Assuming each player is healthy, coached by a competent OC and behind a competent OL, which Michigan QB would you choose: Tate Forcier, Devin Gardner or Shea Patterson? 

Bonus question: where does John Navarre fit in?

This is a tremendous question. None of these guys except Navarre had the luxury of a career where they got to stay at the same place and play the same position. Forcier bombed out after two years; Gardner got moved to WR for an offseason and half a season; Patterson transferred from Ole Miss after two years.

On top of that, both Gardner and Patterson got new offensive coordinators in their senior year, and on top of that Michigan's offensive line in the late Hoke era was so bad that it obviously broke Gardner's brain. You can make an argument that Ole Miss's OL did the same thing to Patterson—I still remember doing the Alabama-Ole Miss game when Patterson was a sophomore, during which I started abbreviating "Virtually Unblocked Guy Up The Gut" as VUGUG to save time. All three would have looked a lot different if placed in a stable situation and allowed to develop in one system over the course of four years.

All that said, I'm taking Gardner. Gardner's 2013 was the best season any of these QBs put up at Michigan, pipping Patterson's 2018. Gardner completed 60% of his passes for 8.6 YPA, 21 TDs, and 11 INTs. Michigan put up 460 yards against Notre Dame and 603(!!!) against Ohio State; Gardner hit 10 YPA in both. This was the same year Michigan put up 27 for 27 against Penn State and rushed for –48 yards against MSU.

[After THE JUMP: further justification of this take]

Gardner had a disastrous OL—36 sacks allowed that would have been 60 if not for Gardner's mobility—in an offense that straight-up refused to run a constraint play. He damn near singlehandedly beat Notre Dame and was a better two-point conversion call away from a 43-42 win over Ohio State. This season completely ruined him and he was much worse the next year,  but if you're asking me which guy I'd take as a freshman this year with the idea that he'd be behind a Warinner OL in a Gattis offense it's him.

As for Navarre: he is the most accomplished college QB being considered but his near-total lack of mobility makes him a poor fit for modern college offenses. Unlike the rest of the list he did get a more or less stable situation. Michigan did replace Stan Parrish with Terry Malone before Navarre's third year, but Malone had been on Michigan's staff since 1997. He was not imported fresh from elsewhere as Doug Nussmeier and Josh Gattis were.

And if you're looking at stats, Navarre benefited from a ton of attempts to get the counting numbers that got him first team All Big Ten. As a senior he was 43rd in YPA on an offense with Braylon Edwards, Jason Avant, and Steve Breaston. This was in part because of the nature of Michigan's offense, which saw Chris Perry catch more passes (44) than Breaston (38). But I don't think I'm taking him over the more modern QBs. He would have had to blow them away as a passer to make up for annually having negative rushing yards.

Question on RPS in the UFR.  Are you only grading out the M coach’s playcall, or are you taking a look at both teams to determine the overall complexion of the game?

For example, if the M coach has a great playcall against a certain (perfectly fine) O playcall, M coach gets +1.

If M coach has a poor/weird playcall against normal O coach playcall, that’s a -1.

But what about:

M coach calls a pretty standard play, opposing coach calls an amazing counter to that.  Is that RPS -1?

M coach calls a pretty standard play, O coach playcall is unsound in some way.  Is that RPS +1?

I’m trying to figure out if RPS is only intended to be a rating for the M coach, or if it’s all relative to the other coach.  I’m confused because I expected the ND game’s defensive UFR to be a murdering in RPS, but it was kinda even.  So I went and checked the Minnesota Defensive UFR from 2017, and it was a murdering in RPS, but mostly because Minnesota was being dumb, not because Don Brown was a one game playcalling god.

Just curious how you approach it.

CHRIS ALFORD

It is all relative. There is no rock without scissors or paper. So, yes, those also count as RPS.

That's why the Minnesota number was so huge. Michigan wasn't doing anything remarkable; they just blitzed Hudson when a tight end motioned away from his side of the LOS. This put him in unblocked about 15 times, and each of those was an RPS positive.

The Notre Dame game was not the same level of blowout largely because almost nothing I've ever done has approached that Minnesota game. A +6 is still a significant win—keep in mind that an RPS plus is usually at least ten yards worth of playcall and is often 30 or more.

ND fell behind massively in RPS as Michigan got up 17-0 but then there was a significant offensive lull that lasted for a quarter and a half, a portion of which was Michigan assuming ND linebackers had learned not to run full-bore at every outside action and being incorrect. It's all in the UFR.

Also, UFR grades have to be taken in context. It is usually a coach vs coach thing, but not always. Michigan's +6 is much more impressive when you remember that 60% of the game was played in conditions that made throwing the ball near-impossible; ND should have been able to tee off on Michigan runs and impose UFR minuses that I would have shrugged at post-game because of the conditions. Instead Michigan ripped them. I don't shift the grading system when a really good DE comes in or it rains; the numbers don't mean anything without context. The context of the ND game means that +6 was incredibly impressive. 

What’s your overall opinion on the trajectory of the program? I was hoping going into the season with the talent on the offense and the rivals at home that this year would be a high water mark for the Harbaugh era but that’s obviously not going to happen. What’s your outlook for the future given the underclassmen, recruiting, coaching and state of the rivals? I sense we are permanently stuck in a plateau of better than most of the Big Ten but a step below OSU.

Michael C. Forster

I mean, yeah. We're Auburn without the absurd good fortune and thunderbolt Heisman JUCO transfer QB. There are many positives:

• Stability at DC and OL coach, two of the three most important assistant spots.
• OL stability in general. Michigan has a very good OL this year and next year it looks like they can plug Hayes and Stueber into two of three openings with little concern; finding a fifth starter means one of about six guys has to come through. Michigan took a highly-regarded six-man OL class last year and redshirted everybody. They have four more OL coming in this year and are looking for a fifth. This is a world away from the OL situation for the last decade.
• Continuity and evolution on defense; Michigan was able to take a massive personnel hit this year and has barely lost a step.
• Michigan's recruiting had a 2017 hiccup but even that class has proven to be good scouting: Vincent Gray, Michael Barrett, Luke Schoonmaker, Hassan Haskins, and Ronnie Bell are five of the six lowest-rated non-kickers in the class and all look like they're on their way to being long-term starters.
• Special teams has been consistently good.

On the other side of the ledger:

• Continual turnover amongst the offensive coaches left Michigan starting from square one in year five.
• Michigan's recruiting has been good but has settled in a tier below OSU's.
• Secondary recruiting has been especially concerning, with no blue-chip CBs since Thomas at a spot where blue chips come through at a high rate; scouting hits on Benjamin St Juste and Keith Washington are rather mitigated by the fact that those guys play at Minnesota and WVU now.
• The program is beset by goofy decision-making and an overall lack of organization that doesn't seem like it's going away.
• Patterson's lack of progress rather dents Harbaugh's reputation as a QB whisperer.

Everyone's much happier if Michigan wins the JT spot game or has Brandon Peters available for the O'Korn game, because while it seems obvious that OSU is a step ahead of Michigan the mountain seems much less insurmountable.

Hi Brian,

Reacting to today’s UV, specifically the part about the assistant coaches. Doesn’t it seem like Chris Partridge would be one to get a shot as a DC somewhere soon?

Great recruiter. Killing it as ST Coordinator. Successful HS Head Coach. Has switched defensive position groups with success at both. Has Don Brown understudy shine on him (like Gattis and Moorhead).

Seems like a rising star in the coaching ranks, and I would think he gets poached as a Coordinator sooner than later, no?

Thanks,
Daniel

It's possible, but one of the newer dynamics in college football is how difficult it is for lower-level schools to pry P5 coaches out of solid jobs. As of last year the top-paid MAC assistant was Buffalo's Rob Ianello, who made 223k. Chris Partridge got a bump to 500k after Alabama took a run at him last year. Buffalo's entire assistant salary pool is two Chris Partridges.

Unless Partridge wants to cut his pay in half the only potential departure routes are to other P5 schools, and usually those jobs go to established DCs or folks the head coach already has a relationship with. Partridge has no obvious coaching bro out there. Before Michigan he was at Paramus; prior to that he had a couple of years at the Citadel and one at Lafayette College.

The biggest threat is probably Rutgers: it's possible their new head coach would try to poach Partridge as a DC because he has a bunch of New Jersey connections. But even there the massive disparities in money make that a lateral move, pay-wise. Rutgers's top-paid assistant last year made 600k; their assistant pool is about half of Michigan's. Would Partridge take a job in which there's a solid possibility he's swept out with everyone else after three years for a minor-or-nonexistent bump in pay on the off chance Rutgers gets it together enough to springboard him into a head job somewhere? Maybe. Doesn't seem like that's the move.