It’s not love. It’s utility. I consider the probability that Gattis has the potential to be an elite HC to be low. Let’s make up a number and say < 20%.

But if the season is in the trash anyway, may as well take him for a test drive. The dream for any team in a coaching search is to strike gold on a young, charismatic, brilliant guy who can recruit, scheme, and lead. Michigan has a young, smart guy at OC right now, and while current returns are mixed, there is also a real chance that his HC is part of the reason for his tepid success.

What I’m saying is that we aren’t playing for this year anymore. We know what Brown and Warinner bring. They each have a 0% chance of being the next HC. Gattis may be a longshot, but as long as we’re playing out the string and looking to the future, we have a chance to see what he’s made of. Take the shot. Probably he keeps baffling us with weird holes in his gameplan and the team continues to look bad. 

But if the team is rejuvenated and they finish 3-1 and the offense puts 38 on OSU (in a loss, obviously) and recruits show renewed interest in the program, you have someone worth interviewing. 

Might as well take the shot. 

I think we can all agree that the look presented and play called were inexcusable given that they never bothered to change it. There are only so many things you can do with Mason being the sole RB: Run up the middle with Mason? Run up the middle with Milton? Given Milton's accuracy, you sell out to stop the run even if, for some reason, Michigan were to run some kind of play action there, because there's a good chance that a pass there is missed. 

There's a good likelihood that Gattis just stuck with the same call he had before, but it's unclear how much influence Harbaugh has both on gamedays and in particular in gameplanning, when the plays for the week are developed. If he says he wants a short yardage play with Mason blocking, and Gattis puts that play in the plan, and when it gets down to 4th and goal it's clear that Harbaugh wants to punch it in on the ground and that's the play they've got for that situation...

I don't know. You don't know. Only the people in the room know. We do know that Harbaugh meddles, and that his influence has a deleterious effect on the function of the offenses under his command over time. That effect has been demonstrated at Michigan and also, frankly, at San Francisco (though it's worth noting that Greg Roman is increasingly visible as the architect of those good Kaepernick offenses, seeing the same success and then decline with Lamar Jackson now). 

So we have four games left. If Warde waffles and Michigan loses to Rutgers, three games left and an ever more dire roster situation. Why not see if Gattis has the goods? 

Maybe the offense looks the same. Probably, even. Then Gattis is looking for a job with everyone else.

But there's a chance, however remote, that with the handcuffs off, Michigan comes out in the offense that Gattis wanted to run. Maybe there aren't as many TEs, and maybe Mason barely sees the field. Or maybe the packages stay the same but there are more RPOs or zone reads. Maybe Michigan runs almost not at all. 

We need to see if such an offense is there, and if Gattis can succeed with it. Why not? It's not like we're going anywhere anyway.