Jim Harbaugh's expectations for this year

Submitted by ThadMattasagoblin on

"We're not going to be satisfied with eight wins or nine wins or 10 wins. He said the goal is to win the national championship. Right now." https://michigan.rivals.com/barrier_noentry.asp?sid=883&script=%2Fconte… The article is premium but that is the key quote. I like hearing this from a coach instead of stuff like "we're trying to contend for titles or "we're looking to make progress towards a big ten title."

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Albatross

June 25th, 2015 at 8:26 PM ^

My personal opinion is that if Jimmy gets this team to play up to their talent then we shouldn't go any worse than 10-2 or 9-3. As bad as we performed under Hoke, this team is far more talented that any one we play out of conference (including Utah) and the Indianas and Northwesterns of the league.

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jonvalk

June 25th, 2015 at 9:50 PM ^

Although, and just playing devil's advocate here, everyone got a little weird when Hoke called the 11-2 season a failure because we didn't win the B1G and that was the start of him backing off of expectations. Not defending Hoke, at all, just saying that he set a nice bar up front (not a Natty bar), and then pumped the brakes inexplicably after one of our best seasons in recent memory.



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justingoblue

June 25th, 2015 at 11:01 PM ^

Being the best team in the country doesn't guarantee anything, though. Personally I don't think a Big Ten or national title should be the goal.

All you can do is win the games on the schedule, the Big Ten championship automatically comes with that goal and if some shenanigans mean the national championship goes to someone else that's not on the team.

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ClassOf14

June 26th, 2015 at 1:14 AM ^

I agree, but in terms of practicality, if you win all of your games, you will be in the playoff. Look at FSU this year, they had about the most unimpressive schedule and style in their wins that you could possibly have, and still (deservedly)made it into the playoff. I don't think you can exclude an undefeated Power 5 team from the playoff. Even in the BCS era, to the best of my knowledge I don't believe we were ever excluded from a title game when having a perfect record. If something absurd happens and 5 teams or more have perfect records, then it's possible, but when's the last time that's happened?



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justingoblue

June 26th, 2015 at 1:34 AM ^

It's just my personal preference for the goal to be "win the twelve games currently scheduled" and then have a goal to win any other game that get tacked on.

Woodson put it better than me with "just win" before '97. IMO that should be what the program strives for on-field.

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charblue.

June 26th, 2015 at 4:26 PM ^

origin of that stated perennial goal is Bo Schembechler whom Hoke was evoking having never worked under him. And the reason Schembechler always set that as the goal for his team is the realization that it is the only one you have control over even in an undefeated season which Michigan enjoyed under Lloyd Carr for whom Hoke coached under and who also shared Schembechler's view as Michigan's top yearly priority. 

Again, it wasn't the idea of foreclosing vision and pursuit of the ultimate prize, just acknowledging that the conference championship is one your team can win without needing pollster support. 

Harbaugh would seemingly have the same outlook as his late legendary coach since he played for him and knew his mind. Except that he played and coached in the NFL where winning a division is hardly the priorty of any team since even wild card playoff teams are capable of winning a Super Bowl. Hence, why Harbaugh is driven by bigger annual goals and by the idea of winning every game, which is the only sure way of getting to a national championship opportunity seems based on a different path of experience and coaching journey, 

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Ghost of Hoke

June 25th, 2015 at 8:48 PM ^

This might get negged to hell but none of those guys won enough National Championships. For us to call ourselves the greatest/winningest program of all time it'd time to go on a 10 year run of 2-3 National Championships.



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