’ve worked with him. The general response I got was this: His uniquely maniacal energy works wonders upon first taking over a down-on-their-luck group of players, but with time, it eventually, it wears down everybody in the building.

It’s fair to ask whether that’s what’ happening here. Is it possible “Enthusiasm Unknown to Mankind” and “Who Has It Better than Us?” stop resonating once you’ve suffered a few too many blowouts? Remember, this, Year 5, is the longest he’s lasted in any of his four head-coaching jobs to date.

• Maybe this is as good as it gets. This is the one no Michigan fan will entertain, but it’s been 15 years since the program’s last Big Ten championship, a drought unlikely to end in 2019. Since Lloyd Carr’s 2007 retirement, the school has tried the innovative outsider, Rich Rodriguez, and it failed spectacularly. It tried the former Carr assistant, Brady Hoke, and it failed spectacularly. On paper, Harbaugh, the former star QB and highly accomplished head coach, was about as ideal a fit as one could possibly imagine. And though he’s been an improvement from his two predecessors, he, too, is falling well short of where Michigan believes its rightful place in the sport should be.

And that’s what must be so vexing for Wolverines fans today. You want to fire Harbaugh? Who are you going to get instead that’s an obvious upgrade? Urban Meyer’s not likely to switch sides to The Team Up North. Jeff Monken? Matt Campbell? Luke Fickell? None have anything close to Harbaugh’s résumé at the time of his hire.

Could it be that perhaps Michigan as a program has a lower ceiling today than it did back when Bo was battling Woody? The city of Detroit, ostensibly its main recruiting pipeline, has seen its population nearly cut in half over the past five decades. Its archrival, Ohio State, is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts.

And yet … there was only a few inches’ separation between the two as recently as 2016. Michigan State has managed to win three Big Ten titles more recently than Michigan without the recruiting stars. Ditto the Wisconsin program that hammered the Wolverines on Saturday.

Maybe Michigan will never be Alabama or Clemson, but the Wolverines certainly could have it better than this.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Francisco 2.0

[El Squared 1793]

Rich Rod was prolly shown the door too soon and  that's all part of the insider's disease at UM. However he did himself no favors being himself either.

[alincoln 2364]

Michigan can't run and can't stop the run.  Great recipe for success in the Big 10.  JK Dobbins and Fields are going to destroy them

[aggie08 21434]

26 minutes ago, Loco said:

Can someone post all the years Harboughs teams won their conference...  shouldn't be too taxing

 

15 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

2005 and 06 University of San Diego Pioneer League Champions

2012 National Football Conference. 

He won 12 games and finished 2nd to a team that played in the BCS title game in his last season at Stanford. Had he stayed, he had a great team built, and Andrew Luck's senior season...I like his chances.

There's some things worth picking apart on his resume before Michigan (namely, has ability to wear thin on people), but lack of conference championships at Stanford is a stupid one. I'm not sure who could have done more in 4 years with THAT Stanford team. They were essentially Kansas.

 

[Machinator 32097]

 

[Loco 3752]

27 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

 

2012 National Football Conference. 

He won 12 games and finished 2nd to a team that played in the BCS title game in his last season at Stanford. Had he stayed, he had a great team built, and Andrew Luck's senior season...I like his chances.

There's some things worth picking apart on his resume before Michigan (namely, has ability to wear thin on people), but lack of conference championships at Stanford is a stupid one. I'm not sure who could have done more in 4 years with THAT Stanford team. They were essentially Kansas.

 

Dude is not a winner... Bridesmaid? sure.  Michigan is getting exactly what they bought.  Players have been the X factor.  If he gets a mercurial guy (gerhart sp?/Luck/Capernick), he's an above average coach.  When he doesn't have a talent advantage he is a below average coach.

 

At Stanford he went to 2 bowls and won 1  ...  David Shaw is a better coach with a better win% and a better bowl win% (not sure if he has any sleepovers though)

Edited September 23, 2019 by Loco

[HOOK'EMHOOAH 1606]

I hope he never leaves. The longer his mediocrity is present at Michigan, the more that lead in all-time wins gets eaten into. Texas is finally back to putting up Ws and as long as Michigan isn't, the closer it brings all of us to claiming that as our own.

[Js1 85110]

1 hour ago, VABuckeye said:

Because he says they approach it like every other game.  Since Tressel arrived Ohio State does something every day that is focused on beating them and it has continued through Meyer and Day is doing the same.  Obviously, that approach is working.

Hey that sounds familiar! 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Stewart Mandel weighs in this morning on The Athletic:

https://theathletic.com/1232677/2019/09/23/mandels-forward-pass-five-theories-about-what-has-happened-to-michigan/?source=dailyemail

  Reveal hidden contents

Harbaugh performed an all-time turnaround at Stanford. He took the 49ers to the Super Bowl. The $7.5 million-a-year coach began his tenure in similarly promising fashion … until things suddenly went so jarringly wrong, leaving much of his previously adoring fan base up in arms following Saturday’s latest indignity.

Because Michigan is as closed off as any program in the country, and because Harbaugh speaks only in vague shorthand when discussing his actual football team (“outplayed, out-prepared, outcoached” was his assessment Saturday), it’s near-impossible to get a good read on what’s happening behind the scenes there.

But I do have a few theories — some obvious, some less so.

• Ohio State broke Don Brown’s defense. Most have focused on Harbaugh’s thus-far bungled attempt to remake his offense, but the most stunning aspect of Michigan’s last five football games is how drastically its previously dominant defense has imploded. The Wolverines finished No. 2 in the country in total defense in 2016, No. 6 in 2017 and entered last year’s Ohio State game ranked No. 1. That now seems like eons ago.

Yes, the Wolverines lost a lot of key players from last season (DEs Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich, LB Devin Bush). But watching Badgers star Jonathan Taylor run for 203 yards and QB Jack Coan do whatever he wanted, it looked less like a case of inexperience and more like a unit that lost all its swagger and confidence that fateful day in Columbus and has yet to recover it.

• Harbaugh and his OC are not on the same page. When Harbaugh, a tried-and-trued Bo Schembechler smashmouth disciple, hired former Alabama receivers coach Josh Gattis to remake the Wolverines into a 2019 spread outfit, it seemed like his concession that times have changed. What we don’t know is: Does he really believe that?

LSU coach Ed Orgeron, who’s seeing astonishing returns from hiring pass game coordinator Joe Brady, has been clear he wanted a more wide-open offense since the day he got the job. USC’s Clay Helton went to the Air Raid not just to save his job, but because he knew his receivers were the strength of the team. Did Harbaugh choose Gattis because he truly believed in his vision? Or just because he felt he had to try something after the way last year ended?

Because three games in, Michigan has less of an offensive identity now than it did most of last season, when QB Shea Patterson was at least having modest success. So far, he’s regressed badly.

• Staff turnover. It made relatively modest waves at the time, but in hindsight, should we have waved a red flag last winter when D-line coach Greg Mattison, a Michigan assistant since 2011, left to be co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State of all places?

Assistants come and go across college football, but Harbaugh has seen a lot of churn for an ostensibly successful program. Gattis is the fifth different offensive assistant in five years to hold “coordinator” in his title, none of them lasting more than two seasons. The only remaining holdover from Harbaugh’s original staff is his son, Jay.

Some programs (hint, Alabama) can withstand constant staff churn just fine, but most eventually feel the effect.

• The message has worn thin. I’ve lived within 20 minutes of Harbaugh’s two most recent employers since 2011. One thing that’s always struck me is that despite leading both to glory, he is not at all missed. I remember being puzzled at the time how he fell out of favor with the Niners so quickly after leading them to three consecutive NFC championship games, so I asked around with people who’ve worked with him. The general response I got was this: His uniquely maniacal energy works wonders upon first taking over a down-on-their-luck group of players, but with time, it eventually, it wears down everybody in the building.

It’s fair to ask whether that’s what’ happening here. Is it possible “Enthusiasm Unknown to Mankind” and “Who Has It Better than Us?” stop resonating once you’ve suffered a few too many blowouts? Remember, this, Year 5, is the longest he’s lasted in any of his four head-coaching jobs to date.

• Maybe this is as good as it gets. This is the one no Michigan fan will entertain, but it’s been 15 years since the program’s last Big Ten championship, a drought unlikely to end in 2019. Since Lloyd Carr’s 2007 retirement, the school has tried the innovative outsider, Rich Rodriguez, and it failed spectacularly. It tried the former Carr assistant, Brady Hoke, and it failed spectacularly. On paper, Harbaugh, the former star QB and highly accomplished head coach, was about as ideal a fit as one could possibly imagine. And though he’s been an improvement from his two predecessors, he, too, is falling well short of where Michigan believes its rightful place in the sport should be.

And that’s what must be so vexing for Wolverines fans today. You want to fire Harbaugh? Who are you going to get instead that’s an obvious upgrade? Urban Meyer’s not likely to switch sides to The Team Up North. Jeff Monken? Matt Campbell? Luke Fickell? None have anything close to Harbaugh’s résumé at the time of his hire.

Could it be that perhaps Michigan as a program has a lower ceiling today than it did back when Bo was battling Woody? The city of Detroit, ostensibly its main recruiting pipeline, has seen its population nearly cut in half over the past five decades. Its archrival, Ohio State, is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts.

And yet … there was only a few inches’ separation between the two as recently as 2016. Michigan State has managed to win three Big Ten titles more recently than Michigan without the recruiting stars. Ditto the Wisconsin program that hammered the Wolverines on Saturday.

Maybe Michigan will never be Alabama or Clemson, but the Wolverines certainly could have it better than this.

 

Could it be that perhaps Michigan as a program has a lower ceiling today than it did back when Bo was battling Woody? The city of Detroit, ostensibly its main recruiting pipeline, has seen its population nearly cut in half over the past five decades. Its archrival, Ohio State, is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts.

This a really stupid take. And bad writing. Michigan has had the most success in modern times when they recruited good players from Ohio. Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson being the prime examples but there are many others. Michigan has also been recruiting nationally for a long time. They have to because there's not a lot of talent in Michigan. 

I'm not sure how population loss in Detroit has hurt Michigan's recruiting, if at all. But if Stewart's going to compare that assertion to Ohio State, shouldn't he make some sort of case about population shift in Ohio or where OSU's 'ostensible' main recruiting pipeline is? Suggesting Michigan's problems are due to Detroit's declining population affecting their recruiting while OSU "is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts" is pretty lazy analysis. 

[JimmyHoffa 1188]

i still can't believe that line was only 3 1/2.

Free fucking money. 

[alincoln 2364]

12 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

 

 

This a really stupid take. And bad writing. Michigan has had the most success in modern times when they recruited good players from Ohio. Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson being the prime examples but there are many others. Michigan has also been recruiting nationally for a long time. They have to because there's not a lot of talent in Michigan. 

I'm not sure how population loss in Detroit has hurt Michigan's recruiting, if at all. But if Stewart's going to compare that assertion to Ohio State, shouldn't he make some sort of case about population shift in Ohio or where OSU's 'ostensible' main recruiting pipeline is? Suggesting Michigan's problems are due to Detroit's declining population affecting their recruiting while OSU "is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts" is pretty lazy analysis. 

I do think the development of Columbus and stagnation of Detroit over the past 30 years have altered the recruiting landscape, particularly w/r/t players from Ohio.

[The Hot Dog Buffet 1291]

14 minutes ago, JimmyHoffa said:

i still can't believe that line was only 3 1/2.

Free fucking money. 

Yeah, that kind of line always makes me think there is something I'm just not seeing. I fully expected Wisconsin to blow them out.

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

12 minutes ago, alincoln said:

I do think the development of Columbus and stagnation of Detroit over the past 30 years have altered the recruiting landscape, particularly w/r/t players from Ohio.

Really? Why? Do any actual players from Columbus factor into that assessment? Not that OSU hasn't recruited good players from central Ohio, but you would never call Columbus "ostensibly" OSU's recruiting pipeline. 

Jim Tressel's teams were more loaded with Ohio players than Urban's teams and the team Day inherited. OSU's last star QB recruit from Ohio is now playing in Baton Rouge. And he was from southern Ohio. 

[aggie08 21434]

2 hours ago, Loco said:

Dude is not a winner... Bridesmaid? sure.  Michigan is getting exactly what they bought.  Players have been the X factor.  If he gets a mercurial guy (gerhart sp?/Luck/Capernick), he's an above average coach.  When he doesn't have a talent advantage he is a below average coach.

 

At Stanford he went to 2 bowls and won 1  ...  David Shaw is a better coach with a better win% and a better bowl win% (not sure if he has any sleepovers though)

wut?

1) I don't think "mercurial" means what you think it means. 

2) So Kaepernick is a transcendent NFL talent now even though Harbaugh was the only coach seemingly capable of making him look good?

2) With bad players, Harbaugh's not so great; with good players, he's very good...where do I send my $9.95?  Harbaugh doesn't get credit for finding that talent within Stanford's rigid acceptance criteria?  It's certainly his fault in Michigan that he can't find enough good players.

3) You mean to tell me that you think Harbaugh's Stanford teams were out-talenting teams with California recruits that didn't have to academically qualify for Stanford?  There's some revisionist history.  Stanford won with toughness and intelligence.  Their offense, at the time, was ahead of the game in terms of shifting and being able to run any play from any formation, but it ultimately came down to being tougher and better coached than you were.

4) David Shaw is a great coach, no question.  I don't think he's better than Harbaugh...at least not what Harbaugh was.  It wasn't like Stanford went out and hired Shaw to replace Harbaugh, and he came in with an entirely new staff and philosophy; they hired someone in-house who worked under Harbaugh to continue what he was building with as few changes as possible.  With primarily Harbaugh's players, Shaw reeled off 3 tremendous seasons in a row.  He had another great season when McCaffrey went absolutely crazy.  His other 4 seasons have been so-so in a historically weak PAC, and he's currently 1-3.  We'll see if the downward trend continues.

5) Kansas was a poor comparison that I used earlier.  Stanford obviously blows them away in terms of location and history (though some of that is undone with the aforementioned acceptance requirements).   A more apt comparison for the state of Stanford's football program when Harbaugh took over would be somewhere even worse than UW at the end Ty Willinghman's disastrous tenure.  It took UW 8 years to get back to double-digit wins.  Willingham's successor took the USC job on the back of the "success" of winning 9 games in year 5 at UW.  Harbaugh was one Oregon 2nd half comeback/onslaught in Autzen away from playing in the BCS title game in year 4.  It's one of the most impressive turnarounds ever in college football.  Sure, I guess he was ultimately still a bridesmaid.  By that metric, every current coach except for Saban and Dabo is a bridesmaid.  Would you really consider Jimbo a winner because the pieces came together, and the crab legs bounced their way for one season?

Edited September 23, 2019 by aggie08

[alincoln 2364]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Really? Why? Do any actual players from Columbus factor into that assessment? Not that OSU hasn't recruited good players from central Ohio, but you would never call Columbus "ostensibly" OSU's recruiting pipeline. 

Jim Tressel's teams were more loaded with Ohio players than Urban's teams and the team Day inherited. OSU's last star QB recruit from Ohio is now playing in Baton Rouge. And he was from southern Ohio. 

I was speaking more to the positive impact that the new Columbus has had on recruiting battles with Michigan than Columbus as a recruiting hotbed, although Ohio State's highest rated recruit in 2019 is from a Columbus suburb that didn't really exist 20 years ago.    

[JimmyHoffa 1188]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Really? Why? Do any actual players from Columbus factor into that assessment? Not that OSU hasn't recruited good players from central Ohio, but you would never call Columbus "ostensibly" OSU's recruiting pipeline. 

Jim Tressel's teams were more loaded with Ohio players than Urban's teams and the team Day inherited. OSU's last star QB recruit from Ohio is now playing in Baton Rouge. And he was from southern Ohio. 

 

Star players sure but the core of almost any team's roster (aside from a very few) are generally made up from HS kids from the region. Of course the blue bloods can recruit nationally but they still are going to have a majority of their roster be from the area where the school resides.

Now I do agree "that" isn't the reason why Michigan isn't where they want to be but it might play a small role. I think a bigger factor is kids want to play; going to Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. happens a hell of a lot more often then it ever did back in the 80's and 90's at least for guys that had an offer from Michigan or Ohio State.

[Bevo14 8274]

They could also hire K State's new purple wizard. I'm not looking forward to dealing with that guy.

[Bogeywon 2518]

On 9/22/2019 at 11:49 AM, SwanderedTalent said:

it's too bad all the Michigan fans on here are so well-liked and such good posters, you hate to see this happen to them

Thank you

[sushihorn 3233]

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

This a really stupid take. And bad writing. Michigan has had the most success in modern times when they recruited good players from Ohio. Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson being the prime examples but there are many others. Michigan has also been recruiting nationally for a long time. They have to because there's not a lot of talent in Michigan. 

I'm not sure how population loss in Detroit has hurt Michigan's recruiting, if at all. But if Stewart's going to compare that assertion to Ohio State, shouldn't he make some sort of case about population shift in Ohio or where OSU's 'ostensible' main recruiting pipeline is? Suggesting Michigan's problems are due to Detroit's declining population affecting their recruiting while OSU "is one of the sport’s premier juggernauts" is pretty lazy analysis. 

Your focus is too narrow.  The demographic trend is not a metro area or even state-specific issue.  It's a huge regional trend that's been in place for 35 years at least.  The Great Migration of the early 20th century has been partially reversed for a number of reasons.  But what is important from a sports recruiting standpoint is that the African-American population has been moving back to the South for a couple of generations now.

Quote

Since 1965, deindustrialization of cities in the Northeasternand Midwestern United States, growth of jobs in the "New South" with lower costs of living, family and kinship ties, and improving racial relations have all acted to attractAfrican Americans to the Southern United States in substantial numbers. As early as 1975 to 1980, several southern states were net African-American migration gainers, while in 2014, African-American millennials moved in the highest numbers to Texas, Georgia, Florida, andNorth Carolina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration

BOTH Michigan and Ohio State have to recruit outside of their region to bring in highly ranked classes.  Ohio St has been quite successful at that; Michigan has not.  Look at the #2 2018 OSU class: 5 players from OH and 5 from FL.  2 each from VA, MO, TN and 1 each from GA, TX and OK.  Half the class came from the South as most people would define it and the top 3 players were all from FL - all of them 5 stars.  More than twice as many of OSU's recruits came from the South as from their own region (5 from OH and 1 from PA).

Michigan's geographic recruiting distribution was similar to Ohio State's but they were unable to get numbers of top shelf out of area recruits.  Thus their best recruits were regional (1 MI and 1 IN) middling 4-star players and their class was ranked #22 nationally.  Michigan got zero players from Ohio and OSU got nobody from Michigan.  But that wasn't important at all.  The real difference is that Ohio State has the brand name to pull good recruits from other parts of the country - especially the South.

 

Edited September 23, 2019 by sushihorn

[BigVegasHorn26 630]

Did not expect him to fail this miserably at Michigan.  But I am enjoying it nonetheless.  

[Pig Bellmont 8691]

3 minutes ago, BigVegasHorn26 said:

Did not expect him to fail this miserably at Michigan.  But I am enjoying it nonetheless.  

The level of failure is truly spectacular. I did not see it coming, and it may be something he can’t recover from professionally. Unless you count coaching for UConn or something 

[Neonmoon 38127]

Ohio State has been winning big for over two decades straight. Maybe more, I don’t follow them closely. Michigan hasn’t really done shit consistently in a long time. 

That is the difference in recruiting 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

3 hours ago, Bogeywon said:

Thank you

is it funnier if I play along with the Surly asshole ethos, or funnier if I admit that there's only one Michigan fan who's ever been enough of asshole to get my attention?

[markstanco 12507]

What Michigan needs is someone like Art Briles. Now, I'll be among the first to admit, rape and related coverups are kind of a downside. You'd prefer your coach win big without doing any of that, whether raping or covering up. But on the other hand, did you SEE how much Art won at Baylor?
Do it, Michigan. 

Some team who is desperate will hire him. I'm not sure the michigan alums will allow it though.

Back to jim, who out there is worth the buyout and take that chance? He is better than their last 2 coaches.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

Just now, markstanco said:

Some team who is desperate will hire him. I'm not sure the michigan alums will allow it though.

Back to jim, who out there is worth the buyout and take that chance? He is better than their last 2 coaches.

I'm not sure anyone will be desperate enough to hire Briles, but if they are, it's going to be some outlaw program with a nominal university attached to it-- UH, maybe a second-tier Florida school, UNLV, that type of shit. 

Michigan would summarily execute anyone in a position of authority who suggested Briles. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

3 minutes ago, markstanco said:

Back to jim, who out there is worth the buyout and take that chance? He is better than their last 2 coaches.

oh, and who is out there? literally no one worth firing Harbaugh over. They can't get anyone "worth" getting; anyone they can get won't be worth the cost and won't be an improvement on Harbaugh. 

[markstanco 12507]

oh, and who is out there? literally no one worth firing Harbaugh over. They can't get anyone "worth" getting; anyone they can get won't be worth the cost and won't be an improvement on Harbaugh. 

Exactly. It would need to be a nick/dabo/urban hire to justify the firing of him, which is not happening.

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

3 hours ago, JimmyHoffa said:

 

Star players sure but the core of almost any team's roster (aside from a very few) are generally made up from HS kids from the region. Of course the blue bloods can recruit nationally but they still are going to have a majority of their roster be from the area where the school resides.

Now I do agree "that" isn't the reason why Michigan isn't where they want to be but it might play a small role. I think a bigger factor is kids want to play; going to Michigan State, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. happens a hell of a lot more often then it ever did back in the 80's and 90's at least for guys that had an offer from Michigan or Ohio State.

Again, there's not a lot of talent in Michigan, they've always had to recruit heavily out of state. Michigan kids make up less than half of the UM roster. It's also true that Ohio kids have been crucial to their success over the years. Buckeye fans are all too familiar with the long list of Ohio traitors who've gone to play for that team up north. There aren't nearly as many these days as there used to be. I'd suggest that Tressel and Meyer keeping the top Ohio talent in-state has done more to hurt Michigan than population loss in Detroit has. 

One talent pipeline in Michigan is Detroit Cass Tech High School. Their enrollment is more than 80% African-American. Is that the demographic that's moving away from Detroit? Jim Harbaugh didn't lose Mike Weber because his family moved out of Detroit. He lost him because Urban Meyer got him to flip to Ohio State. 

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

Just now, markstanco said:

4 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

oh, and who is out there? literally no one worth firing Harbaugh over. They can't get anyone "worth" getting; anyone they can get won't be worth the cost and won't be an improvement on Harbaugh. 

Exactly. It would need to be a nick/dabo/urban hire to justify the firing of him, which is not happening.

now we get to find out what happens when Harbaugh outstays his welcome-- all I've heard about the guy since he got pushed out of the 49ers job is how he comes in and energizes the place but after a few years the enthusiasm is gone and no one can stand him and so it's probably best for all involved if he moves on.

What if he doesn't, though?

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Again, there's not a lot of talent in Michigan, they've always had to recruit heavily out of state. Michigan kids make up less than half of the UM roster. It's also true that Ohio kids have been crucial to their success over the years. Buckeye fans are all too familiar with the long list of Ohio traitors who've gone to play for that team up north. There aren't nearly as many these days as there used to be. I'd suggest that Tressel and Meyer keeping the top Ohio talent in-state has done more to hurt Michigan than population loss in Detroit has. 

One talent pipeline in Michigan is Detroit Cass Tech High School. Their enrollment is more than 80% African-American. Is that the demographic that's moving away from Detroit? Jim Harbaugh didn't lose Mike Weber because his family moved out of Detroit. He lost him because Urban Meyer got him to flip to Ohio State. 

Most of the cherished "Michigan Men" weren't Michigan men at all, whether you're talking about all three of their Heisman winners to their three most famous head coaches (including the current one) to three-fifths of the Fab Five to the guy their basketball arena's named after. 

[markstanco 12507]

now we get to find out what happens when Harbaugh outstays his welcome-- all I've heard about the guy since he got pushed out of the 49ers job is how he comes in and energizes the place but after a few years the enthusiasm is gone and no one can stand him and so it's probably best for all involved if he moves on.
What if he doesn't, though?

Apparently per ESPNU the BOR loves him.

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

15 minutes ago, markstanco said:

21 minutes ago, SwanderedTalent said:

now we get to find out what happens when Harbaugh outstays his welcome-- all I've heard about the guy since he got pushed out of the 49ers job is how he comes in and energizes the place but after a few years the enthusiasm is gone and no one can stand him and so it's probably best for all involved if he moves on.
What if he doesn't, though?

Apparently per ESPNU the BOR loves him.

Michigan used to get a lot of criticism from a portion of their own fan base along the lines of, "as long as we're selling out Michigan Stadium every weekend and the program doesn't get in any trouble, the Administration's fine with going 8-4 every year". I suspect there's some truth to that. Michigan's leadership WANTS to win, but God forbid they get accused of being like Alabama or Ohio State. 

[6th Street 6357]

Harbaugh is fine for what he is - upper middle class of college football coach - good for 9-10 wins per year. Which is probably good enough for now given prior issues under Dick Rod and Hoke. The commentary around him wearing out his welcome in SF is spot on, as his players got sick of his shit. 

[VABuckeye 2472]

The clock struck midnight and they didn’t even make it out of September this year. Fucking awesome. 

[Baboontyme 2808]

I don't know man I'm not really going to research shit to try to validate this point and point out recruiting rankings, which are usually measuring pure athleticism over actual football playing ability. But I do follow recruiting a little bit mostly because of boredom and I'd like to say that I think it's fun to get invested in the kids that my school brings in because our guy has a pretty good track record of turning nothing into All-B1G type of players. But I'm gonna go ahead and say the migrating population of MI has very very little to do with UM's decline. MSU recruits MI and OH and not much outside of that. Some PA, some FL, some GA, tiny bit of TX. We don't go up against them much for recruits. We don't offer the same type of kids. I think there's something to that. I mean yeah if a NJ kid like Jabrill Peppers wants to come to your school, or shows interest, you go for it. Sleep over his house or jump in his swimming pool or whatever. But when Jabrill Peppers doesn't fully buy in to the Program because he has his eye on the NFL, doesn't really give a shit about beating OSU or MSU...I mean them's the breaks when you wade into those waters. 

UM doesn't *quite* recruit at an OSU level, but they recruit nationally. And MSU recruits in almost a spiteful way, in that we recruit guys who have something to prove because OSU and UM didn't want them. And that seems to work out ok. I feel like OSU gets 4 and 5* kids with 3* hearts, UM gets 4 and 5* kids with 1* hearts and MSU gets 3* kids with 4 and 5* hearts. So Michigan gets a bunch of talented kids but I don't think there's any real semblance of brotherhood or any kind of focus on a common goal once they get there. I think they get some good coaching - I think Harbaugh is a good coach. But I just think it's more of a professional environment, with a HC who is too detached, and who "processes" people out of his program regularly due to his "meritocracy". I think maybe all of this stuff when added together might just rub off on the team, to the point where regardless of their stars, they're not all in. 

This is just my theory and I might be very wrong and that would be fine. Also I love BogeyWon and he is not a bad Michigan fan, though I still will maintain that I can't comprehend why anyone would decide to  be a huge fan of a bunch of 17-23 year olds who wear a random uniform at a school which they really in no way are affiliated with or particularly endeared to. Hell might as well pick the Yankees. Go Yankees. 

Also maybe I had golf league tonight and have been drinking but I think I'm spot on. 

[Valmy77 13094]

13 hours ago, Loco said:

Can someone post all the years Harboughs teams won their conference...  shouldn't be too taxing

2012.

[Valmy77 13094]

3 hours ago, 6th Street said:

Harbaugh is fine for what he is - upper middle class of college football coach - good for 9-10 wins per year. Which is probably good enough for now given prior issues under Dick Rod and Hoke. The commentary around him wearing out his welcome in SF is spot on, as his players got sick of his shit. 

Well if by "shit" you mean winning, they sure got spared that when he left.

[mulletpelini 5209]

He'll move back to the NFL before he gets fired.

[Michael Knight 12898]

4 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

oh, and who is out there? literally no one worth firing Harbaugh over. They can't get anyone "worth" getting; anyone they can get won't be worth the cost and won't be an improvement on Harbaugh. 

Less Miles

[nunna yo bizness 1687]

14 hours ago, VABuckeye said:

Because he says they approach it like every other game.  Since Tressel arrived Ohio State does something every day that is focused on beating them and it has continued through Meyer and Day is doing the same.  Obviously, that approach is working.

The same contrasting philosophies of Mack vs Stoops and OU in the early 2000s.  We saw how well it worked then too.

[TexArcher 37518]

5 hours ago, SwanderedTalent said:

Most of the cherished "Michigan Men" weren't Michigan men at all, whether you're talking about all three of their Heisman winners to their three most famous head coaches (including the current one) to three-fifths of the Fab Five to the guy their basketball arena's named after. 

"Michigan Man" has nothing to do with being from Michigan.

[notre dame joe 172]

Harbaugh ran into peak Chip Kelly at Oregon which has blocked Stanford from many a PAC title game.  He would have stolen a few games if he stayed put.  As for now it looks like a case where an old ball coach is told he has to modernize his offense and hires a new OC.  But he doesn't really want to give up the keys, so the team fields some kind of hodge podge.