Gerry Dinardo: "Jim Harbaugh is all over the map"
Comments originated from an interview with a Nebraksa radio station:
“I think Jim’s kind of all over the map,” DiNardo says.
When pressed on his “all over the map” description of Harbaugh, DiNardo makes valid points.
“Well, what offense is he going to run? Who’s calling the plays?” DiNardo asks. “Is (Ole Miss transfer quarterback) Shea Patterson, who’s a spread guy — are they going to put Shea into the pro formation or are they going to take the pro formation and make it a spread formation for Shea?”
Michigan often has been a mess at quarterback since 2015, Harbaugh’s first season there.
What’s more, “They’ve had how many different co-offensive coordinators?” DiNardo says. “Who’s doing what? I mean, it’s a pretty simple question: Who’s calling the plays? Except that’s not a simple question in Ann Arbor. The answer is convoluted. …
“I was on the sideline and watched the Outback Bowl,” he adds, referring to Michigan’s 26-19 loss to an 8-4 South Carolina team. “It doesn’t look like a well-oiled machine to me."
I mean, just take it from a guy with a 59-76 head coaching record
Remeber when our offensive line was super tough and going to be able to maul Alabama according to Dinardo? There are not many people less qualified to talk about football than that jackass.
So we're going 7-6 this year and losing the Buffalo Wild Wings bowl to a mediocre B12 team then.
Dinardo has been head coach at Vanderbilt, LSU, and Indiana. If you want to quibble about Vandy and IU being high level OK, but LSU isn't chopped liver.
He's half right.
Michigan does look like it has a plan on defense. It is not all over the map there.
But on offense, you can't blame him for his observation. Michigan is all over the map.
Nobody follows Michigan closer than the folks on this blog. We can all tell you what Michigan is going to do on defense. But even we don't know what Michigan is going to do on offense, or who is even calling the plays.
This offseason has and will continue to suck. M is still vulnerable to "3rd in his own division" and "no big wins" meathead arguments.
Last year sucked. Harbaugh's first year was a 10 win season which outstripped all expectation. His second year was outstanding in which he came within inches of the playoff. Yes it was bad luck and inches.
"Good teams make their own luck." - Internet Tough Guy
How about Clemson in 2016, the national champion. They were playing at home and allowed NC State a 33-yard field goal to win at the end of regulation. The guy missed. Dumb luck. How far was Iowa's game winning FG? 33 yards.
How about MSU in 2015? They benefitted from a freak event that propelled them to the playoffs, in addition to OSU letting them off the hook in Columbus (and rain). It turned a run of the mill 9-3 team into a playoff team, and made Dantonio 2-1 against Harbaugh instead of barely 1-2.
Clemson was a great team that deserved the national title. They came within moments of years of "Clemsoning". Internet Tough Guy would be calling for Sweeney's head.
No they didn't make this luck, either team. Neither did OSU in 2016, with the spot against Michigan. It's just random.
Bottom line: We can cite all of the extenuating circumstances (injuries at QB, freshmen WR's, etc) but it doesn't change the fact that there was literally no excuse for our offense being THAT bad last year. It was statistically nearly identical to '14, Hoke's final year. An alarming number of players showed either no improvement, or actual regression from '16. How does that happen? We saw some genuine incompetence from our coaching staff as well. Throwing what seemed ilke 100 times in a monsoon when down only 4 against MSU. A fumble caused by handing off to a tight end. Of course, we can't forget the Bowl game where we had 4 weeks' of practice with Peters taking all of the #1 reps and that is what we put on the field.
I haven't written this team off by any stretch. However, that Bowl game seriously rattled my confidence in this coaching staff. That game was an embarassment.
Can all of the dysfunction from our '17 offense be turned around in 1 off-season? Absolutely it can. Will it? I'm in wait-and-see mode.
Jim's previous coaching successes got him the UM job. The problem is that he really hasn't done anything spectacular at UM since, in terms of on-the-field success. It has been mediocre by UM standards. A big issue is that Jim is stil capitalizing on his pre-UM potential. He needs to start building new 'capital' here at UM. He has the defense rolling; if he can get the offense rolling, he will be banking lots of 'capital' here. It's just that we are still waiting for that transition to occur, and some of us are starting to wonder if it will happen.
Ah yes, the completely objective claim rooted in fact that under Harbaugh QBs have "often been a mess since 2015." Actually, the only year QB was a mess was last year when we had two QBs get hurt. He hasn't even been at the school long enough for it to be a valid point, let alone outdated, confused and irrelevant Gerry Dinardo.