Commentary: Maybe we don't know what goes into making a good coach?
I appreciated this take from Matt Brown at Extra Points, where he dives into the, ahem, strictures and conventions of picking a qualified football coach.
For one, he offers up a balanced historic take on Harbaugh's hiring:
“I genuinely thought Harbaugh was a home-run hire for Michigan. I believe I actually equated it to Alabama getting Nick Saban because the comparison of wandering in the wilderness with failed "next big thing" hires before backing up the Brinks truck to get the one guy everyone said you needed to get from the beginning seemed reasonable at the time…”
Also, in comparison to other apparent "home run hires", for a while, Harbaugh maintained a level of performance better than his counterparts:
That’s true! I mean, Jim Harbaugh was a single Good Spot away from likely making the playoff back in 2016. You can argue that a consistent run of Very Good but not Elite, judged against the resources and expectations at Michigan, is not good enough. But it would be unfair to insinuate that these Michigan teams have struggled at exactly the same clip as Texas or Nebraska.
Hale and Connelly hedged a bit more about Herman and Frost, but both agreed that on paper, they seemed like good hires...
He then jumps into the "opportunity cost" of replacing coaches - and even dives into the question of whether or not a coach can be objectively evaluated on merits alone (the gist: not really):
If wins and losses are ultimately the final metric that determines who gets fired and who gets retained, well, there’s going to be luck involved.
Which then makes the decision making process that ADs and boosters are facing right now particularly challenging, as the costs for making a coaching transition are higher than ever. How much can you value what you see on the field this year? How certain can you be that you’ll make a superior decision if given another chance? Have all possible other remedies been exhausted?
Anyway, it's a fun read - and one that takes a generally academic and unbiased look at the wacky world of college head coach performance. Hope you enjoy.
November 30th, 2020 at 11:17 PM ^
“For a long time the Montreal Canadiens were that franchise.”
We really need to make the plan that allowed the above to happen, happen. It would be like printing wins...
November 30th, 2020 at 10:43 PM ^
I don’t know and yelling at the TV every Saturday isn’t working
November 30th, 2020 at 11:13 PM ^
People think of the 4th down spot vs OSU but the earlier loss at Iowa, 14-13, on a last second FG by Iowa, really killed us more.
Win that game with a more aggressive offensive game plan and we go into OSU 11-0. Lose in Double OT and we still likely get the 4th playoff spot as Washington would have been likely dropped to 5.
JH played vintage Bo/Lloyd for the last 3 qtrs and it burned him. Up 10-0 and go into a shell.
And that 2016 UM team had a chance vs. Saban with the talent on D and our skill O players.
FWIW - I see JH as Dick Vermeil circa 1982 burned out on a team that had gone from bad to near greatness to mediocrity. DV made the right choice to retire and then come back later and win the Super Bowl with the Rams. Not sure what JH is thinking but there is life after tomorrow even after leaving.
December 1st, 2020 at 6:37 AM ^
I live 10 minutes from Kinnick and my buddies from freshman year at MoJo came to visit that weekend in 2016 so we could go to the game. It lives prominently in my mind. When I look back at it now what stands out is exactly what you pointed to--going up 10-0 on the road and then the offense going into a shell. Initially it seemed that Speight's injury was the reason for that but now with the benefit of hindsight I think the play calling during that game was representative of Harbaugh's entire tenure at Michigan. He insists on running the ball first, foremost, on 2nd and long, on 2nd and short, always predictable, into the line against stacked boxes with 8+ defenders pushing right back. No matter who the OC is and no matter how much success they may have had by opening up the playbook a little bit, Jim wants to run off-tackle and prove we can succeed that way. That stubbornness has cost us many opportunities to continue drives, score points, and win games over the past 6 seasons. And it doesn't work anymore, particularly against good teams, or even against feisty upstarts who can make their season by beating Michigan. The loss to Iowa was the beginning of the end, and it was also emblematic of why Harbaugh wasn't able to move Michigan past 10 wins, into the Big 10 championship game, or beyond that. Modern college football is about offenses that score a LOT of points, and defenses with a lot of depth that try to withstand the onslaught of the other team's offense. We've never been able to do that and I'm not sure we've even tried.
December 1st, 2020 at 10:04 AM ^
Dick Vermeil comparison is interesting.
November 30th, 2020 at 11:14 PM ^
So many people are gonna be so pissed when he’s back next year. Which begs the question of whether they still watch and cheer...
December 1st, 2020 at 11:25 AM ^
i really want a new coach.
i will always cheer.
i will at least tape. i might watch.
i will only attend a game or two in person- a couple of early season games in sept-early oct. i have season tix (45 years). i can sell the rest at face. if i couldn't sell them then i might let the tix go.
i suspect there are a lot of older fans just like me.
December 1st, 2020 at 12:26 AM ^
Hire Chris Partridge. The guy can flat out recruit. That’s all that matters. Youth, energy, recruiting is just what the doctor ordered.
December 1st, 2020 at 2:14 AM ^
If we get a new coach, I hope he hires Chris as our next DC. Or if Harbaugh stays and he fired DB, then I hope he hires Partridge as our DC. Partridge if DC could be groomed to be our future HC.
December 1st, 2020 at 1:13 AM ^
Find the coaches that can recruit like crazy -- and understand the importance, so they will pick positional coaches who will recruit like crazy too.
Find the coaches that are innovative and getting the most out of their talent on the field.
Make a short list out of the names these lists have in common.
Point the money cannon.
December 1st, 2020 at 2:10 AM ^
I wanted Harbaugh before we hired RR but everyone was upset since Harbaugh criticized our academics. This site was going crazy 6 years ago with flight trackers and It's happening! I thought it may take a while for Harbaugh to win the B1G, may be year 5 or this season when he was first hired. I liked how he was able to get the most out of Hoke's recruits for those first two seasons and knew there might be a weakness as the last 2 Hoke recruiting seasons became seniors and there were weaknesses in the OL during the 2017 season. It seem like after the 2017 season, Harbaugh seem less enthused about coaching here at Michigan and during the 2019 season he looked depressed. I think the big road blowout against WI in 2019 hit him hard and he knew Brown was not the great DC he had thought when he got him to join his staff. I feel sorry for Harbaugh, since he looks broken or he knows his main goal was to get back in the NFL and really did not put in the work to keep recruiting and player development going well. If he is no longer enthused about coaching here, I just hope he leaves for the NFL and say so early, like after OSU blows us out again. I just don't know what happened to Harbaugh and am really bummed about how the entire team is playing so poorly this season. This years team may even lose to the fighting RRs of '08. If we keep Harbaugh and he gets better assistant coaches, then in a few years we could be back to that 9 to 10 win level and finishing in 2nd or 3rd place in the east. I doubt Harbaugh would ever be able to beat OSU and win the B1G in his current state.
December 1st, 2020 at 7:15 AM ^
Lloyd Carr was underappreciated. I knew several people who always ripped him apart for being a bad coach that didn't get enough out of his players. He was a model of consistency. Never had a losing record.
December 1st, 2020 at 9:24 AM ^
Excellent article.
Along the lines of the article...Campbell/Halfley/fill in the blank has maybe a 40% chance of getting a better result than Hatbaugh has produced...just because all HC hires (except Meyer to OSU) are crap shoots.
So here is one rubric for figuring out if JH should stay or go.
1. Health issue: Look, if there is something wrong with JH's health, then Warde Manuel knows of it, at least to some degree. And if that is making JH less effective as a coach, then there is no question. JH must step down or be dismissed.
2. No health issue, just dysfunction that JH causes and/or has failed to properly address: Here an extension with a clearly laid out and agreed upon plan for meaningful changes in the program can make sense.
Brian Kelly at ND had mixed results for 6 years, and then in year 7 the wheels came off and ND was 4-8.
But Kelly actually made big changes in his program and has done really well since then.
This was not the sort of 'self evaluation and changes blah blah blah' that coaches claim they do after every season.
This was an actual reexamination of everything, and figuring out how their program was self-sabotaging, and then acting to actually make big changes. Kelly made changes in his staff and also in himself.
It worked at ND. ND is on their best 4 year period since...the Lou Holtz era...
The trick is that JH has to really be on board with buying into and then actually executing an internal reboot. If he is just going to hand wave and 'blah, blah, blah' at it, then...no extension, see you later...
TL:DR.... IF there are no health issues, and IF JH lays out and is committed to doing the sort of huge internal reboot that Kelly did, then extending JH can make sense,
But IF there are health issues, OR if there are no health issues but JH thinks 'hey, I just need a few tweaks here and there' then the JH era at Michigan has to end.
December 1st, 2020 at 9:39 AM ^
No - we are results-oriented fanatics. It is the AD's job to evaluate and hire the coaches.
December 1st, 2020 at 10:03 AM ^
Does it really matter what we know? It isn't any of our jobs to make the correct hire. All we do know, from historical evidence, is that we have not gotten the correct coach. We just speculate who we think would be good and water cooler it so we don't go insane with the thought of history repeating itself.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:15 AM ^
harbaugh is enigmatic.
he has some good ideas. he has had some bad luck and obstacles placed in his way.
he is abrasive. he gets used by others to further their careers.
he has an expiration date. M is at it.
December 1st, 2020 at 12:11 PM ^
There's no such thing as a slam dunk hire. I guess that's the takeaway from Harbaugh.
My biggest disappointment in the Harbaugh era is how positively Hokian he is with game management. This is the most shocking part of his tenure. I truly thought we brought in a guy who would be aggressive and smart on in-game decisions...and by year 6 it turns out he's just like Hoke and Frames. Punting on 4th and 3 from the plus side of the field? Still not having anything resembling a hurry-up or 2-minute offense? Running into a stacked box repeatedly? Continually subbing out your players who just had huge drives that scored you TDs? Pepcat? Most obvious wildcat pass ever after the first wildcat run failed? This shit is maddening to watch.
And it matters. You ever wonder why Michigan never wins those close games against similar-level competition? Because all those little in-game decisions matter. I mean really, think about the majority of big wins under Harbaugh...most are big blowouts (ND last year, PSU in 2016/2018). The one or two close wins (Wisconsin at home in 2016 is the only one that comes to mind) are usually games that Michigan clearly outplayed their opponent and should have won by much more. And there's quite a few close losses where Michigan could have gotten over the hump but repeatedly didn't.
All I want is a coach that is smart about in-game coaching. One that has the ball with 40 seconds left in the 1st half and genuinely tries to get points even though they get the ball back to start the 2nd half. This is football in 2020 - you need to score as often as possible and never take a possession for granted.