The Lloyd Carr fork in the road
People notice Jim is glum of late relative to the last couple of years. I'll propose it is because he is a smart enough to acknowledge over-abundant evidence that come year end he will face a Lloyd Carr fork in the road, having to choose between loyalty and extended mediocrity on offense, and making a change at OC.
Drevno and Harbaugh have worked together a long time. Quick research (maybe a mistake or two):
OC | OL Coach | DC | |||
2004 | San Diego | 7–4 | Drevno | Drevno | Adolph |
2005 | San Diego | 11–1 | Drevno | Drevno | Adolph |
2006 | San Diego | 11–1 | Shaw | Drevno | Adolph |
2007 | Stanford | 4–8 | Shaw | Dalman | Shafer |
2008 | Stanford | 5–7 | Shaw | Dalman | Buh/Lynn |
2009 | Stanford | 8–5 | Shaw | Drevno | Buh/Lynn |
2010 | Stanford | 12–1 | Shaw | Drevno | Fangio |
2015 | Michigan | 10–3 | Drevno | Drevno | Durkin |
2016 | Michigan | 10–3 | Drevno | Drevno | Brown |
2017 | Michigan | 4–1 | Drevno | Drevno | Brown |
One can espouse that while Jim has lifted Michigan especially with the Brown hire, Drevno increasingly smells of Hoke, where there was magic early, but the wheels eventually came off.
There is still time to right the ship and we'll all be rooting for Tim to get the offense going. But at the current trajectory, the most important decision that may separate us from a decade of championships or one of mediocrity will come this off season.
October 9th, 2017 at 7:09 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 7:14 PM ^
I fully expect the flame treatment because we're all still pretty upset, but to be clear, there is no contention here that Harbaugh won't be fine. He will definitely be fine. The offense has sputtered every game after Florida. This is not a 'hot take' based upon this Saturday. That was just added evidence that come year end Jim may face the same loyalty quandary that Carr fell on the wrong side of.
October 9th, 2017 at 7:18 PM ^
there is no contention here that Harbaugh won't be fine.So what exactly is your purpose with this thread?
October 9th, 2017 at 7:23 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 8:12 PM ^
What do you think? We fire Harbaugh and hire Miles? Maybe in 15 years we can rehire Hoke.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:21 PM ^
someone suggested Borges would be preferable to Drevno, so who knows?
October 9th, 2017 at 11:12 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 9:00 AM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 11:42 AM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:18 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 11:30 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 1:57 AM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 7:26 PM ^
To discuss the potentially difficult decision Jim may face come end of year where loyalty and competitiveness may face off like the devil and angel on Larry Kroger's shoulders in Animal House. We hope it will not come to that because the offense will come around, but if it does, it will be very interesting to see how it plays out, and will play a seismic role on the trajectory of the program.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:16 PM ^
unless a team implodes- loyalty always wins
October 9th, 2017 at 9:13 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 10:02 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 10:15 PM ^
I mean your average fan (myself included) can't parse out much more from a given play other than it gained yards or it didn't. Armed with barely more than some basic rules of thumb about football strategy (i.e. you run the ball if it's raining), the play therefore failed because either someone did something obviously wrong (usually the QB here, whether it's actually the case or not) or the play call sucked. Extrapolate that a few times after a loss, and it's all to easy to spin narratives like we need to bench so and so, or we should have done such and such instead. It's basically the back-up QB syndrome applied to play calls: the best call is the one that was never called.
October 9th, 2017 at 11:32 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 12:41 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 9:23 AM ^
My take was his purpose was that Harbaugh will have to choose between loyalty to Drevno or moving on and doing what's best for the offense this offseason. Similar to Carr having the same dilemma.
October 10th, 2017 at 11:09 AM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 7:38 PM ^
Hoke fell to this as well with Darrell Funk. A lot of coaches seem to be consumed with staying in their network even at the top level rather than looking to hire the best person that will say yes. The Don Brown hire was a refreshing deviation for sure.
Two changes this season does not settle well. First, Jay Harbaugh's position change. Jay probably asked for the job and has aspirations of moving up but Michigan is not a "learn on the job" program. You are constantly facing competition that has the best resources and there is pressure to win every game. I fear we will suffer through a few years when Jay is finally bumped up to offensive coordinator. I wouldn't mind an experienced OC Jay Harbaugh coaching for Michigan after he receives that initial experience somewhere else.
The hiring of Pep Hamilton and Greg Frey as both have experience that offsets our current offensive coordinator Tim Drevno. What is the point of having Drevno? I have never seen the positive of layered leadership. I cannot imagine that running a football offense has become so time consuming that you need two additional coaches for playing calling and offensive line coaching. I am not a coach so I wouldn't know but from what I see, this is most certainly a negative.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:22 PM ^
Jay was the TE coach and they were really good, then he was the ST coach and they were even better than the year before when we had the Don Brown of ST coaches, this year he's the RB coach and Ty finally looks like a 5*, Higdon is better, and Evans gets destroyed by poorly blocked plays every time he sees the field. Did Jay the so-called terrible coach manage to undo a lifetime of coaching and coach them 'up' to fumble the ball?
I don't see how you can blame any of this on Jay.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:36 PM ^
Isaac looked like a ~ 5* until he got injured. He hasn't done anything since. The RBs have been fumbling and pretty damn bad in pass pro. I agree with the TE/ST stuff, and maybe RB stuff is just bad luck, but I wouldn't mind him getting reassigned to one of those other roles at the end of the season and we bring a recruiting stud at RB coach. When in god's name are we going to have a Dobbins of our own?
October 9th, 2017 at 8:36 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 10:04 PM ^
You literally said that Harbaugh is stuck between loyalty and "extended mediocrity". I guess neither sound particularly appealing, but one definitely isn't "fine". So I don't get the point of this thread beyond digging up the horse, dragging it into the town square, and beating that carcass until it is a puddle of nothing.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:17 PM ^
Thank you! I am tired of the emo hot takes.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:42 PM ^
So Harbaugh took the OC spot from Drevno once before, putting back in charge of the OL?
Please let that happen again!
October 9th, 2017 at 11:15 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 9:53 AM ^
Sure, Harbaugh will be "fine" - he's got a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract. We are half way into Harbaugh's 3rd season and the offense is not "fine". During that time it has never looked really good except against mediocre competition, and now it's on a downward trajectory. If something is not working, you have to recognize that and fix it. The OP is suggesting much of the the problem with the offense is due to the the OC, Drevno. Your solution is HARBAUGH!. That isn't working.
October 10th, 2017 at 10:38 AM ^
You say that we were never good enough to win every game this year, but everybody on here blasted me for saying I thought we'd win 8 games. The blowhard faction of this fanbase makes it worse for everybody else.
October 9th, 2017 at 7:14 PM ^
Oh FFS! Most people projected this team being a 3-4 loss team. They're 4-1 after 5 and yes, it sucks to lose at home, especially to an instate rival but come on! Everyone's acting as the wheels have come off. The offense is in trouble, lots of it but we were still in a game where we were a -5 in takeaways. Everyone is acting like Harbaugh is done. Magic gone. Not a good coach anymore. Everyone needs to calm down a little.
October 9th, 2017 at 7:26 PM ^
I now have a crush on you
October 9th, 2017 at 7:27 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 7:59 PM ^
agreed.
i think the only reason everyone is panicked is that the strength of this team has very little to do with harbaugh (other than his decision to hire don brown), and that harbaugh's strengths (qb development, power running game with creativity sprinkled in) have seem to gotten off track.
i was begging for harbaugh for years, so i am not going to bail now, but it definitely hurts that we've lost to our rivals so often even with his arrival.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:02 PM ^
This loss caused a part of the fan base to run around like their hair is on fire. The more rational understood where the offense was at going into the year, even before the starting QB got injured. No one likes losing.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:23 PM ^
Really? Because I seem to remember not one person on here last week thinking we would lose to MSU. So where were all of these rational beings you speak of?
October 9th, 2017 at 9:32 PM ^
I thought M would probably lose if they were -3 in turnover margin. Turns out they were -5 in turnover magin.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:52 PM ^
Nice. Ok. I missed that one. I give you credit because some of the scores I saw were just crazy. I think I saw stuff like 40-6 and other blowouts that were laughable in any rivalry game let alone one where we have offensive issues.
October 9th, 2017 at 10:20 PM ^
I was confident M would win. Did not think a -5 TO margin was in the cards. It was more like 'the only thing that will lead to a loss is a -3 TO margin.'
October 9th, 2017 at 8:17 PM ^
we have a good historical record against PSU
October 10th, 2017 at 4:52 AM ^
...we have an historically bad offense against everyone this year.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:20 PM ^
This team may perform better in the underdog role. It happens a lot in college football.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:58 PM ^
that's actually good. Going all the way back to the years under Bo, we had trouble as road favorites against good programs. We've done much better as road dogs.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:05 PM ^
You predicted that one of this 4 losses would be to a 3-9 State team that lost to Notre Dame by multiple touchdowns and lost most of its players to prison?
October 9th, 2017 at 9:55 PM ^
October 10th, 2017 at 8:19 AM ^
This statement is absurd. Of course you would have predicted a loss with a -5 turnover margin. However, because most people thought Michigan was a much better team than State, NO ONE predicted we would have a -5 turnover margin, and hence a loss.
October 9th, 2017 at 8:18 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:12 PM ^
People predicted 3-4 losses BEFORE we found out the defense was other-worldly. I don't think very many people thought there would be this big of a disparity between the defense and the offense. That's concerning from a personnel perspective.
October 9th, 2017 at 9:44 PM ^
Exactly.
Most speculated the defense would take a step back and be bailed out a time or two by an offense with a returning QB.
I didn't expect the offense to regress this much.