Anonymous former Harbaugh Assistant says he doesn’t know X’s & O’s? (Athletic)

Dude knows W's and L's, that's all that matters.  5th highest winning % in NFL history.  

Makes perfect sense.  Gattis is the same dude who said he was the brains behind Alabama’s offense and not Saban or Locksley. 

This does sound like some more Josh flatus hot air - dude could sell ice to an Eskimo, and would then fail to deliver. 

Nice. 

wait....you think someone who played QB at the highest levels, then coached at the highest level doesn't understand X's and O's???

This completely contradicts his current OCs who said he’s always a step ahead of everyone on the Xs and Os. 

If you look at how Georgia destroyed TCU, and are wondering why Michigan didn’t do the same, Xs and Os may be the reason. 

Some days you don't wanna wake up. Everything is fucked, everybody sucks.... 

Rollin, my way, break stuff. Limo biskit rocks. Grfo

La-di-da 

I know the Semifinal sucked and all, but we're going with an "out schemed against the 3-3-5" narrative when they put up 45? I was much more frustrated by the defensive decisions than what we did offensively, and even then if we don't gift them 2 pick sixes we win by 2 or so scores. I didn't see that game as representative of coaches being fooled or out schemed, it was a coming together of the worst version of probabilities for Michigan.

What route trees? What progressions?

People criticize stuff like this but most of us have no idea what we're actually talking about.

A route tree is just a diagram of different routes that begins with a single straight line and has various breaks for "comeback" and "dig" and such. The typicaly route tree has 9 such routes. Of course, there are a number of others (see the linked article for some of them). Michigan runs all of the routes. The "route tree" is fine. Some offenses that people would consider "sophisticated" are actually a lot simpler; a good example is the Art Briles lineage that includes what Josh Heupel was doing at Tennessee this year, a lot less complex than what Michigan runs.

Perhaps you're referring to "concepts," which are named route combinations that attack the defense in specific ways. "Mesh" is an example of such a concept.  Michigan runs quite a few of them. I don't know how many, nor how the number compares to other college football programs, and in all likelihood nobody else on this board does, either. 

"Progressions" is a description of the process that the QB uses to read receivers in turn. Post-snap progressions have a QB looking at his primary receiver, then (if the throw isn't there) a specific second and third. This typically is baked into the route concept that is run. There are also pre-snap reads that determine where the QB begins to look. Michigan heavily leans on pre-snap reads... but then, so does the apparently advanced passing attack of Ohio State, whose pre-snap read system Michigan ruthlessly exploited to shut down erstwhile Heisman Candidate CJ Stroud.

I think it's better to suggest that Harbaugh's passing attacks have frequently been less dynamic than we would like to see, particularly given his QB orientation. It's harder to explain why, because we aren't football coaches and we don't have all-22 film to examine.

And it is very much worth noting that this sort of thing has been consistent for Harbaugh across, now, four different offensive playcalling setups during his time at Michigan. 

Also something that has extended through multiple offensive coaches and OL coaches: a desire for a sophisticated and complex run game (though not as consistent, obviously, it has always been there). 

Yeah, Harbaugh was criticized for calling double slants at Cover 2 safeties.

It's all weird.

Honestly, in my experience, a lot of "He doesn't know football" criticism is thrown out by guys who just disagree with the way things are done. An Air Raid guy is going to come into Michigan and say, "Ah, these guys don't know how to pass the ball. Haha!." A Harbaugh guy is going to go into an Air Raid program and say, "Jeez, these guys don't know how to run the ball. Haha!"

4-3 guys laugh at guys who run the 3-3-5. Wing T guys laugh at spread guys.

So...somebody has an axe to grind, and they're calling out Harbaugh's football knowledge based on emotion rather than rationality. Clearly Harbaugh knows what he's doing because he was an elite college/NFL quarterback and has now won at the FCS, FBS, and NFL levels.