Disappointed in Harbaugh. Why?
Harbaugh is now tied with Loyd Carr in 2nd place for having the most consecutive bowl losses at Michigan (4). He is just 1 shy of having the most consecutive bowl losses at 5 which is held by Bo. When you look at it, going 8-4, 9-3, 9-4 is actually the norm for Michigan football. The difference lies in the fact that Michigan was tough against good competition during the stretch from Bo to Loyd coupled with the fact that they beat OSU. Outside of OSU, Harbaugh is the Michigan norm. Not really a reason to replace him and OSU is a much different program now than it was during the Bo-Loyd stretch.
January 4th, 2020 at 7:28 AM ^
Bo lost his first 7. Yeah, I know he was in the hospital for the first one, still his team and is on his record
January 4th, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
I blame Jim Young
January 4th, 2020 at 7:31 AM ^
if you keep picking at a scab it will turn into scar tissue.
i think you are well on your way.
January 4th, 2020 at 9:13 AM ^
XM, I had something much less eloquent to say to OP but that's a good way of putting it
January 4th, 2020 at 11:40 AM ^
It's just another snowflake post which should have been in a snowflake thread... but this OP thought their thoughts were original and worthy of a separate thread. Sigh.
January 4th, 2020 at 7:37 AM ^
Uggh. You are awful.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:11 AM ^
OP is definitely awful. Can't say I disagree with the post, though. There at least seems to be an awareness that current OSU isn't the same as past OSU.
Another thing about OP: S/he believes that all schools cheat and that Michigan cheats just as much as Georgia and Clemson. No more, no less ...
January 4th, 2020 at 9:20 AM ^
If OSU isn't the "same OSU" that it once was, why can't Michigan do the same?
January 4th, 2020 at 9:53 AM ^
What could be different tho
?
January 4th, 2020 at 12:45 PM ^
It comes down to recruiting and recruiting has to change. Big classes with average kids is not cutting it.
With that, I think Harbaugh does more with less and is one of the best in the business doing it. Looks at it this way, most of UM’s starters wouldn’t start for OSU and Harbaugh is consistently winning 9-10 games a year with the least talented teams UM has had in a long time. So if you think about it, Harbaugh has done a fantastic job with what he has taking the field.
Is Harbaugh fielding a NC team? No. But he is fielding a team capable of beating PSU and Wisconsin.
January 4th, 2020 at 1:53 PM ^
Okay? Wisconsin recruits "worse" than us every year and manages to put as many or more players in the NFL. They churn out All American running backs every year it seems.
January 4th, 2020 at 3:08 PM ^
This.
Seems not too long ago we were the ones producing guys like Ty Wheatley, Mike Hart, Tim Biakabutuka, Anthony Thomas and other great college RBs on a regular basis.
Now look at it. In the last decade the only truly great rusher we’ve produced has been a fucking QB, meanwhile UW has had Taylor, Montee Ball, Melvin Gordon and James White.
Since the start of Dayne’s career in 1996, Wisconsin has so thoroughly outclassed us in the stud RB department, that’s it’s utterly embarrassing
With our resources, there is zero excuse that we should be getting our asses handed to us like this with such an important position. Yet here we are.
January 4th, 2020 at 3:43 PM ^
So correct! It appears a vast majority of people here never saw those years or have forgotten them. People are excited about Evans coming back. Did they not watch Evans when he was here. Nothing better than a slightly better than average RB.
The best back we have had in a long time was Higdon, and he didn't get drafted. Evans and Haskins are no where near the back Higdon was.
January 4th, 2020 at 10:22 AM ^
Being naive is not a good trait sir if you deserve such eloquence in being addressed
January 4th, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
They cheat
January 4th, 2020 at 10:32 AM ^
How much? Gimme some numbers. Or, just do a relative comparison. Does Georgia cheat more / less than Michigan? C'mon ...
January 4th, 2020 at 7:44 AM ^
+1 Insightful
January 4th, 2020 at 7:47 AM ^
Bowl games are kind of like season openers but even weirder. They are a different animal from most regular season games, and the results as well.
I'm more concerned with how much of the winter, spring, and summer Michigan's staff and players and staff use the season ending losses to tOSU and Alabama devote to concentrating on competing with and out-performing Ohio State in every way possible.
January 4th, 2020 at 7:51 AM ^
Why only one L for how you spell LLLLoyd?
January 4th, 2020 at 9:57 AM ^
You mean the guy who coached Michigan to the National Championship?
January 4th, 2020 at 1:14 PM ^
Calm down it was a AP sportswriters championship. Do you really think that um team could have beat that Braska squad?Considering they struggled mightily just to beat a 3 loss Washington State by 1 score in the rose bowl. that was probably the most complete team under Osborne, right before the crash. UM's offense was their only shortcoming that year.
I'm kind of dissapointed that Harbaugh hasn't put up a bigger fight in the "Game", kind of. And that's not going to change anytime soon because of UM's lack of elite talent on their roster. Harbaughs lack of top 100 recruits on the roster. 2016-2019 harbaugh signed around 14/15 top 100.OSU on the other hand signed 44 top 100. OSU actually signed more top 50 (15) recruits than Harbaugh's top 100. In the 2018 class alone he signed ZERO top 100 prospects. Why? Imo, his lack of recruiting alone is worthy of dismissal.
January 4th, 2020 at 1:40 PM ^
Come on, that is the National Championship, and if you want to split hairs, there are like 17 groups that award the NC, and UM won the majority. There's every chance they could have beaten Nebraska. Was it a sure thing? Not at all. It would have been a great game. But Nebraska needed an illegal play just to take Mizzou to OT. The two common opponents, Baylor and Colorado, UM laid the wood to much more than Nebraska. The Wash. St. team was 10-1 going into the Rose Bowl, and they were exactly the type of team to give UM trouble with a pinpoint passing attack unlike anyone UM had faced. Nebraska was fully one-dimensional (albeit great at what they did), but much more of the kind of team UM was built to stop. Nebraska wouldn't have sniffed anything through the air. We had a good DL, good LB's, and DB's who were excellent tacklers, including one who simply shut down half the field and tackled like a LB. You don't give Paterno the worst home loss of his career (to a team that was 8-0 at that point) without being able to compete with Scott Frost Nebraska. And there is absolutely no way that was as complete a team as the Tommie Frazier team that handed Florida their asses two years earlier. Frazier = Babe Ruth of Option QB's. Frost = Cecil Fielder.
January 5th, 2020 at 8:04 AM ^
BeatIT what are you talking about 3 loss Washington State? They lost once. Nebraska's '97 team was nowhere near as good as their '94 or '95 teams. People like to knock Michigan's 97 NC because Michigan wasn't explosive offensively. I look at that team alot like the '02 Buckeyes, a team that nobody gave a chance against Miami. Both teams won with defense and ball controlling offenses. Michigan's defense wasn't going to be destroyed by ANYONE that season, so they definitely could've played with and beaten Nebraska.
January 4th, 2020 at 7:52 AM ^
I believe he may well be the best off-the-field football coach in the game-in fact, I am sure he is.
On game day...something is amiss. For sure, his side-line body language when his team is under duress really sucks...come on man-buck up and give your team a resilient response. I believe he is directly responsible for the below reasonable expectation play of the QBs.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:52 AM ^
Jim has actually been a poor off the field coach at Michigan.
Remember when Winovich told him players weren’t eating the food prepared by his nutrition staff?
Remember when Winovich told him those bench press competitions were a waste of time? Winovich said entire stretches of winter (or spring?) conditioning were wasted.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:55 AM ^
Nutrition was the first thing mentioned. He felt the team was spending too much money on food, which the players weren’t eating. That came as a shock to Harbaugh, according to Winovich, but the staff eventually made an overhaul. Players now have a certain amount to spend each week at different restaurants. There’s one nutritionist now, too, who focuses solely on food, which Winovich praised.
The other big change came with winter conditioning. Winovich felt like there was too much of an emphasis placed on competitions last year.
“It felt like we were just so focused on these competitions on Tuesday and Thursday that guys weren’t trying to lift on the other days,” Winovich said. “Because everything’s on the board, you were trying to go out and run your fastest sprints. I felt like that was across the board, that everybody was not trying to squat that heavy, so they were just sandbagging it to show their skills.”
Winovich didn’t mince words when he spoke about how that affected the team, saying that he thought Michigan “basically lost last winter.”
January 4th, 2020 at 9:03 AM ^
You forgot to add the part where JH got rid of the competitive tests every week. You also forgot to include the part about context with this story - it was praising JH for the changes he made after soliciting his players for ideas. The changes made were the players desires, and all of them were praised. It was a flattering story about Harbaugh, not a hit piece - which you've (and others) tried to turn it into...
I don't care if you like Harbaugh, or not, but context matters.
January 4th, 2020 at 9:21 AM ^
Yesterday Brian likened Justin Fields leaving the football building and perusing the campus to visiting a European city (was really well done).
Chase played with his (beautiful) hair on fire every down he lined up for Michigan. But if you think that OSU isn't down there in Columbus competing EVERY SINGLE DAY to get better, to beat Michigan, then you're sadly mistaken. Maybe it speaks to a country club mentality, sense of entitlement, "it's Michigan fergodsakes", or whatever else - but something is fundamentally amiss between what we're doing as a program, and what others are doing as a program. It's not just an indictment of the head coach either - being content is a disease that gets into an organizations bones and festers. Competition breeds success at the end of the day, something we haven't been accustomed to sustained stretches of in football for many decades.
January 4th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
There's a huge difference between competing daily with your opposite number at Ohio State in doing everything better, and a hyper-focused over-emphasis on intra-squad competitions that end up being counter-productive zero-sum exercises.
January 4th, 2020 at 12:09 PM ^
Yes, The article did try to portray it in a positive light, which I guess worked on you. Jim eventually solicited his players opinions - see he’s not stubborn in his ways!!
The key point is that years of S&C and nutrition were wasted. He had been running those races and competitions since Year 1 and ended them in Year 4.
January 4th, 2020 at 7:55 AM ^
I think Harbaugh is the right guy for this moment in UM history. I think, like Dabo, it's going to take time to catch up to O$U and become elite. I'm not %100 sure he can do it, but I'm not sure we can find someone with more potential to do it, and to run a relatively clean program. However, it isn't the Michigan norm from Bo/Mo/Lloyd. It's close, but it's not the norm for 2 reasons.
One is the Big 10. The other 3 were more competitive in the conference, especially with our arch rival. That is the main difference that bothers people.
The second issue is Jimmy's 72% wins. That is below all three of the Bo-era coaches. And the Bo/Mo/Lloyd group had one fewer OOC game each year (which in this era translates to an extra win). They also consistently played more difficult OOC schedules, often with 3 major conference foes constituting their entire slate. It wasn't uncommon to see BC, UCLA and Notre Dame, or similar, as the OOC schedule. Jimmy's record, if looked at in the Bo/Mo/Lloyd era of scheduling, is really equivalent to 9-3, 9-3, 7-5, 9-3, 8-4, if we dump the easiest non-conference game each year. He's never really won 10 games in the old-school way- a 12 game season, meaning 2 losses. That's not particularly impressive.
In fairness to Jimmy Football, with the exception of South Carolina, he's drawn some pretty good foes in the bowls. Alabama was powered way higher than the citrus bowl. Florida State, in Florida, was also a pretty big challenge. We had the chance to win both games. In the Orange bowl, had we not gone to sleep on the final KO, we'd have one. 2016, 2018 bowl games were major let-down games.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:29 AM ^
Bo also had the advantage of a shitty big 10 to beat up on. Wisconsin was horrible, for the longest time that was a guaranteed win. It really was the big 2. It didn't turn around until they started limiting scholarships.
January 4th, 2020 at 12:26 PM ^
This is sort of true (definitely in the 70's). Iowa, Illinois, MSU all won the Big 10 in the 80's. But it's also worth noting that every conference had this dynamic. The Pac 10 was USC, UCLA and Washington for basically Bo's entire tenure (though he managed to lose to ASU in their theretofore only Rose Bowl appearance, and Stanford in 1970). The Big 8 was the worst, with the Nebraska Oklahoma axis. The 90's and aughts saw much more balance in the Big 10, and Mo and Lloyd still competed and produced better winning percentages.
January 4th, 2020 at 2:24 PM ^
The biggest difference is the addition of PSU (which has been Michigan's equal since joining), and the huge jumps OSU made during late Tressel and Meyer, and Sparty during peak Dantonio, keeping in mind those teams specifically target almost the exact same pool of recruits UM does.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:00 AM ^
DJ KAHLED! Another one.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:08 AM ^
Yep. People just need to accept UM is a good-not-great program and always has been. Just have to hope OSU has some down years.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:15 AM ^
Mildly disappointed but trying to keep perspective. I’d like to see a couple wins against teams with better talent than Michigan’s or a tough, close road win or two.
i still think he’s the best guy for the job and have faith that a leap to the next level can happen. Part of me is beginning to wonder, however, if JH is more of a turn-around guy than the guy that will get the program to its ultimately desired destination.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:08 PM ^
I remember reading shit like this about the basketball program during the Amaker years. So yea fuck this train of thought.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:11 AM ^
Let's be clear.... 9-3, 10-2, 8-4 were the NORM for everybody and it's not about just being competitive, it's about being competitive AND winning your fair share.
January 4th, 2020 at 8:15 AM ^
Bowl games are meaningless exhibition games. No different than the NIT in basketball
January 4th, 2020 at 8:54 AM ^
But you spent the last 2 weeks watching them?
January 4th, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
No kidding.
Even though my fantasy bowl prediction sheet is shot to hell, it has been entertaining. For example Texas beating up on Utah.
Nice to see a team get coached up when they are decided underdogs. Sigh.
January 4th, 2020 at 12:29 PM ^
Haven't watched a single second of one outside about half of Michigan game.
January 4th, 2020 at 9:28 AM ^
Players see them differently. They are more like “championship” games, especially at the NY6 level. They are bragging rights, and seniors really want to win their bowl games. Tom Brady still appreciates his Orange Bowl win. Guys on the 2011 team can hang their hat on the Sugar Bowl win. It means something.
January 4th, 2020 at 10:09 AM ^
While being in a playoff would be more meaningful, for me the bowl game is one of the top games each year. At the end of the year, I look back at the OSU, MSU, PSU, ND and bowl games as usually the most meaningful.
January 4th, 2020 at 12:48 PM ^
Well you're half-right, players do see them differently but not for the reasons you're saying. They see them as the least important game they play all year.
How much bigger of an example does one need more than all the guys that choose to sit out these games. Did you see the Georgia bowl game this year? They had like a half a dozen of their best guys out. What about Michigan last year or how about Bama this year, superstars, leaders, team captains all not playing cause they know these are glorified exhibition games. I could go on and on there were so many examples again this season of guys not playing,
There's no other game all season where guys voluntarily sit out during the college football season other than the meaningless bowl games. They don't sit out on the playoffs either just the bowl games. Add in the half empty stadiums, coaches leaving schools and not coaching the game etc..
Believe what you want but the evidence is overwhelming. Care to share examples of what other game means less to players and coaches than these? Love to hear how this isn't true when all the evidence points to it being the case.
January 4th, 2020 at 10:17 AM ^
Bowl games are my favorite time of year. I will watch teams I normally wouldn't watch because there is time, and more often than not, it will be a good intersectional game of fairly evenly matched teams at a neutral site. Both teams have had a few weeks to get healthy and prepare. Some people think it is terrible to watch 6-6 teams in bowl games, but frankly, some of those are the most entertaining, as those teams are absolutely desperate to finish with a winning (rather than losing) season.
January 4th, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
"Bowl games are meaningless exhibition games. No different than the NIT in basketball"
This is a ridiculous crock.