I agree. And Smith might get PTSD when they play Oregon lol
Even IF they’re able to restart their offense…it would take an HISTORIC turnaround to even be mediocre. The B1G as we knew it might be gone, and there’s a lot former B1G West teams that are going to have to learn how to score points. Sparty might be in trouble
My hot take is that IF Jonathan Smith was hired to rebuild MSU, including doing something to purge their petty, violent, self-victimizing personality…then I’m rooting for his success on that front.
But I don’t think he’ll be able to do it. There’s something very rotten in that university. Something that turns people into the worst version of themselves. Plus, you just KNOW that MSU is sitting on some Title IX landmines that will explode at the worst time.
I meant this post to be a “look how high of a mountain they have to climb just to be a MEDIOCRE offense.” And I wish them nothing but the worst of luck.
MSU got 16 TDs (14 passing, 2 rushing) from their trio of QBs in 2023.
Matt Rhule got 10 passing TDs and 7 rushing TDs from the QB position in 2023 despite working with Jeff “Turnover” Sims, Heinrich “hell yeah triple option!” Haarberg, and Chubba “oh god my eyes” Purdy.
Nebraska had more productive QBs than Sparty last year.
Refugees and asylum seekers pay taxes, so do undocumented immigrants (by and large), and in fact pay more in taxes than they receive in services, according to HHS.
Miss me with this rhetoric.
Edit: I’m not f***ing done. Do you know how much of the undocumented immigrants end up in Michigan agriculture (i.e., not in Detroit)??? Pretty much ALL of them. And each year, there are fewer and fewer people who make it to Michigan to work on the farms. Farming is a HARD business, farmers are struggling, and the demonization of undocumented immigrants - rather than finding solutions to integrate them into society, even if it is temporary - is making life harder. For EVERYONE. This isn’t some nebulous issue. People who prop up Michigan’s ag economy are suffering, and your misinformation and ignorance are directly contributing.
I was a tangential part of the city’s rehab planning a dozen years ago. The population growth is happening a little slower than the projections I saw at the time, but I’m glad it’s happening!
You know what, that’s a good point. And it’s not just about Grbac. Bo was upping the passing game a bit even before that: Michael Taylor and Demetrius Brown both were allowed to sling it a bit. A BIT. Elvis was a pocket passer.
But I don’t believe that Elvis Grbac becomes ELVIS GRBAC without Moeller at the helm. The Bo offense was just too regressive, too much an afterthought.
I don’t think that it’s a strike against those QBs’ abilities. Just the offense that they played in. Kind of like how Jim Harbaugh has never produced a 1,000 yard receiver in his college coaching career. Not one.
Pretty sure there’s a sci fi/fantasy reference in everything I’ve written on this site. One episode of Iowatch had DEEP cuts into 1990s era Star Wars books and comics.
I’ve loved Dune since I read it for the first time in…2011 maybe. Yeah, I got started late, but I think I’ve been through it 3 or 4 times since. Great book.
Great context for recruits of those eras! I don’t have any memory of the Moeller and Carr era guys you listed - did Scott Loeffler ever take a snap at Michigan?
When Tim Biakabutuka attempts more passes than you…even by my low standards, I’d have a hard time including them in this list…
I guess it sorta depends on whether we’re running last year’s offense or not.
If so….you can color me nervous about damn near every position on offense, and I don’t think we’re champion level. Nowhere close.
If Moore/Campbell are creating a new offense, then we might be champion level and not know it. The best offenses are ones that adapt to their playmakers. We have some of those.
That’s a shame, but not a surprise. Really there wasn’t much else that could have happened here.
I hope he can be hired again at some point, but the guy’s history with alcohol and cars isn’t great. I’ve nothing against alcohol - love me some bourbon…love me more than some bourbon - but at some point everyone has to take a long look at their relationship with booze and decide whether it’s a healthy relationship.
Thank you! I had no idea. He’s definitely got the voice and the knowledge for it.
I’m hoping he gets added to the Michigan AD or media at some point. If there’s ever a “your sacrifices have earned you our everlasting gratitude” situation, it’s Michigan-Gardner. Probably right up there with Penn State- Sean Clifford
I don't know how to reconcile QB Harbaugh vs. Coach Harbaugh. He won a lot of games with great defenses and offenses which weren't exactly prolific...and that might be in his mind as The Right Way to win games. My previous line of "Harbaugh will find a way to turn everything into Harbaugh" is how I cope.
Lol I went back to my previous version of this Diary from 4 years ago and read through it. I don't have some folder of archived comments. Nope. Not at all. That would be weird...right? I mean...who does that...
I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of Jared Goff after the Pats-Rams Superbowl. To my eyes, it looked like Goff was a beat slow every time he had to face a Patriots-style (from that game) defense.
My theory was that Sean McVay was doing Goff's thinking for him. That's still my theory. But it turns out that the tools are there, and Mark Brunell got Goff thinking for himself, and he leveled up because of it.
I forgot to include Casey. He DID make 4 starts at QB in 1971...and then no more stats. Apparently he had a tryout with the Cowboys, and that's the last the internet tells me. It looks like he worked at Catholic Central High School (his HS) at some point maybe?
Well, with a career 59% completion rate, more INTs than TDs, and a career passer rating of 75, Ken Stabler might be a decent comp to Milton.
Mahomes is a LONG way away from GOAT. HoF-worthy, no doubt, but he's 28 and Time remains undefeated. I'll put my stake in the ground here: Mahomes is a younger, better, version of Russell Wilson...whose abilities aren't surviving his mid-30s.
Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are who they are because they took their games UP a notch in their 30s AND 40s before He Who Walks Behind The Rows took them. Manning was held together by bubble gum and PEDs, but he was still elevating the team around him. Brady was still setting passing records.
I always wonder about the causality loop too. The Mysterious Case of Malik McDowell is a good example: nobody disputes that he was a good player, but:
At MSU, I'm pretty sure I remember the defense grading out better when he was OFF the field, due to his complete inability to play within his assignment.
Was he always the self-obsessed uncoachable glory-hog, or did his environment at MSU make him into that.
You can't prove a counterfactual, but my theory is that people conform to their surroundings, and that Malik McDowell would have shaped into a good Michigan player had he taken his mom's advice and come here. I wonder how many potential Harbaugh Guys slipped away...
I didn't intend it as a cheap shot, but I can see how it comes off like it. Wasn't trying to ding them. The same way that I don't ding JJ McCarthy for a (relative) lack of passing TDs: it's all about the offense you play in.
In the mid 60's, Bump had a couple QBs throw for 1500-1600 yards per season. Bo wouldn't reach that kind of passing total until 1980.
If you graduated in 1973, you were witness to some of the best scoring defenses Michigan has ever rolled out. Great defenses can paper over a lot of the sins of mediocre offenses, and they did. Our QB rushing offenses weren't great either in that era.
He never started, but after Guitierrez got hurt, Richard was the backup in 2004. He played in a few games, went 8/15 for 50ish yards, and that was the end of his football career. He's a high school coach these days (both football and baseball IIRC).
Isn't there one particularly vindictive asshole who has been campaigning since like 2006 for Ron English (noted coaching savant) to be Michigan's head coach, and undermining literally everyone else?
I’m tempted to do a similar history for Ohio State and MSU. Ohio State has that “great college QBs, terrible pro QBs” reputation, but my memory says that a lot of their QBs made it to the NFL and stayed for a bit, and of course Stroud looks poised for one heck of a career. Sparty has had a few really successful pro QBs as well, starting with…Earl Morrall in the 1950s? Cousins and Hoyer have/had long pro careers, and Smoker also journeyman’d it for a good while.
Even Connor “Such a Notorious Asshole That ’Career 57% Passer in College’ Was the LEAST of His Draft Concerns” Cook, who was such a notorious asshole that “career 57% passer in college” was the LEAST of his draft concerns, made a couple starts in the pros. Idk. Might be interesting.
[sorry to Not Another Teen Movie that, but this cannot be repeated enough: Cook peaked at a 58% completion rate in college and all the pro scouts instead focused on how much of a jackass he was]
“So do think that those cheating cheaters, who deliberately cheated and whose success is solely due to cheating, cheated?”
“…yes”
“And do you think that their invalid success, which, as you just confirmed, was solely due to cheating, and wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t cheating…is invalid?”
Warde Manuel doesn’t make a damned decision unless he has let the situation drag on so long there is no option and he’s been forced into the single remaining path in front of him. As long as Harbaugh and Howard were keeping their heads above water, Warde could pretend as if a lack of NIL wasn’t holding Michigan back. Because he can no longer pretend that and there’s literally no other choice, he has made the obvious decision in front of him to set up an organized NIL program.
My comment on this is that Warde’s behavior is weird because he acts like he’s 1) in danger of losing his job if he makes a single wrong move, or 2) a character in the Foundation novels. He doesn’t act like one of the most powerful people in college football.
the grammatically incorrect “dedication” “poem” was the least pretentious thing about that house…
I have a friend who met Dave Brandon once, he said Dave was every bit the self-confident “used car salesman energy” all-style-no-substance try-hard. So, basically, as expected
Ends don’t justify means, and it’s ok to admit that we have a structural NIL problem that needs to be solved going forward. That doesn’t take away from our successes. In fact it makes them MORE impressive.
A lot (mmm…let’s say a few of the ones I’ve talked to) of MSU alumni - while still being fanatically supportive of the football program - are feeling a bit burnt by the university and the athletic administration.
Jonathan Smith is a good coach and a good hire, but he’s facing an uphill battle. MSU still has the aftertaste of the BoT wars, two massive payouts looming, and alumni are still cringing from the LAST aggressive fundraising effort that went straight to settlements/payouts (and Engler’s cronies).
Add that to last year’s NIL debacle: their official NIL deal canceled all contracts out of the blue.
Plus, you just KNOW that MSU’s Title IX office is sitting on some land mines we haven’t even heard about yet.
I can’t blame any Sparty legacy for adopting a “let’s see how this all shakes out…” attitude
I’m happy that St. Mary’s is playing with fire here. The impending lawsuit will establish that no, in fact, you CANNOT force an athlete to play at an institution against their will.
We need mutually-binding contracts, or mutually-non-binding contracts
I partially agree with you, but 2017 had Higdon, Chris Evans, DPJ, Gentry, Eubanks, and Ty Isaac.
The problem was QB play - or lack thereof - and absolute coaching malfeasance.
I will never get tired of using last season’s Nebraska team as an example: Matt Rhule went through like 3 different offensive systems in an attempt to score points, in spite of terrible QBing. And this in a year which was an acknowledged Year Zero, with a decent but not great defense and no real ambitions within the conference. Imagine how innovative he would have gotten if Nebraska was in contention.
If Nebraska can roll with the triple option in 2023, we could have done better in 2017 than an offensive philosophy of “John O’Korn, the ghost of Brandon Peters, and the tattered remains of Wilton Speight are fine, we’ll just lean on the defense again”
The jump from 2014-2015 cannot be overstated: it was the single greatest jump in scoring in modern Michigan history. We went from “rock bottom” in 2014 to “made a Florida team full of NFLers quit” with an NFL-bound QB in 2015. Just a masterful job of piecing together a season.
…and the drop from 2016-2017 likewise cannot be overstated. It was the single greatest DROP in scoring in modern Michigan history. There was a LOT to like about Michigan at the end of the 2016 season (including a shoulda-had-it game vs OSU), but the offense in 2017 was absolutely terrible and I will never understand how Harbaugh & co. went through the season with a “we can fix this by next week just by doing what we’re doing” attitude.
I actually don’t believe it’s a white label product. I think he actually does own the process end to end. Obviously the mash is made in Kentucky, but it’s definitely barreled and bottled in California because it uses the Woodson wine barrels for aging.
I don’t have a bottle in front of me, but I think it’s a 2 year whisky with rapid aging.
Recent Comments
Thanks for reading! So much of this was before my time, but there’s a reason I have a history degree from Michigan. I love piecing together the past
I agree. And Smith might get PTSD when they play Oregon lol
Even IF they’re able to restart their offense…it would take an HISTORIC turnaround to even be mediocre. The B1G as we knew it might be gone, and there’s a lot former B1G West teams that are going to have to learn how to score points. Sparty might be in trouble
I think “Sparchitecture 101” is what I’m going with. Spartitecture? Sparty-tecture? Portmanteaus are hard work.
And I agree with you unfortunately: it’s hard to imagine MSU’s offense being THIS bad again.
My hot take is that IF Jonathan Smith was hired to rebuild MSU, including doing something to purge their petty, violent, self-victimizing personality…then I’m rooting for his success on that front.
But I don’t think he’ll be able to do it. There’s something very rotten in that university. Something that turns people into the worst version of themselves. Plus, you just KNOW that MSU is sitting on some Title IX landmines that will explode at the worst time.
I meant this post to be a “look how high of a mountain they have to climb just to be a MEDIOCRE offense.” And I wish them nothing but the worst of luck.
Final moment of zen:
MSU got 16 TDs (14 passing, 2 rushing) from their trio of QBs in 2023.
Matt Rhule got 10 passing TDs and 7 rushing TDs from the QB position in 2023 despite working with Jeff “Turnover” Sims, Heinrich “hell yeah triple option!” Haarberg, and Chubba “oh god my eyes” Purdy.
Nebraska had more productive QBs than Sparty last year.
The actual date of the Good Day:
https://rockthebells.com/articles/rtb-rewind-ice-cube-good-day/
Here’s a fun fact: EVERY SINGLE TE1 that Harbaugh coached here had ended up in the NFL.
And a fair number of TE2.
If Alex “1 for 1 for 5 yards” Orji can turn into 2023 Jalen Milroe, I will build a statue of both him and Kirk Campbell.
Milroe’s stats from this year:
If Orji is THAT…we win a championship.
But Orji isn’t going to be that.
If you watch the Wolverine Devotee clips, you can relive it in about 5 hours!
I had the same question! Here’s what I read:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-immigrants-taxes-rent-vaccine-requirements-983035929946
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/how-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-federal-taxes-an-explainer/
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/04/18/us/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-cec
Refugees and asylum seekers pay taxes, so do undocumented immigrants (by and large), and in fact pay more in taxes than they receive in services, according to HHS.
Miss me with this rhetoric.
Edit: I’m not f***ing done. Do you know how much of the undocumented immigrants end up in Michigan agriculture (i.e., not in Detroit)??? Pretty much ALL of them. And each year, there are fewer and fewer people who make it to Michigan to work on the farms. Farming is a HARD business, farmers are struggling, and the demonization of undocumented immigrants - rather than finding solutions to integrate them into society, even if it is temporary - is making life harder. For EVERYONE. This isn’t some nebulous issue. People who prop up Michigan’s ag economy are suffering, and your misinformation and ignorance are directly contributing.
I was a tangential part of the city’s rehab planning a dozen years ago. The population growth is happening a little slower than the projections I saw at the time, but I’m glad it’s happening!
Dude
You know what, that’s a good point. And it’s not just about Grbac. Bo was upping the passing game a bit even before that: Michael Taylor and Demetrius Brown both were allowed to sling it a bit. A BIT. Elvis was a pocket passer.
But I don’t believe that Elvis Grbac becomes ELVIS GRBAC without Moeller at the helm. The Bo offense was just too regressive, too much an afterthought.
I don’t think that it’s a strike against those QBs’ abilities. Just the offense that they played in. Kind of like how Jim Harbaugh has never produced a 1,000 yard receiver in his college coaching career. Not one.
Pretty sure there’s a sci fi/fantasy reference in everything I’ve written on this site. One episode of Iowatch had DEEP cuts into 1990s era Star Wars books and comics.
I’ve loved Dune since I read it for the first time in…2011 maybe. Yeah, I got started late, but I think I’ve been through it 3 or 4 times since. Great book.
Great context for recruits of those eras! I don’t have any memory of the Moeller and Carr era guys you listed - did Scott Loeffler ever take a snap at Michigan?
When Tim Biakabutuka attempts more passes than you…even by my low standards, I’d have a hard time including them in this list…
We’re in Hyde Park, looking to move to somewhere like Oak Park! Love that area
I guess it sorta depends on whether we’re running last year’s offense or not.
If so….you can color me nervous about damn near every position on offense, and I don’t think we’re champion level. Nowhere close.
If Moore/Campbell are creating a new offense, then we might be champion level and not know it. The best offenses are ones that adapt to their playmakers. We have some of those.
Defense only concerns me due to injuries.
That’s a shame, but not a surprise. Really there wasn’t much else that could have happened here.
I hope he can be hired again at some point, but the guy’s history with alcohol and cars isn’t great. I’ve nothing against alcohol - love me some bourbon…love me more than some bourbon - but at some point everyone has to take a long look at their relationship with booze and decide whether it’s a healthy relationship.
Thank you! I had no idea. He’s definitely got the voice and the knowledge for it.
I’m hoping he gets added to the Michigan AD or media at some point. If there’s ever a “your sacrifices have earned you our everlasting gratitude” situation, it’s Michigan-Gardner. Probably right up there with Penn State- Sean Clifford
I don't know how to reconcile QB Harbaugh vs. Coach Harbaugh. He won a lot of games with great defenses and offenses which weren't exactly prolific...and that might be in his mind as The Right Way to win games. My previous line of "Harbaugh will find a way to turn everything into Harbaugh" is how I cope.
Lol I went back to my previous version of this Diary from 4 years ago and read through it. I don't have some folder of archived comments. Nope. Not at all. That would be weird...right? I mean...who does that...
“In years” is doing some work in that sentence
I'll admit that I wasn't a fan of Jared Goff after the Pats-Rams Superbowl. To my eyes, it looked like Goff was a beat slow every time he had to face a Patriots-style (from that game) defense.
My theory was that Sean McVay was doing Goff's thinking for him. That's still my theory. But it turns out that the tools are there, and Mark Brunell got Goff thinking for himself, and he leveled up because of it.
To the extent that you know, or can tell us if you do know...is Mike Hart ok? Was his departure health-related?
Thanks!
...can you let my wife know that some people appreciate my jokes?
Went into medicine:
lol
I forgot to include Casey. He DID make 4 starts at QB in 1971...and then no more stats. Apparently he had a tryout with the Cowboys, and that's the last the internet tells me. It looks like he worked at Catholic Central High School (his HS) at some point maybe?
Well, with a career 59% completion rate, more INTs than TDs, and a career passer rating of 75, Ken Stabler might be a decent comp to Milton.
Mahomes is a LONG way away from GOAT. HoF-worthy, no doubt, but he's 28 and Time remains undefeated. I'll put my stake in the ground here: Mahomes is a younger, better, version of Russell Wilson...whose abilities aren't surviving his mid-30s.
Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are who they are because they took their games UP a notch in their 30s AND 40s before He Who Walks Behind The Rows took them. Manning was held together by bubble gum and PEDs, but he was still elevating the team around him. Brady was still setting passing records.
I always wonder about the causality loop too. The Mysterious Case of Malik McDowell is a good example: nobody disputes that he was a good player, but:
You can't prove a counterfactual, but my theory is that people conform to their surroundings, and that Malik McDowell would have shaped into a good Michigan player had he taken his mom's advice and come here. I wonder how many potential Harbaugh Guys slipped away...
I didn't intend it as a cheap shot, but I can see how it comes off like it. Wasn't trying to ding them. The same way that I don't ding JJ McCarthy for a (relative) lack of passing TDs: it's all about the offense you play in.
In the mid 60's, Bump had a couple QBs throw for 1500-1600 yards per season. Bo wouldn't reach that kind of passing total until 1980.
If you graduated in 1973, you were witness to some of the best scoring defenses Michigan has ever rolled out. Great defenses can paper over a lot of the sins of mediocre offenses, and they did. Our QB rushing offenses weren't great either in that era.
Postseason. Brady has played in 48 postseason games, and I counted those stats in his totals
He never started, but after Guitierrez got hurt, Richard was the backup in 2004. He played in a few games, went 8/15 for 50ish yards, and that was the end of his football career. He's a high school coach these days (both football and baseball IIRC).
Isn't there one particularly vindictive asshole who has been campaigning since like 2006 for Ron English (noted coaching savant) to be Michigan's head coach, and undermining literally everyone else?
Ugh that text is really small on mobile. Sorry
I’m tempted to do a similar history for Ohio State and MSU. Ohio State has that “great college QBs, terrible pro QBs” reputation, but my memory says that a lot of their QBs made it to the NFL and stayed for a bit, and of course Stroud looks poised for one heck of a career. Sparty has had a few really successful pro QBs as well, starting with…Earl Morrall in the 1950s? Cousins and Hoyer have/had long pro careers, and Smoker also journeyman’d it for a good while.
Even Connor “Such a Notorious Asshole That ’Career 57% Passer in College’ Was the LEAST of His Draft Concerns” Cook, who was such a notorious asshole that “career 57% passer in college” was the LEAST of his draft concerns, made a couple starts in the pros. Idk. Might be interesting.
[sorry to Not Another Teen Movie that, but this cannot be repeated enough: Cook peaked at a 58% completion rate in college and all the pro scouts instead focused on how much of a jackass he was]
Definitely in the “your favorite rockers’ favorite rockers” category.
Heaven got a little louder today
Love the leading questions:
“So do think that those cheating cheaters, who deliberately cheated and whose success is solely due to cheating, cheated?”
“…yes”
“And do you think that their invalid success, which, as you just confirmed, was solely due to cheating, and wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t cheating…is invalid?”
“…yes”
Ginger for sure
Not-so-fun-fact: The actress who played Ginger, Tina Louise, is the last surviving cast member of Gilligan’s Island, at age 90
I’m honestly surprised: Chip always struck me as an equal opportunity asshole…
I feel bad for The Onion. The past…9??…years have been increasingly surreal
Here’s how I interpreted it:
My comment on this is that Warde’s behavior is weird because he acts like he’s 1) in danger of losing his job if he makes a single wrong move, or 2) a character in the Foundation novels. He doesn’t act like one of the most powerful people in college football.
NIL - for all its shortcomings - has been WILDLY successful in getting the hypocrites to reveal themselves
RL Stine?
Kim Deal (who attended but did not graduate)
the grammatically incorrect “dedication” “poem” was the least pretentious thing about that house…
I have a friend who met Dave Brandon once, he said Dave was every bit the self-confident “used car salesman energy” all-style-no-substance try-hard. So, basically, as expected
Bad take.
Ends don’t justify means, and it’s ok to admit that we have a structural NIL problem that needs to be solved going forward. That doesn’t take away from our successes. In fact it makes them MORE impressive.
But the problem needs solving.
A lot (mmm…let’s say a few of the ones I’ve talked to) of MSU alumni - while still being fanatically supportive of the football program - are feeling a bit burnt by the university and the athletic administration.
Jonathan Smith is a good coach and a good hire, but he’s facing an uphill battle. MSU still has the aftertaste of the BoT wars, two massive payouts looming, and alumni are still cringing from the LAST aggressive fundraising effort that went straight to settlements/payouts (and Engler’s cronies).
Add that to last year’s NIL debacle: their official NIL deal canceled all contracts out of the blue.
Plus, you just KNOW that MSU’s Title IX office is sitting on some land mines we haven’t even heard about yet.
I can’t blame any Sparty legacy for adopting a “let’s see how this all shakes out…” attitude
I’m happy that St. Mary’s is playing with fire here. The impending lawsuit will establish that no, in fact, you CANNOT force an athlete to play at an institution against their will.
We need mutually-binding contracts, or mutually-non-binding contracts
Good thing the weather will be mild! Because fuck dat hot shit an dat cold shit, he much prefers the middle.
I partially agree with you, but 2017 had Higdon, Chris Evans, DPJ, Gentry, Eubanks, and Ty Isaac.
The problem was QB play - or lack thereof - and absolute coaching malfeasance.
I will never get tired of using last season’s Nebraska team as an example: Matt Rhule went through like 3 different offensive systems in an attempt to score points, in spite of terrible QBing. And this in a year which was an acknowledged Year Zero, with a decent but not great defense and no real ambitions within the conference. Imagine how innovative he would have gotten if Nebraska was in contention.
If Nebraska can roll with the triple option in 2023, we could have done better in 2017 than an offensive philosophy of “John O’Korn, the ghost of Brandon Peters, and the tattered remains of Wilton Speight are fine, we’ll just lean on the defense again”
Sorry, I’m bitter af.
2016 had a decent offense, but once again it was the defense that carried that team. Top 5 defense in SP+, and the #1 defense in points per drive.
The offense was…top 25. Not bad. Scored a lot of points. Not elite. It’s a shame, because we wasted one of the best defenses in the country.
If anyone wants to know what Iowa could have accomplished over the past 3-5 years with a decent offense, 2016 Michigan isn’t a bad comp.
The jump from 2014-2015 cannot be overstated: it was the single greatest jump in scoring in modern Michigan history. We went from “rock bottom” in 2014 to “made a Florida team full of NFLers quit” with an NFL-bound QB in 2015. Just a masterful job of piecing together a season.
…and the drop from 2016-2017 likewise cannot be overstated. It was the single greatest DROP in scoring in modern Michigan history. There was a LOT to like about Michigan at the end of the 2016 season (including a shoulda-had-it game vs OSU), but the offense in 2017 was absolutely terrible and I will never understand how Harbaugh & co. went through the season with a “we can fix this by next week just by doing what we’re doing” attitude.
Harbaugh giveth and Harbaugh taketh away.
I actually don’t believe it’s a white label product. I think he actually does own the process end to end. Obviously the mash is made in Kentucky, but it’s definitely barreled and bottled in California because it uses the Woodson wine barrels for aging.
I don’t have a bottle in front of me, but I think it’s a 2 year whisky with rapid aging.