Mates,

We are all worried about not having Harbaugh on the sidelines for Saturday's game.  I candidly believe he is a legit Hall of Fame football coach - look at all he's done as a coach at USD, Stanford, the Niners, and of course back home in AA.   He is a forceful, charismatic personality and exceptionally equipped to lead men on the football field.  The question is how much does his absence affect the team and it's performance on game day?  Tough to quantify but maybe if we look at what a Head Coach does it might help us put some parameters around that question. 

Daily Duties - Coaches share video and meet every day to go over the upcoming team's play calls and tendencies.  You name and number their stars.  You see if there are any 'tells' (tips that indicate what the play will be) such as specific formations, motion in a particular fashion, a lineman whose stance is different but tells of a pattern, etc.   Typically that discussion goes on in separate meetings for offense, defense, and special teams.   All of this is an extremely important part of any coach's duties, and where major insight is brought to bear, and major strategy decisions made.  Harbaugh would figure big in these meetings, and you have to think especially so on offensive game planning. 

Another piece of daily business is making up practice charts and lineups, including lineups for scout teams. You account for every minute of your time on a practice field.  You break up practice into sessions or blocks of time, sometimes only a few minutes at a given time.  Those sessions will have a schedule on what is to go on during that time.  As an example, you might have periods for your offense where you work on, say, inside runs.  Another one might be play action passes.  A third might be some fundamentals like ball security.  On defense you could work on D-line calls and special coverages, with those groups (D-line and DB's) working in separate groups.  The potential sessions you could have are nearly unlimited, but of course you only have so much time and do your best to pick what will be the most relevant and helpful ones.

I'm sure it varies some from team to team and day to day, but usually you'll have what are called offensive and defensive 'team' sessions, where all the various position groups are together and either playing against the scout team or against their counter-parts, i.e., 1's v. 1's, 2's v 2's, etc. 

Game Day For a Head Coach - Let's put aside the fire-up speech(es) that you know Harbaugh gives in the lock room and focus on the field. We can all remember Brady Hoke with no headset, and in reality that was beyond strange.  Headsets are a big deal because communication during a game is absolutely critical.  Coaching on the field you see some things wonderfully, but many things at field level and at game speed are difficult to determine with any certainty.  Your guys in the booth, answering questions and offering insight/guidance, are critical here.  You might have a run play blown up and you want to know why/how that happened.  A simple, 'Where'd that guy come from?" and an answer like, 'Tackle missed the backside backer' might be your answer.  You take that into consideration when calling that play again, and you certainly have a talk with your tackle when he comes off the field.  

The chatter during the game is focused and non-stop and the same is of course true for the defensive side of the ball.  I haven't watched or studied Harbaugh so I can't tell you how much input he has into calls on either side of the ball.  One other thing is that headsets usually are divided between offense and defense, with the head coach (and maybe a few others) able to go from one side to the other on comms.   So while the offense has the ball the defensive guys are talking non-stop about adjustments, any injuries, calls that are/aren't working etc.  The flip side is equally true.  Thus, when your side of the ball is on the field you aren't interrupted by guys talking about the other side of the ball, and vice versa.  

Ultimately your play calls go in (and ohio illegally stole our signs) and they might be something like, I don't know, 'Red, right, rooster, 690 X-ray, stem, wave!'  and all of that decision making happened in about 10 seconds, with a number of coaches having input, and it gets signaled (or yelled, or a guy runs over like the sparty QB for a few plays) onto the field in a few more seconds and away you go. 

What About Our Head Coach?  Tough to know with certainty, and others with knowledge or insight would be helpful here, but let me speculate a little.  I doubt JH is calling defenses, but I could see his input on what the opposing offense might be doing as helpful to the DC.  I also doubt he's calling specific plays on offense but would think his direct impact on that side of the ball is much more significant. I can see JH being specifically responsible or having the final say on time-critical questions like, 'Should we go for it?' or the time management of using time outs.  I have seen chatter about Sherrone using a couple of time outs and I have seen the chatter here about play calling v. PSU  and yeah, I would guess at critical times Harbaugh's input would be extremely important - I mean, running the ball 26 straight times is a statement and we can see JH making that statement, but Sherrone is the one who called those. 

So does not having Harbaugh on the field make a difference?  Of course it does.  He is one of the finest football coaches on the planet and his input for any decision would be valuable.  At critical junctures his calls can and undoubtedly have made the difference between winning and losing.  However, in mitigation are two important things.  First, the day-to-day strategy and practices are very important and he is every bit as involved in those.  Second, as much as burger-gate and this latest ridiculousness have been total bovine excrement, our staff is now prepared far better to handle his absence since we've had 6 weeks (!!!!!) of this to get our new patterns and systems down to compensate for his absence.  We will miss him on Saturday, but keep the faith. 

Beat ohio and Go Blue!

XM