Great Feldman article on Biff Poggi - The Most Interesting Man in Coaching (The Athletic $)
Fascinating article on how Biff Poggi was a major factor in the program’s turnaround last season after being hired as Associate HC. He’s referred to as the Consigliere to Harbaugh. Full of quotes from the likes of McDonald, Gattis, Harbaugh, Corum, and even Nick Saban.
https://theathletic.com/3771847/2022/11/08/michigan-biff-poggi-jim-harbaugh/
November 8th, 2022 at 7:52 AM ^
Hmmmm, how many MGOPoints does one need to spend to read this interesting article?
November 8th, 2022 at 10:13 AM ^
Potential work around (that I’m sure they will close). If you are on an iPhone just follow the link and then choose “show reader” in the upper left.
November 8th, 2022 at 10:49 AM ^
Android workaround...long tap/save to reading list/open in reader (I use Pocket...but there are many)
November 8th, 2022 at 7:53 AM ^
Just saw on Twitter and forgot I got rid of The Athletic last month because I didn't want to pay the renewal subscription. 🤬
November 8th, 2022 at 7:57 AM ^
Well... good news for us is you can still read the article and give us the cliff notes! (Please....)
November 8th, 2022 at 9:40 AM ^
Cliff notes? He played college ball with Dan Marino. Taught history and government in high school for $8,000 a year. Was a hugely successful high school football coach in Maryland. Made a pile of money in a hedge fund he operated with his father-in-law. Poured millions that he earned into St. Francis Academy in Baltimore. Not just football but classrooms, meals, housing and scholarships for economically disadvantaged kids. A blunt, plain spoken emotionally honest leader. The guy who can tell Harbaugh what's what. A major reason for our football turnaround since 2020. Has a mountain of respect throughout football, high school, college and the pros.
He really is one of a kind.
November 8th, 2022 at 10:06 AM ^
He'll also knock on the QB's heads during practice going "Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Think, McCarthy!"
He's a bully and I'm glad Jim punched him during the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.
Wait, what was I talking about?
November 8th, 2022 at 12:05 PM ^
Does he have any kids? Maybe they could play for Michigan.
November 8th, 2022 at 9:38 AM ^
You should've stayed enrolled. The absolute money quote is at the very end of the article (which was a GREAT article on Poggi BTW).
The Wolverines know they’ll probably be an underdog at Ohio State later this year, but they don’t seem fazed by it.
“We strived to say, ‘There’s not many teams that can out-personnel Ohio State,'” said a member of the 2021 Michigan staff who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the program’s trajectory. “We were gonna beat them by out-culturing them.”
November 8th, 2022 at 10:56 AM ^
I enjoy the Athletic. They do a good job. Plus I get to regularly downvote Nick Baumgardner.
For any Michigan fan this article is not only interesting but makes you feel good about Harbaugh and the whole Michigan program today and going forward. Stuff like this makes me think I am getting my money's worth.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:10 AM ^
Biff through the years
November 8th, 2022 at 9:59 AM ^
We all know he got his financial success because Jim Harbaugh in 1985 went back in time to fix his father, and in doing so fixed himself, but then went forward in time to 2015 to fix his son Jay, but got greedy and took back with him an almanac of stock picks that Biff stole.
We just don't remember any of this because this is the timeline when Biff got rich from managing a hedge fund, Jim beat Ohio State as Michigan's QB and Jay is a successful coach. But believe me, things were quite bad before JH got into that DeLorean.
November 8th, 2022 at 12:06 PM ^
All I want is his Almanac and turn to Nov. 26, 2022.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:17 AM ^
sigh..... sounds like it would be a great and interesting read....
like that smokin' hottie at the club that's flirty as hell but leaving by herself.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:49 AM ^
Did you tell her what a nice guy you are?
November 8th, 2022 at 12:11 PM ^
nice guys finish last, unfortunately
November 8th, 2022 at 8:21 AM ^
Excellent article indeed. Thanks for posting. I'm curious when Bruce was able to get the quotes from Gattis... with the not so happy terms of Gattis leaving, I'm surprised he provided some input for a positive article on Michigan
November 8th, 2022 at 8:24 AM ^
Based on the results at Miami so far, guessing he took it from the time he had allotted on his calendar as “establish functional offense”
November 8th, 2022 at 9:32 AM ^
I thought the most interesting part of the article was about what was wrong with the program coming into '21. Gattis only had the 60% trust from the offensive staff and Harbaugh's meddling wasn't helping. Biff helped resolve that issue. It's hard to believe it happened with a single meeting where they opened up personally to each other, but that makes for a nice narrative. Still, I thought it was insightful.
November 8th, 2022 at 1:38 PM ^
Agreed. It suggests that Comrade Gattis did help to modernize the Harbaugh offense, and that after Gattis left, the Hegelian dialectic between manball and modern concepts was preserved.
“Here’s what I see,” Poggi said. “There’s support here, but it’s divided between Josh and what he wants to do, and some other legacy ideas.” To Poggi, Gattis knew the system that he’d learned under Joe Moorhead well, but several other assistants weren’t on board. They wanted more of what Harbaugh had done in his Stanford days — quarterback under center, using a fullback, things they knew the head coach liked.
“We have a 60-40 room here. And we’re gonna fail as an organization because of this,” Poggi said. “I think Josh is really smart. His offense he knows very well. He’s been hired as a coordinator whether anybody in this room likes it, or doesn’t like it.
“Jim’s hired him to be the coordinator, and because of that he’s got to have confidence, and right now I see a coach that doesn’t have confidence. I see a coach that is looking over his shoulder. I see a coach that is answering questions in a non-confident way because he doesn’t know if the question is a ‘gotcha’ question or an ‘I’m-on-the-team’ question. It’s obviously driving the guy crazy. Josh, is this correct?”
“Yes,” Gattis said. The first-time offensive coordinator acknowledged that he sometimes felt like he didn’t have the group’s support or confidence, which had made things difficult. As Gattis allowed himself to open up, Poggi saw that it created an even more interesting dynamic.
BTW, in the comments, Feldman says that Fox covering Michigan four weeks in a row "DEFINITELY helped find this story and develop a better feel for what it was."
November 8th, 2022 at 8:24 AM ^
Biff is the most interesting man in coaching. Everyone else is a bunch of buttheads and if they think otherwise, they’re as useful as a screen door on a battleship.
Whenever there are threads about Biff Poggi, I honestly can’t help myself.
November 8th, 2022 at 9:26 AM ^
The saying is "screen door on a submarine", but I know everyone intentionally dorks this up because dorks like me feel the need to correct you. So thanks?
November 8th, 2022 at 9:49 AM ^
"screen door one a battle ship"
Has me laughing. Here's a prime example of what happens all the time, we want to sound savvy or cool and our brains leap to a phrase that it half remembers.
(When my guys were kids, I called them "young sons" because it seemed like a phrase that sounded cool. But it never was quite right. Finally, I realized "young son" was simply redundant. The actual phrase I vaguely remembered was "old son," perfect because it gave kids the respect of acknowledging their selves and maybe their old souls.)
November 8th, 2022 at 10:25 AM ^
Like every college football game when an announcer says “young freshman”.
November 8th, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
Well, technically you can have young freshmen--e.g. Caris LeVert, who was 17 when he stepped foot on campus--as compared to old freshmen, such as Hunter Dickinson who was nearly 20...
November 8th, 2022 at 10:11 AM ^
In this case, it’s actually a quote from Biff in Back to the Future 2. Totally appropriate given the… Biffing.
November 8th, 2022 at 5:59 PM ^
Aha!
So not a clumsy use but clever!
November 8th, 2022 at 10:51 AM ^
Its a direct quote from Biff in Back to the Future II, so in this situation its completely appropriate.
November 8th, 2022 at 6:00 PM ^
Aha!
So not a clumsy use but clever!
November 8th, 2022 at 11:08 AM ^
No 1VaBlue1 has ever amounted to anything in the history of MGoBlog!
November 8th, 2022 at 11:24 AM ^
Can confirm!
November 8th, 2022 at 8:25 AM ^
For what it’s worth, I just clicked through the link and read the whole article. I do not have an athletic subscription (that I know of). I know, “great story bro.” But I thought it might help others as it’s a good read about honesty and culture in leadership. A lot of organizations need a Biff Poggi. I am glad Michigan has one.
VOTE.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:49 AM ^
article started, then covered up.
already voted.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:25 AM ^
It seems like Feldman has more access to the program than others. Suggest he is a solid guy who Harbaugh respects. This was discussed previously with regard to his “Freaks list” and his intimate knowledge of our players testing numbers etc.
November 8th, 2022 at 9:54 AM ^
Feldman!
November 8th, 2022 at 10:29 AM ^
Feldman, the bizarro Kramer.
November 8th, 2022 at 6:03 PM ^
Yeah. As someone who had one job indirectly related to PR, I know that many articles result from someone pushing a POV.
This article included the point that Poggi would make a good head coach. Maybe Harbaugh's trying to give Biff a boost.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:37 AM ^
Wow. Terrific article about leadership and coaching. And super encouraging for our beloved team. Thanks for posting!
November 8th, 2022 at 8:37 AM ^
Known friend & trusted agent
November 8th, 2022 at 8:37 AM ^
“I think Biff’s presence there is huge,” says Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, who ran the Wolverines defense in 2021. “He’s kind of like the consigliere. He’s really the only guy that is willing to hash it out with (Harbaugh).”
November 8th, 2022 at 9:45 AM ^
I loved this quote:
I’m here to figure out if you’re part of the problem or part of the solution, Gattis recalls Poggi telling him. “He was that blunt. He’ll call you out — if you’re not managing people right or managing situations. He’s genuinely there for the betterment of Jim and the program. His heart is all in it.”
November 8th, 2022 at 11:25 AM ^
So....despite winning the B1G title, it seems the final answer is Gattis was part of the problem?
November 8th, 2022 at 7:01 PM ^
Not for nothing it appears he did a good job scheming open Wr’s, this doesn’t make a great offense on its own as seen in Miami. Could use a bit of that down the stretch here.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:40 AM ^
Yep. Great story. Not just about Biff, but about key moments in the program’s culture over the past few years as things have begun to roll. Thanks for the heads up.
November 8th, 2022 at 8:48 AM ^
Highly recommend “The Cost of Winning” a four episode documentary on HBO on St. Frances during his last year there (with Corum!). I came away from that ready to run through a wall for Biff.
November 8th, 2022 at 9:29 AM ^
Thanks for the reco - I'll check it out on a spare weekend morning when I need to kill time. Because this is something the wife would not be interested in...
November 8th, 2022 at 9:03 AM ^
Oops, I dropped this.
https://archive.ph/pBnpD
November 8th, 2022 at 9:28 AM ^
Good read.You can get the Athletic for 1buck for 6 months.
November 8th, 2022 at 9:32 AM ^
Seems related that some of the more iffy years under Harbaugh were when Biff was back at St Francis? I'll just leave that out there with some mystery to it without bothering to look it up.