The Post Where We Admit That Michigan Has In Fact Hired Jim McElwain Comment Count

Brian

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good offensin' [Chris Cook]

So Michigan just hired Jim McElwain to coach football in some capacity. That capacity is apparently offensive coordinator and WR coach. This doesn't make much sense to me. McElwain becomes Michigan's fourth offensive coordinator, more or less, along with Harbaugh, Drevno, and Hamilton. He may be second amongst equals, for whatever that's worth.

McElwain was a notoriously bad recruiter at Florida, failing to crack the top ten once during his tenure and finishing no better than fifth in the SEC, and that was with a steady stream of Questionable Dudes that came highly rated but had seen various other teams back off. Those questionable dudes saw their super powers combine into a credit card scam that got a tenth of the team suspended last year. If you were to go back and re-rank recruiting classes by removing confirmed knuckleheads, Florida would plummet towards the nether reaches of the SEC.

Meanwhile, McElwain had a public meltdown about an internet joke, twice, made an unsupported assertion he had received death threats that almost got him fired for cause, and marketed his own barbecue sauce in the midst of a disastrous, tenure-ending football season.

Whatever offensive aptitudes he seemed to demonstrate at Alabama and Colorado State evaporated in a haze of ineptitude in Florida. Spencer Hall:

Statistically, Jim McElwain turned 2017 Florida into 2017 Rutgers. There is no evidence McElwain or the offensive staff can develop a quarterback or build an offensive line or tell a wideout how to run a route. There’s actually less and less evidence the offense is even designed competently. The big highlight—maybe the only real morbid but funny highlight, really—of watching Gary Danielson this season call a long string of SEC blowouts has been him literally correcting play design for Florida on the screen. He does this when not openly laughing at false starts and procedural penalties. It’s a full to-do list when watching Florida football, and just getting through half of it should earn him an Emmy.

Yours truly surveying the devastation after the opener:

Watch Florida left tackle Martez Ivey start yelling at the left guard on the Furbush touchdown before the play is even over:

You! Come over here! I know you're in the middle of a football play, but look upon the destruction your incompetence has wrought! Feel in your very bones the touchdown you have given up and shall never recover from! Eat at Arby's!

Also here is Florida's quarterback getting hammered on a rollout that Michigan rushed three on.

That's some dystopian business right there, and we should slow our roll a little given the evident dysfunction of the opponent. How much? I don't know.

McElwain doing well at Alabama proves little; having a decent offense at Colorado State because five-star Dee Hart needed a landing spot and rushed for 6.6 YPC doesn't prove a whole lot more. What success Florida did have under McElwain was an artifact of a trash SEC East and a defense he inherited from Will Muschamp.

On the positive side, McElwain does have a lengthy tenure as a collegiate WR coach stretching from 1987 to 2005, with the odd QB or special teams duty thrown in. And he probably has some great stories about John L Smith, who he coached under for five years at Louisville and Michigan State.

The best thing about this hire is that it doesn't really matter since it's Harbaugh's offense anyway. While McElwain comes in with a very Greg Robinson track record—aging successes and recent debacles paired with press interactions that make him seem slightly insane—he's not going to be put in charge of half the team and subsequently told to run something he's completely unfamiliar with. But neither is he likely to move the needle in recruiting or help organize the team. He'll seem like a brilliant WR coach because Michigan's WRs are about to get a lot better by virtue of not being freshmen, in the same way Ron English was a god until he wasn't.

Maybe once released from the prison of being a head coach he's actually a good offensive coordinator—but Michigan doesn't need tactical help. They need someone who can throw a ball straight and an offensive line that doesn't get that guy and his backup murdered. They do need a skill position coach and McElwain sort of fits there. He seems more like a duplicate of a duplicate, and he is very hard to take seriously after his year of baffling press conferences and Keystone Kops coaching.

He's a tenth assistant, and therefore more of a missed opportunity than a burgeoning disaster. And since every other thing with a track record immediately defies it when it arrives to do Michigan football things (except Don Brown, God bless Don Brown), maybe he'll be brilliant.

Comments

Watching From Afar

February 16th, 2018 at 2:02 PM ^

So, minor issue on the take here (while withholding final judgement until I see the product on the field):

Michigan does need tactical help. Not in the sense of picking plays that work against an opponent or scheming their way to yards, but just being consistent in what they do.

OSU game? Great play calling wiht a bad QB. Great formations and wrinkles to get guys open. JOK had to make 1 read (which... he didn't sometimes) and throw to a guy standing wide open by 5 yards. Getting Higdon downhill with some steam and Evans one the edge and in space.

SCAR game? Shotgun dives because... fuck all? What the hell? Michigan has never ran those. On this site, the idea of "zone reads" without a QB actually threatening to run was laughed off the page because of how dumb it was, and yet Michigan ran them 5 or 6 times. Long developing pass plays that Peters took multiple sacks on. Those didn't work against anyone else, so why would they work against SCAR?

The WRs will be better just through maturity. The TEs will continue to be good. But consistently running an offense that the OL can operate and putting the team in situations that they can be successful in was clearly lacking last season.

robpollard

February 16th, 2018 at 2:29 PM ^

Perhaps I'm confused over the terms, but a strategy would be "We need to get the ball to our playmakers on offense" and the tactics would be "Let's put Peppers in at wildcat using these type of plays."



That latter part, to be blunt, sucked in the 2nd half of 2016. And since one of the reasons we got Michael Barrett is so we can occasionally have him do that, I'd like for it not to suck in 2018.

 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 16th, 2018 at 2:53 PM ^

Thirded.  Tactical help seems essential here.  Early on I was willing to believe and even repeat the idea that the basic-ass playcalling and overall strategy was just a product of it being early in the season, but that got proven wrong as the season went on.

It's easy to point to some of the glaring physical errors like JOK throwing a four-yard pass to Tacopants on a fourth-down play that would've otherwise worked spectacularly, and say the problem is execution.  Very tempting to do that.  But I did not see an offense all year long that would've worked but for execution.  What I saw was an offense that just didn't work.

I sort of doubt McElwain is the guy, but at least he's not Drevno.  When they tried to hand off to McKeon, and Harbaugh took the blame for that, I'm convinced that was a "it's my fault because I'm in charge" deal rather than an "I actually did that" deal.  Drevno stunk, Pep did nothing useful, and Harbaugh's not happy, and the evidence is that they just spent the last few months trying to hire someone to do their jobs for them.

Watching From Afar

February 16th, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^

Yeah, however you want to phrase it, the team was not put in positions to be successful on a consistent basis last season. Random stretchs of play calls that didn't match what was successful early on. Not emphasizing Perry when he was in good match ups consistently and instead throwing fades to McDoom and Crawford. Handing off to a TE. Even putting Ulizio out there for the first 3-4 games showed bad decision making by the coaching staff. Go all the way through the OL shifting to block 4 man rushes and leaving free runners in the Wisconsin game. The players were clearly not capable of understanding whatever the heck the play calls were and that included Cole who knew what he was doing and still biffed on plays.

Now, one could argue that there were too many cooks in the kitchen with Drevno, Pep, and Harbuagh (maybe even Frey with the zone blocking stuff) which could be completely legitimate. In which case, this hire isn't going to help unless McElwain runs most of the show/responsibilities are clearly defined. But if that was the case last year, then no matter who was hired this year, that issue would still remain.

chad

February 16th, 2018 at 2:03 PM ^

Is that what people really foresaw when they hired Jim. Well at least he's better than the 100th ranked offense and might get M up to 90's or 80's.
Nothing like lowering your expectation bar.

The Maize Halo

February 16th, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^

Harbaugh is a weird guy.  I'm pretty sure we all agree he has mild aspergers or something of the sort. McElwain is a weird guy.  He is sexually attracted to large, canivorous fish.

Maybe we will win some significant football games someday.

Caesar

February 16th, 2018 at 6:14 PM ^

McElwain is a bad leader/manager. He's a mediocre recruiter. I understand why the latter matters, but why the former? 

Also, I thought that Michigan's problems last year were also QB and schematic. Maybe some new Xs and Os ideas can't hurt, and another pair of eyes for getting the QBs better won't be too bad, either. 

Zeke21

February 16th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^

That Brian knows more about football and coaching than Coach Harbaugh.

And is the smartest person in the room on all aspects.

Nice to know.

Commie_High96

February 16th, 2018 at 3:01 PM ^

Don’t buy this comment, there were people saying the same thing about how Rich Rod and Hoke knew so much more about football then fans. I’m sure Hoke knows more about football than I do, but I know enough that I can recognize bad coaching. I can see the same thing going on now

MGlobules

February 16th, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^

in cringe-inducing technicolor, I can vouch for much of what Brian says here. It's in the nature of what mgoblog has become that the crowd is either rushing stage right toward the cliff edge or stampeding stage left (for wherever) at any given moment, and that's okay. Though there is no way in heck, from where I sit, that this hire can be called an inspired one--McElwain carries a taint of feckless self-destruction that most people in the rest of the country, including football analysts are gonna point out (be prepared)--the hire is a done deal. I will hope like heck that it works out. 

TK

February 16th, 2018 at 2:13 PM ^

Sorry but..
There are certain people that aren’t going to care what Michigan does right now, the spin will be negative no matter what.