Brian - I agree with your assessment, but where do you stand on changes
I agree with most of Brian's assessment of our football program vs. the elite.
I believe Harbaugh is a really good coach with some flaws, but he has restored us to where we essentially were in the Carr years...minus the B1G championships since OSU has gone full on elite, and the changes to conference structure, divisions, etc.
I agree that OSU, Bama, Clemson, UGA, LSU are football factories and Auburn and Oregon will continue to try to replicate the bagmen, no school model. I agree that no coach would be able to consistently go 11-1 or 12-0 at UM given the current administrative hurdles we put upon ourselves in recruiting and academic expectations we have. In many ways, I feel we are in the same boat as Notre Dame and Washington - two teams not willing to go full on football factory, but also not running the Stanford or Northwestern "student first then athlete" model. So we are very much operation in no man's land, hence averaging out to 9-4 or 10-3 seasons, unable to be elite year after year, and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle once every 5 years (2016 we were fully loaded, but Speight got injured and refs jobbed us). Therefore, we are not a "reload" program, but a constantly "retain + rebuild" program.
I did a poll on here about a month back that asked the community if they wanted to go full on football factory to compete with the elite, or if we should continue on our current path, waiting and hoping for the occasional dream season (1997), and accepting that we are a good but not great program. It came out to 60% in favor of football factory, 40% in favor of status quo + whatever we could do to improve within the NCAA guidelines. To be fair, the question was asked the week after another OSU debacle, so that may have skewed the results towards football factory due to our general frustrations as fans healing from a recent dong punch.
My question is for Brian and the writers on this blog, since I hear and agree with much of what you are saying about what college football has become. Essentially, I have 2 questions.
1) Do you want Michigan to go full on football factory and embrace the business that is college football head on, and do whatever is necessary to compete and become one of the top 5 premier programs in the country? Bagmen, online classes, essentially abandon the "student athlete" model, and just win?
2) How easy would this actually be to accomplish? Bama and OSU have been running football factories for decades. I have to believe schools like Tennessee, Miami, FSU, UF, Ole Miss, maybe Texas, etc are trying to run football factories but can't achieve elite status for whatever reason. Why should we believe Michigan would actually be successful (start winning more, and not get caught) if we tried to run a football factory?
And of course, Happy New Year to all.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:22 PM ^
I wonder if the loosening of the transfer rules is going to bring a little more parity to college football. Will the current trend in transfers keep teams from having a Tua in the wings behind their Hurts?
If Fields gets hurt, ohio is playing a QB that would have been behind burrow and martell on the depth chart, not like a few years ago when they had three QB's deep that would have started for most teams.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:23 PM ^
I'd answer your #1 with the first question you pose in #2:
It doesn't matter what Brian and the board think. What matters is that Michigan gets a shit ton of NSF and other grant funding to be an elite academic institution, and because Michigan athletics is more likely a non-participatory contributor to that (e.g. elite researchers and professors and funding come to the university regardless of athletic prowess), there is no way Michigan will ever go the way of Oregon or Alabama or Ohio State under the guidance of Mark Schlissel.
Michigan losing a game on a Saturday ends up being about a ten minute annoyance for a fan on Monday morning; Michigan's status as a paragon of public education being compromised because of flimsy academic standards for its student-athletes would result in suffering that you wouldn't even notice until it shows up.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:34 PM ^
Completely agree. I wonder if the dichotomy in the poll among "football factory" vs. "playing within the rules" has to do with non-alums vs. alums. In my own experience, more alums are "within the rules" types and non-alums are more "football factory" types. Clearly Brian is an alum and I suspect football factory type, but I am wondering if Brian is in the minority of alums but majority of the fan base.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:36 PM ^
Brian's an alum that profits off of a prominent and successful athletic department at Michigan, which is a pretty unique scenario in itself.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:02 PM ^
I'm an alumnus. John Beilein had a philosophy that he followed that I teach my kids: Do the next right thing.
You lose a big part of yourself if you win but sacrifice your integrity. Just look at Chris Webber.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:28 PM ^
The poll also necessarily only reached a self-selected subset of the school's most ardent football fans. If 'win at all costs' only gets 60% among that group, I'd imagine it would get a much lower share among the whole group of relevant stakeholders, which I would define as anyone who has ever studied or worked at UM or donated to the school.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:52 PM ^
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January 2nd, 2020 at 4:05 PM ^
Everyone knows athletes have a different experience than the rest of the students. Most of them wouldn't have had a prayer of getting in on their academic prowess, and no one cares. It doesn't tarnish the school's reputation because literally everyone does it.
Paying the players and offering them online classes won't make a bit of difference to our academic reputation, but we will win more football games.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:06 PM ^
I'm tired of this argument for two reasons.
UofM cares about athletics as much as it cares about everything at the school imo. What UofM doesn't care about is the standings of just one sport, even if that sport is rich with tradition and funds the entire AD. The university has dumped a ton of money into improving all sports as evident with it's change of facilities for non-football (and mens basketball) sports. UofM vision isn't simply to be an academic football school, it's to be an academic athletic school - as strange as that sounds. Point being it cares as an entity about all things equal, and not focusing on just football. As fans, take it or go.
OSU, over the last 20 years, has vastly improved it's standing as an academic institution and is quickly approaching top 20 public universities in the country, and will probably be number 2 to UofM and in the top 15 by 2025. UofM alums and elitists hate this, but it's fact. But they've done that while also going all in on football. Sacrificing other athletics for this one. That is there choice as an institution and it's working for them.
Now, set your fandom strictly for CFB aside, and shift it to fandom for all college athletics in the spirit of institutional academic competition, pride, and spirit, and which one actually sounds better overall. This is what UofM considers to be the "Michigan difference" and not strictly winning football games - like it or not.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:29 PM ^
A few responses:
UofM vision isn't simply to be an academic football school, it's to be an academic athletic school - as strange as that sounds. Point being it cares as an entity about all things equal, and not focusing on just football. As fans, take it or go.
I partially agree with this - Michigan does a fine job of providing a broad set of resources to student-athletes. My point being, though, is that all other things equal, Michigan's standing as an athletic powerhouse is not necessarily as central to the university's overall standing and reputation; the upper echelons of public institutions (UVA, UCLA, Cal) would all say the same.
OSU, over the last 20 years, has vastly improved it's standing as an academic institution and is quickly approaching top 20 public universities in the country, and will probably be number 2 to UofM and in the top 15 by 2025. UofM alums and elitists hate this, but it's fact.
To suggest that Ohio State will move from the likes of Georgia and Florida State into the territory of UCLA, Cal, Georgia Tech and UVA in less than 5 years - or even ten - is dubious at best. On every objective measure, the gap between 1-5 and the mid-15 range is enormous, and academic funding, professor preference, and the likes don't simply jump drastically like that.
Gordon Gee said it best when he hoped Tressel "wouldn't fire [him]".
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:41 PM ^
I tend to agree with you, though I think you're discounting Georgia too heavily and OSU is a better institution academically than FSU. Just my opinion.
January 3rd, 2020 at 9:39 AM ^
Sorry, I meant number 2 academically in the Big Ten.
January 3rd, 2020 at 9:45 AM ^
That's more reasonable, although I'd still put them at #3 (with NW being at the top) and really close to Wisconsin (which, based on my polling of snobby educated people here on the east coast, is far more preferred than Ohio State).
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:34 PM ^
I'm not one for ragging on OSU (or MSU for that matter) as an academic institution around here, but OSU is going to be number 2 in what world? Did Texas, UNC, UCLA, Cal-Berkeley, and Wisconsin all go under?
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:04 PM ^
Yeah, except OSU is nearly just as good as UM overall in athletics and have a more recent NC....in wrestling.
January 2nd, 2020 at 7:37 PM ^
Isn’t OSU ranked like number 5 in the nation in basketball?
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
Agree, as it should be. Academics should always be first, a game is game, education changes lives.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:24 PM ^
How bad has our Bowl record been in the last 15 Bowls you ask? Overall record is 3-12. Of the 12 losses, only 5 have been losses by single digits. Average loss is by 13.5 points. Including losses to such world beaters as South Carolina, Kansas State, Mississippi State, and Nebraska.
Our three victories have been against Florida twice, and Virginia Tech. Whatever bowl preparation and motivational tactics that the Wolverines use, ain’t working
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:26 PM ^
To be fair, we've played Florida in 12 of those bowl games so
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:06 PM ^
Geezzzz-uuuuusssss thats terrible
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:26 PM ^
Obviously not an MGoBlog employee, but I think the question is interesting.
The University will never let the football team operate like Bama, Clemson, OSU, LSU, etc. It's never going to happen. And I think your point is a good one, that we are essentially having the same issues as ND, Stanford, or any other school that has actual academics. The university is not willing to do the things it takes to compete with OSU, Clemson, and Bama, because it still believes in the student first concept, and I don't believe that will ever change.
I don't think UM is as far away as people think. 2 years ago, LSU went 8-5 and lost to ND in the Music City Bowl. Now they are the best team CFB has seen in a while. The QB and offensive staff changes are the major difference with LSU.
I am a big Harbaugh fan, but I have been thinking about the whole "who could be get that would be better" question. Given the constraints listed above, it will be difficult. However there are a few names that could be interesting.
Matt Rhule. Had a good run both cleaning up Baylor and winning games. He choked against Oklahoma the first game, and didn't really show up in the Big 12 championship or Sugar Bowl. I don't think he has any loyalties to Baylor and could be pulled away.
Mario Cristobal. Oregon went toe-to-toe with Wisconsin and won, and has done a good job there since taking over. Would he leave Oregon? Not sure. Justin Herbert seems well coached.
Joe Brady. No HC experience, but largely credited with turning around LSU's offense. Is the potential upside worth the high risk?
Brent Venables. No HC experience, and seems to enjoy being a DC. Consistently shuts down OSU, and seemingly a good recruiter. Again, high risk high reward guy, and not sure he would leave Clemson.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:56 PM ^
Not only is Venables very comfortable where he is both financially ($2MM+ a year goes a LONG ways in Clemson, SC) and from a football perspective, he is famously averse to career tracking-driven job changes. To top it off, he has one son currently in his 2nd year on the team and his other boy is an incoming recruit in this class (which happens to be a spectacular class).
I laugh every time I see his name come up on this board.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:30 PM ^
Venables and Cristobal coach under the SEC model. They don't play school.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:37 PM ^
Venebles has coached against OSU at Clemson three times and got rung up twice. The outlier was 2016. Not the standard.
January 2nd, 2020 at 6:59 PM ^
OSU has a dynamic offense that scores on everyone. Venables did enough to slow them down so Clemson's offense could win.
Expecting to hold OSU under 20 a game is irrational. The are 3-0 against OSU, so I'd say he's done the job they needed. He's not giving up 60 like Don Brown.
The shutout was an anomoly, but it still happened. He also made some good adjustments at halftime this year against OSU, which UM's staff seems incapable of doing against any team with a pulse.
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:12 PM ^
Venebles' best second half adjustment was JK Dobbins being hurt most of the third quarter. OSU moved the ball again in the 4th. Clemson did not slow OSU down. OSU slowed themselves down with execution and mental errors. OSU blew it. Venebles just watched.
I think 2016 is the point, especially when comparing Venebles to Brown. Functionally, Don Brown did the same thing to 2016 OSU that Venebles and Clemson did. Don Brown was unfortunate that OSU's defense directly scored 14 points of OSU's 17 regulation points. OSU had no such luck in the Clemson game. They also missed two field goals and threw a red-zone interception.
At the end of the day, perhaps 2016 was the anomaly for both guys against OSU, but it's more likely that OSU's 2016 offense was the anomaly. Not the coordinators' performance against it.
January 2nd, 2020 at 8:48 PM ^
Respectfully disagree. I've seen enough Don Brown 3rd and 20 zero blitzes against 4 wide receiver sets to know that Venables is a superior coordinator. Last year OSU ran the same crossing route 20 times for 300 yards, yet the defense was unable to correctly adjust at half time to a functional zone scheme.
Sometimes, as a coordinator, you need to understand the flow of the game and watch how the different levels of your defense are holding up against the opponent. Sometimes, if your D-line isn't good enough, or your secondary is getting exploited, you just need to accept that you can't "solve your problems with aggression." While not a fan of bend but don't break defense in general, sometimes you need to play to the game speed and talent that you have while adjusting to what the opponent is doing.
Brown wants to run man to man with a dominant 4 man front, dominant corners, and exotic blitzes all game every game. This was cool in 2016 when we had the personelle. When we don't, we rarely have a rational answer to slow down a hot offense enough to keep our boys in the game.
See the PSU game this year...we literally let one guy beat us - Hamler - and did so by being overly aggressive and having the safety bust on another play when there was no reason for him to ever not be playing deep.
January 3rd, 2020 at 10:49 AM ^
You can say "rung up" all you want, but the Clemson grads these days are saying O-H-I-O-and-4.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:39 PM ^
Throwing away your morals to try winning more football games is the most anti-Michigan thing I've ever heard and anyone suggesting this should be ashamed of themself. Also, if we started cheating heavy and hard this does not mean we will magically win more games. What will you say when we get caught, vacate wins, go on probation, and have a bowl ban?
Basketball is at least as dirty as NCAA football and the cleanest coach in the country led us to 2 National Title games. So it's impossible to beat top football teams with a clean program but possible to beat top basketball teams with a clean program?
2007...on the ROAD...Stanford @ USC. At the time the greatest point spread D1 upset in the history of the game. 41 points underdogs. Jim Harbaugh led his clean Stanford program, who finished 4-8, to an upset win against one of the dirtiest NCAA coaches ever, Pete Carroll. USC finished ranked #3 overall in the final AP ranking that year.
According to half the people here this win is impossible and can't happen because Stanford is ran clean and has too high of academic standards, just like Michigan. Every single year our team's talent level will be closer to osu's than that 2007 Stanford team was to football factory USC. Our talent will never be so far behind that is is impossible to beat osu. Our point spread will never come close to that against osu. We lose because they game plan better and out play us. Yes they do typically have more talent, but not by some impossible margin. MSU should have never beaten us under Harbaugh because our talent level always trumps theirs yet they had their fair share of wins against us. We should be able to do the same against osu and bitching that it's because we don't cheat is wrong and whiney.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^
What? If we started paying players and signed more 5 stars we'd absolutely win more bowl games.
Look nobody is saying we should get every player a Hummer and hook them up with strippers during recruiting trips. But paying recruits who grew up with little is not "throwing away morals to win".
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:13 PM ^
What happened when msu started shady recruiting 4 and 5 star guys? They imploded and developed a rape culture. They didn't "absolutely win more bowl games." So no we are not guaranteed to win more bowl games with your theory.
Spoiler alert: The players already get paid. Free tuition and free room and board is the obvious. We have a world class health team for our athletes. Free state of the art gyms and trainers. Free meals and snacks. https://www.athleticscholarships.net/2014/04/16/what-athletes-will-get-under-the-ncaas-new-food-rules.htm
And...drum roll...straight up legal cash money. This link states players receive 2k to greater than 5k legally as stipends for being athletes. https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/04/news/companies/extra-cash-college-athletes/index.html
Should I mention the free around the world trip our football players go on every year? Or the random gift packages up to $550 all the players get for making a bowl game?
By the way those links are old news, 2014 and 2015.
Please tell me, how exactly do you suggest we morally cheat?
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:52 PM ^
"Hookers and blow"
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:45 PM ^
Beat the Huskies!
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
My expectations for the program aren't even that high.
-consistent 11 win seasons (every other season)
-NY6 bowl victories
That's it. Winning 11 games is very doable even with the roster he has now, and he's already had several chances. Beat the Rutgers and Illinois of the conference, and then win 2 out of 4 for OSU, Wisconsin, PSU & bowl game. PSU has literally done this with worse recruiting.
No need to turn Michigan into a football factory yet (even though I'm for it). Execute better on the field and go from there.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
This is so stupid. All this is an apathetic way to not deal with the issue at hand and scapegoat woe is me bullshit
As I’ve posted today JH’s record is 10, 10, 8 10 and 9 wins over 5 years. With ZERO. ZERO. I mean literally ZERO changes in talent his win totals should be at minimum 11, 11, 9, 11 and 10. Granted, that isn’t putting you in osu/bama/Clemson class. But we are all feeling damn good right now overall.
Before we start talking out of our assholes about bagmen and this other nonsense how about we just execute and beat teams we are more talented than which is all but about 5-7 teams in the country.
you don’t have to do a whole lot of mental gymnastics to see with solid execution and improved strategy WITH THE SAME TALENT that JH could be at 11, 12, 10, 11 and 11 wins. That would have been best case but it was unequivocally possible.
My frustration really isn’t directed at the OP it’s the fan base in general. The talent is and was there for this team to have won 5-7 more games over the last 5 years. That changes a lot. Even if they were still 0-5 vs osu we’d all be feeling much better.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:54 PM ^
Football factory. Online classes.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:59 PM ^
Full on football factory. Alabama and osu don’t ever get in any trouble. So let’s do what we need to do to get to elite status.
January 2nd, 2020 at 3:59 PM ^
Coaching. Bagmen, online classes, etc. are necessary but not sufficient to be elite.
You need a good coach on game day. Saban, Meyer, Swinney are all excellent coaches on game day. Odgeron seems to buy good game day coaches as his coordinators.
Is Harbaugh the right coach is the question we need to be asking.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:06 PM ^
Yup. Ole Miss & Miss St use bagmen and are less relevant than FCS teams like App State. People always like to point to Dabo trying to pay Rashan or Saban running car dealerships but it doesn't change the fact that they're legitimately good coaches without any of that stuff.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
I am getting so incredibly frustrated with reading all these excuses about fans regarding academics, bagmen, how Michigan has some superior standard they have to maintain, etc.
At the end of the day, the talent is there. The "academics" does not explain a team that cannot execute on a fundamental level in critical situations, the piss-poor time management that occurs over and over again, a coach who has no clue on how to make adjustments or counter what a team is doing... It's all just excuse making to make the fans feel better.
Why did all the fans say, "Hell yeah! We are going to win championships now!," and then out of the other side of their mouth say, "Well, it's not going to happen, Michigan's just playing with a smaller deck."
Admit the program is a good program, not elite, and that the coach we all expected to be a miracle worker has been a complete paper tiger against any team worth a damn.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:11 PM ^
^^^^^^^^ Right on Uncle Leo
We as fans want to see this team as elite because we are in fact fanatics for Michigan football. Added to that, the media portrayed Harbaugh as the next coming and we bought it hard because we needed it as a fan base at the time. He's gotten us back to what we've always been, which is a good football team that competes for top 10 status each year. Do we over pay him, yes. Could we do better, who knows. But nothing changes right now until JH becomes more of a manager, and we find an elite-ish QB.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:28 PM ^
At the end of the day, the talent is there. The "academics" does not explain a team that cannot execute on a fundamental level in critical situations, the piss-poor time management that occurs over and over again, a coach who has no clue on how to make adjustments or counter what a team is doing... It's all just excuse making to make the fans feel better.
Yes, it does. If a player needs to spend an hour in chem lab instead of that hour in the weight room, film room, or in drills, it does. Players being able to execute in critical situations comes down to preparation and focus. If one is preparing for final exams while another is preparing for every situation he'll possibly see on the playing field, academics does play a part in matter. And the talent is not there compared to the elite football factories. This fact is nearly irrefutable by almost any measure. Sure, the talent is there compared to MSU, but not to OSU. At the end of the day, a team that at least pays lip service to academics is not as prepared to play football as a team that does not.
As for coaching, I'm as frustrated by the Him Jarbaugh moments as you are. But that alone doesn't account for being 0-20 against superior foes. All else being equal, I think even Him Jarbaugh goes 10-10. But things are not equal, and academics and not going full SEC matters.
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:32 PM ^
Honest to god question: How many starters are spending time in the chem lab?
January 2nd, 2020 at 5:42 PM ^
I use that as just an illustration, so feel free to change it to whatever academic pursuit you'd like. The point is that some schools do require some time spent on academics while other schools do not, and the ones that do are less prepared for the game.
January 2nd, 2020 at 7:19 PM ^
Come on dude. If you think the fundamental issues are happening because our guys are spending an extra hour in the chem lab... I don't know what to tell you.
What the hell was going on in 2016, when they were firing on all cylinders? Were they just smarter than the current guys?
Why does Michigan play JH a billion dollars and pay all their assistants a million each if they don't care about winning and academics are #1?
It is OK to face facts. We thought the dude was going to come in here and win stuff. He has not. If that's the case, bring in someone who might.
January 2nd, 2020 at 9:45 PM ^
Gosh, who would’ve thought ‘one hour of chem lab’ would be taken so literally. It’s a metaphor for academic requirements that some schools have and others don’t.
I really wish I shared your beliefs on this. I really do. It would certainly make things easier to understand—It’s all the coaches fault! Fire them all and get someone in here with better clock management and who wants it more, whatever that means. But the more I look into this the more I see deeper structural issues. Of course JH is paid millions to win, but not solely and at the expense of academics and with a modicum of morality. If Michigan wanted just wins, they could hire any number of scumbags.
As for 2016, that was a once in 5 year team where things fell into place and our starters were as good as any, but we didn’t have any depth, especially at QB, and we haven’t been able to put together such a team since. OSU, Alabama, Clemson, et al, put together a more talented and deeper team than that every single year. Why? Because they win more, of course, but why do they win more? I wish the answer was as simple as coaching, but I just don’t think so.
January 3rd, 2020 at 8:14 AM ^
Agree to disagree.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
Unleash the money cannon.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:06 PM ^
One thing people need to understand is that being a “football factory” means more than paying money to recruits which is something a lot of people nowadays consider not just defensible but even morally desirable.
It also means recruiting players of questionable academic quality, questionable character and then doing just about everything to keep them on the field as well. That includes academic fraud, that also includes mechanisms to ensure any misdeeds get “clarified” and “handled in-house”. And trust me an 18-19 year old idiot with a wallet full of cash and the sense of being a VIP can do a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t want to see associated with your university or expose your sons and daughters to.
It means complete tunnel vision for Ws.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
"handled in house"
Worked great for Sparty, that model.