coaching changes
dan enos

Coaching Hello: Dan Enos Comment Count

Brian

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Per Bruce Feldman, Michigan is hiring another former Arkansas assistant:

For what is as of yet unknown. Rumors that Pep Hamilton and/or Tim Drevno are on their way out seem likely to come to fruition as a result of this, since Enos is another offensive architect type and not a recruiting-maven/position-coach sort.

Enos is a former MSU quarteback who entered coaching immediately after his playing career ended; since 1991 he's been a college coach. After bouncing around small schools for a decade he landed at Cincinnati as Mark Dantonio's QB coach and followed him to MSU for four years; he landed the head job at CMU in 2010. That didn't go that well—a couple of 3-9 seasons to start followed by .500 ball after—but he was something of a trendsetter in college football when he voluntarily left the CMU job to go be a P5 coordinator, joining Arkansas as OC in 2015.

His tenure through the lens of S&P+:

RUSH O PASS O OVERALL
2015 5 1 2
2016 74 22 39
2017 9 47 43

That's better than I expected in the SEC West; Bielema would probably still have a job if his defense hadn't cratered to the 113th this year.

Enos is a college guy whose most prominent stints as an assistant were at mashing pro-style programs, and he had good results despite working at a substantial talent disadvantage. College-lifer pro-style coaches are an endangered species, and while Enos doesn't have a Don Brown resume he's probably the best available coach who's at all a fit for what Michigan wants to do.

Comments

1201 S. Main St.

January 5th, 2018 at 4:18 PM ^

How?  CMU lost Dan Lefevour, lost their senior WR Bryan Anderson, their best defensive player Frank Zombo, and their best DB in Josh Gordy.  Oh and some guy named Antonio Brown decided to leave after his junior year.  So Enos took over a CMU team that lost a ton of its talent.  Had two seasons of 3-9 before having a 3 year record of 20-18.  He left CMU to take a pay raise and be OC at an SEC school, which pissed off a lot of CMU fans.  He did not "ruin" Central by any means.

Joined: 10/09/2015

MGoPoints: 844

TrueBlue2003

January 5th, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^

look like a good OC (and everyone else who's kept that seat warm), so it's fairly inconclusive as to whether McDaniels is even a good coordinator.

Especially when the Pats offense actually improved after he left (went from 7th in 2008 to 1st the following two years per FBO), and his Denver teams became worse at offense with him there (1st in 2008, 18th in 2009, 15th in 2010).  In his one season as Rams OC, they were last, LAST in offense.  I mean that team was bad and was 30th the year before but that's bad.

Joined: 01/05/2010

MGoPoints: 38075

1201 S. Main St.

January 5th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^

I was at CMU and was pissed he was hired because his offense is really different from the offenses of Brian Kelly and Butch Jones.  CMU fans, like myself, don't like him because he ditched a head coaching gig to be an OC and a mid-bottom tier SEC school.  You can argue whether the move is better or worse than lateral, but he had a better shot at getting a power 5 head coaching gig if he stayed at CMU and continued having .500+ records year after year.  I don't think anyone was happy to see him go.  If you go to a MAC school, going to a bowl game is pretty much the goal.  In his last 3 years there CMU was bowl eligible.  If a guy takes a 3-9 team and makes them bowl eligible within 2 years in the MAC, that is pretty good.  Plenty of MAC schools who get players like Lefevour and Antonio Brown have a solid 3 year run with maybe one really great season then the school doesn't have any success for the better part of a decade.  He helped reload CMU after Butch Jones left.    

Joined: 10/09/2015

MGoPoints: 844

1201 S. Main St.

January 5th, 2018 at 11:18 PM ^

He felt an OC at an SEC school was a better path to getting a power 5 job.  He was also going to make substantially more money at Arkansas.  You don't turn around a 3 win team to make them bowl eligible for three straight years and then think to yourself, "yeah, this head coaching thing isn't for me".  He left to make more money at an arguably, higher profile position.  I'm not saying he is a good hire for Michigan.  I think it is uninspiring, but to say he wasn't good at CMU is flat out wrong.  I was mad at him leaving because you don't typically see head coaches leave a school they have relative success at to be a coordinator.  

Joined: 10/09/2015

MGoPoints: 844

Blue in Paradise

January 7th, 2018 at 9:43 AM ^

CMU lost 3 of the best players in program history, including a generational talent in Antonio Brown, the best QB in CMU history in LeFevour, an 8 year NFL veteran in Zombo who started on a SuperBowl championship team as a rookie and a 5 year NFL veteran in Gordy who also played for that SB winning Packers team in 2010 as a rookie. That would be tough for a top 5 team to replace let alone a traditionally middling MAC team. I don’t have much of an opinion on Enos but don’t do a lazy take on his performance at CMU.

Joined: 08/14/2016

MGoPoints: 36825

GoWings2008

January 5th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^

From what I'm reading, this hire is the best thing available to us?  I am guarded not to get too excited over a hire that is "anything different" from what we had on the offensive side, but also happy enough that we have "something different" than what we had on the offensive side.  

Still in the dark on what to think or how to feel about the hire.  Not sure if I have the patience to wait until Sept or Oct to have an opinion.

Joined: 01/26/2011

MGoPoints: 69705

AnthonyThomas

January 5th, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^

I'm at the point where I don't see any use in trying to predict how successful or unsuccessful any individual hire will be. Hope it works out but who the hell knows. 

Joined: 11/13/2010

MGoPoints: 19382

MidwestIsBest

January 5th, 2018 at 3:53 PM ^

Or even the team generally. I just know I’ll show up again the next year and be elated when they do well and crushed when they don’t. I’ve hitched my wagon to the Wolverine star and go where it goes. But let’s be real: there’s almost no way to know pretty much anything that will happen with this program until it actually happens.

Joined: 11/12/2016

MGoPoints: 1949

BlueinOK

January 5th, 2018 at 3:09 PM ^

Those S&P numbers are better than I thought. That's good to see. He should recruit really well so that will be an upgrade. As far as coaching, he has to be better just based on how this year went, right?

Joined: 12/06/2009

MGoPoints: 15029

mgogobermouch

January 5th, 2018 at 4:55 PM ^

The year before Enos got there Arkansas was 22nd in the run, 28th in passing, and 22nd overall.

But they returned their quarterback and (I think) their entire offensive line (and their o-line was already good in 2014.  So probably just not screwing up was all Enos had to do. 

Here's an article about it: https://www.footballstudyhall.com/2016/2/17/11024214/how-arkansas-razorbacks-finished-no-1-in-offensive-s-p-hunter-henry-bielema

On the one hand, that's a bit disappointing.  On the other "just not screwing up" the expected development of an offense would be an improvement.  So there's that.

Joined: 10/23/2017

MGoPoints: 208

Fellow51

January 5th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^

Seeing as Harbaugh is the offensive guru, it's not as if a huge hire was going to come here to play second fiddle.

Harbaugh has a much different role with the offense than the defense.

I'm interested to see how this shapes out from a recruiting perspective.  He has to be an upgrade from Drevno.

Joined: 01/05/2018

MGoPoints: 50

BigBlue02

January 5th, 2018 at 8:43 PM ^

i can’t figure out which part is the sarcasm, the bare cupboard part or the sub-par offense part or both. It’s sad that I don’t know though...people actually think the offense has been sub-par during his tenure here and don’t actually think he’s a fantastic offensive coach because one year we had to play 3 quarterbacks

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: -1003

CRISPed in the DIAG

January 5th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^

I thought Enos was considered more of a *recuiting* guy - as opposed to an *offensive architect* guy? I mean, I've watched more CMU football than I care to admit and I don't recall him building anything notable there. And Bert was basically run out of Fayetteville because his offense was perceived as ancient.

I mean, I'd almost rather we were shooting the money gun at Enos to actually coach a position. Or maybe not pay him at all. Maybe let someone else pay him.

Joined: 11/08/2010

MGoPoints: 47493

Ron Utah

January 5th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^

I'm very interested to see how the rest of the offensive staff pans out.  This probably means that Pep is gone.  If Enos is now the primary play-caller and Drev is OL/Run Game Coordinator, I think it can work.

It can also work if Drevno is gone and an ace OL/Running Game mind is brought in.

As others have stated, there are not many options for pro style offensive minds out there.

Joined: 02/28/2012

MGoPoints: 8375

sarto1g

January 5th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^

Followed him pretty closely at CMU.  Never had a good offense even in a defense-deficient league like the MAC.  Would've likely been fired after another season if he didn't abruptly leave in January.  Most damning is that his staff called a fade route on the 2PC in the Bahama Bowl to lose by 1 after the crazy comeback against WKU (half-kidding).  Glad we are changing things up, but this is not an exciting hire in my eyes.

Joined: 08/28/2010

MGoPoints: 5590

PolskaPride

January 5th, 2018 at 3:13 PM ^

Austin Allen has a good 2016 under Enos. If he can do that with Allen, I'm optimistic for what he can do for us. But then again I'm not sure what his role will be for us, either way it's a change.

Joined: 06/10/2015

MGoPoints: 1222

SC Wolverine

January 5th, 2018 at 3:16 PM ^

I'll take this hiring to mean that Harbaugh is doubling down on pro-style power offense (perhaps with some pistol and RPO added in), and that he intends to remain committed to his philosophy.  I like this alot better than bringing in a pro-style passing guy to ruin our passing attack for a year (yes, I refer to Pep).  If Enos' hiring means that Harbaugh is taking more control of the offense then I am happy.

Joined: 08/18/2010

MGoPoints: 7794

TrueBlue2003

January 5th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^

sigh...I had hoped we would take the failures of the past three years and change what we want to do (the personnel was shifting to be able to shift gears with Patterson and more mobile QBs coming aboard and smaller, quicker OLs that are more Frey style in the pipeline) but this definitely screams doubling down on the same old.

Still have a lot of manball mashers on the line and if a QB steps up, we could be ok, but this offense needs too many things to click perfectly to work well it seems, judging by our last three years.

Joined: 01/05/2010

MGoPoints: 38075