LA Times rips Jimmy
By J. BRADY MCCOLLOUGHSTAFF WRITER
SEP. 7, 2019
Two times during the fourth quarter Saturday, Jim Harbaugh made a decision that indicated he did not understand the difference between the type of team he wants Michigan to be and where the Wolverines actually are in Year 5 of his coaching tenure at his alma mater.
Army had pushed seventh-ranked Michigan to the limit with the same brutal efficiency it employed a year ago at Oklahoma before falling to the Sooners in overtime. The Wolverines should have felt fortunate to be tied at 14 with the Black Knights, given the three fumbles and the inability of quarterback Shea Patterson to show real command of the new Michigan offense that was created with his skills in mind.
Yet, facing fourth and two from the Army 19, Harbaugh did not realize his good fortune and take the 36-yard field goal for Michigan’s first lead of the game. He asked a running game that averaged less than three yards per rush on the day to make him feel like these were the good old days at the Big House, when the tough yards were inevitably Michigan’s to be had. Army mobbed Michigan freshman Zach Charbonnet in the backfield, a result Harbaugh easily should have predicted and avoided.
Later, with less than three minutes left, Harbaugh had another fourth-and-two call to make, this time from the Army 43. Instead of pinning Army’s triple-option attack deep and setting up his defense with good field position to get the ball back and at the very least get to overtime, Harbaugh again decided to go for it. Michigan dialed Charbonnet’s number, and again, the former Oaks Christian standout was stuffed.
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Harbaugh’s stubbornness, even confronted with what should have been mounting evidence that this was not a day for bold statements about his team’s backbone, nearly cost Michigan the game and all the good vibes his fan base has been able to muster entering this season with an 0-4 record against Ohio State.
Army missed a 50-yard field goal as the clock ran out in regulation, giving Michigan a second life it didn’t deserve.
College football: Michigan beats Army in two OTs; LSU prevails at Texas
Sep. 7, 2019
The Wolverines won 24-21 in the second overtime thanks to a gritty effort from an exhausted defense. They won despite their $7.5-million coach.
Another fall is here, and it’s Same Old Michigan, no matter how much the Wolverines try to change.
Harbaugh finally relinquished play-calling to new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, whom he brought in from Alabama, where Gattis coached the wide receivers during the Crimson Tide’s tactical revolution last year.
Michigan had 340 yards of offense against Army.
There are reasons why the Wolverines haven’t taken off yet in Gattis’ spread attack, which is supposed to take what the defense gives instead of blindly pounding away into a wall, which is what a good portion of Harbaugh‘s offense has looked like in Ann Arbor.
First, Army should be given credit for how tough this was for Michigan. The Black Knights, their ball-control offense sucking up so much game clock, make every possession extra weighty for the opposing offense. When a team fumbles the ball to Army as Michigan did three times, it is asking to find itself in a fourth-quarter brawl.
Plus, Patterson, the hyped Mississippi transfer who led Michigan to a 10-3 season last year, was hurt in the opener and playing with an injured oblique. He was often inaccurate and indecisive, and Gattis tightened up the playbook as the game went on.
Saturday, Michigan ran plenty of read-option with Patterson and Charbonnet — who saved the Wolverines with 33 carries for 100 yards and three touchdowns — but was unwilling to have Patterson keep the ball. That made it easy for Army to key on Charbonnet.
In what has become a trend, Harbaugh made it even harder for Michigan. In Year 5, the Wolverines are supposed to be competing with Ohio State for a spot in the College Football Playoff. As it stands, Michigan runs the risk of being blown out of its next game Sept. 21 at Wisconsin.
This is the definition of a well-placed bye week, for the injured players and the program. A win Saturday kept fan desperation from settling in, but Harbaugh gets paid to know better than to feel relieved. The pain is coming.
Ohio State, with its new coach Ryan Day and new quarterback Justin Fields, demolished a solid Cincinnati team 42-0 down the road in Columbus.
Michigan, with its returning coach and returning senior quarterback, is the team that should be glad it’s only September.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:01 PM ^
It's not just people that who want to rip Harbaugh that are saying Michigan lucked out in winning a game they didn't deserve to win.
BTW, I don't agree with them. Michigan should have won.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
Yeah, “a second chance they didn’t deserve” is a cheap shot. I think we probably would have won the game comfortably if they didn’t blow the Metellus call. That was a huge bad call.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:38 PM ^
This is somewhat unrelated, but while we are on the topic of ripping Michigan, I just want it on the record that Barrett Sallee is a 100% Dickhead!
September 8th, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
I on the other hand think that it is good for us to see Gattis's idea of how to execute a 3rd & short and 4th & short doesn't work. It gives Harbaugh and Gattis's to figure out what to do during bye week. I emphasis Gattis's offense by the way. Going for it is fine. Army does it all the time. The issue was that our short yardage dude is on the defense.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
I really wonder exactly WHO was doing the play calling towards the end of the game, Gattis or Harbaugh?
September 8th, 2019 at 12:57 PM ^
I think if anything this is Harbaugh's influence on the offensive playcalling. More like "collaborative" work than a "control" of the playbook. I have a feeling that they will go over what didn't work and correct it. Harbaugh isn't an idiot. And I don't think they would scratch their playbook after 1.5 games and all of a sudden just pull stuff out of the ole Harbaugh playbook after some fumbles. I expect that they will analyze what didn't work in that 2nd half and fix it. The bye week came at the perfect time.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
I kinda got the impression that speed in space would have passes some times on 3rd and/or 4th and short. Guess Gattis isn't what we thought he will be.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:13 AM ^
Could also be pandering to some desperate fans from UCLA and USC. They cannot be happy to be missing out on talents like David Long and Zach Charbonnet. Could be a weak attempt to convince other outstanding talents not to leave LA for Michigan.
Harbaugh has taken quite the roasting for beating an army team that had the second longest winning streak in the nation. How dare he win a close game!
September 8th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Uhh the writer is a Michigan alum.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
Uhh, did someone insinuate otherwise? He now writes for the LA Times, for an LA audience, and gets his paychecks signed by the LA Times.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:44 AM ^
I'm sorry, the 2nd longest winning streak does not mean much to me given who is on their schedule and they beat that juggernaut Rice last week 14-7.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
That is OK, you are entitled to that opinion. I thought what they did to Houston last year and the battle they gave Oklahoma and Michigan was pretty impressive, but we can agree to disagree.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:30 PM ^
Yeah, Army impressed me from tackle to tackle. Pretty good team.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
The team won in spite of Harbaugh not because of him. There is a difference
September 8th, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
I posted this another thread but I'll repeat it here:
In the 1st half Army had the ball for 17:20. In the 2nd half, Michigan actually had a longer time of possession than Army (both teams had 4 possessions). You can't out possess Army by accident. I think it was a conscious choice to play keep away in the 2nd half to help the defense. The defense played better in the 2nd half as well.
Not saying it was the right decision, just saying trying to possess the ball, and out-Army Army clearly colored all the decisions in the 2nd half. I do think the 4th down plays were bad calls, and doing the opposite would have won them the game in regulation.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:28 AM ^
Decision making is completely different playing against a team that goes for damn near every 4th down. Suggesting Army was going to punt and give the ball back to Michigan is likely inaccurate. I think a lot of our running was designed to shorten the game. Army takes forever to move down the field. Taking that time away forces them to throw which they can’t do. I think the 4th down play calls were poor. But not necessarily the idea of going for it.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:56 AM ^
If they had Patterson keep on 4th and 2, even if injured, I would have been fine with the rest of the gameplan.
That was desperation time, and Army was almost conceding it.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Yeah we basically agree. Decisions were made to hold the ball because of the way the opponent was playing. I still think even a bad punt makes Army move an extra 20 yds in under 3 min, which they weren't going to do.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:20 AM ^
This writer needs to wake up and smell the analytics, this is not the 90's. The Army's offense is "brutally efficient" precisely because they go for it on situations like these. Analytically, Harbaugh made the right decisions. To argue after those decisions go bad just shows that you know nothing about analytics.
If you want to talk about the arrogance of Harbaugh, we should all be asking exactly WHY we are scheduling teams like ND and Army for out of conference schedule. They do almost NOTHING for you even if you win and only hurts you if you lose. If the National Championship is one of your goals, you should be scheduling nothing but cupcakes outside of your conference (SEC gets it).
To make the matter even worse, Harbaugh has the hubris to think that he can beat these quality opponents without running his QB. Look, I understand that we should try to keep our starting QB healthy and I don't think we should be running our QB early in the season either. But if that is really one of your goals, YOU CANNOT SCHEDULE QUALITY OPPONENTS where you are going in with one hand tied behind your back.
Harbaugh needs to make a decision; either schedule absolute cupcakes where running your QB is not required OR schedule quality opponents and run your QB which is one of the key lynch pin of your offense. What you cannot do is schedule quality opponents and screw your offense.
Jim Harbaugh does deserve to be ripped. But it is not for the game time decisions. He (and Warde) has to be ripped for putting his own team in bad situations.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
Well said.
Army was forcing our hand. Kick a field goal and maybe we stop them. Maybe. But they were going to go for every 4th down and run off every last second of the clock to score a TD and end the game. Analytically Michigan chose correctly. Choosing to play good teams when other big boys choose not to is annoying.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
The SEC has lost 9 games through 2 weeks of play, though 4 of those were decent matchups. The B1G has lost 4 in games that were decent matchups, and none that were gimmies.
Saying the SEC "gets it" is a little bit misleading. The majority of the SEC is trash, it's like playing fewer conference games and managing to play 4 of those conference games against Illinois and Rutgers. It's just that the playoff committee is heavily SEC/ACC biased.
We can also rip play calling after the fact, but playing with a possibly injured QB on a non-conference game, yeah you tip your hand a bit.
Schedule? sure the armchair athletic directors want to come out of the woodwork now, about a hard schedule and the ludicrousness of scheduling quality non conference games, but it's difficult, often scheduling out 5-10 years in advance. It is also semi-likely that MTSU, Army and ND will all be 10 win teams this season. Strength of schedule means that Michigan controls its own destiny, even with the heavily biased playoff committee.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:02 PM ^
SEC consistently rates low in OOC scheduling. Just look at Alabama's schedule this year. It does not matter if their lower rated teams play tough games as they had no shot at NC anyway. You protect your higher seeds by not taking too many tough matches. More shot you think you have at NC, easier your schedule should be. Wisconsin had a cupcake schedule 2 years ago and they would have made the playoffs if they won them all (they almost did).
We do not know if Shea is injured. But we do know that Shea did not run early last year either in the early part of the schedule. I would say the pattern is clear that they are saving Shea for important in conference games.
You win all your games and you control your own destiny. This is true for any P5 conf team, you win all your games and you are guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. Which is precisely why you should try to make your schedule as easy as you can make them.
September 8th, 2019 at 4:49 PM ^
People fail to realize that this game was scheduled back when Army was still a sub 0.500 team. This was expected to be a cupcake when scheduled, but Army got their act together in the meantime. When this schedule was put together, there was only on good OOC opponent (ND) - which is about the same as what Bama and the SEC do.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Some revisionist history regarding Army. When Brandon scheduled Army they were struggling to win more than two games, and in fact went 2-10 in 2015. So poorly were the service academies regarded that Brandon had the B1G change it's scheduling formula to consider Army and Navy as being FBS schools because B1G would only allow each team to schedule one FCS or lower each season.
Army was supposed to be, and was considered, a cup cake, and then they did the unfathomable, they got better.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
That still does not explain why we scheduled ND. And we cancelled Arkansas series within 2 years of schedule (in 2016). We could have certainly cancelled Army game when it looked like they were legit.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:36 PM ^
I agree with your post above about scheduling, but I absolutely disagree with canceling Army because they improved. Don't schedule service academies or play them using all of your cards. But canceling an opponent because they are starting to appear formidable sends a corrosive message to your program, IMO.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
The Army game was scheduled in the summer of 2015 [LINK], well after Dave Brandon was fired. This means it was set up by Jim Hackett, and as some have hinted recently, possibly at the behest of Harbaugh due to the 5-4 advantage Army held in the series. Either way, Dave Brandon had nothing to do with this game being scheduled. I also don't follow your logic regarding Brandon supposedly lobbying the B1G to have Army and Navy be considered FBS schools for scheduling purposes -- they already were FBS schools, with no qualifier needed.
Look, I dislike the man as much as anybody else but laying this at his feet is 100% incorrect.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
I rewatched the game and on second viewing there were not quite as many obvious keepers than I thought. Particularly in the first half Army was respecting the keeper for the most part. They were definitely there though- some on the arc where the TE didn’t even have anyone to block and Patterson literally could have skipped for 30 yards before moonwalking OOB without taking a hit.
After the TD drive in the 3rd though...just about the only time the QB shouldn’t have kept was when Army spent a CB blitz on the keeper. Army knew there wouldn’t be a keep.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:36 PM ^
Gave you a thumbs up for rewatching that debacle. You are a strong soul.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:25 AM ^
Going for it wasn’t the problem. The predictable run calls were.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Play calls here were the main problem, but going for it close to midfield is the wrong call...only bc of the way the game was going. Army had been selling out on the RB, so if you're going to hand it off again, you might as well punt.
I would've loved the call to go for it if I knew they'd run anything else.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
I find it amusing that everyone is lauding OSU for their destruction of Cincinnati, who's only accomplishment is beating a UCLA team that has lost to two G5 teams.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
Did you forget how we looked against MTSU? OSU beat their cupcakes as expected. Now, all of the sudden, MTSU is a quality opponent instead of the sacrificial lamb everyone thought they were.
Blah. Nothing we’ve seen so far suggests that Wisconsin isn’t going to kick the shit out of Michigan. I hope it doesn’t happen, but that’s going to require an incredible amount of improvement.
September 9th, 2019 at 8:09 AM ^
I never said that we were good. I implied that the people saying OSU was good (i.e better than the rest of the Big Ten and playoff worthy) are basing this off of their cupcake results.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:51 PM ^
I'm kinda with you. All of the sudden Fickell is a good coach cause he beat UCLA and takes shots at Harbaugh in the media? I need to see more.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
This is only the beginning. Harbaugh doesnt have the lifetime mandate you guys think he does. Alot of alums around the country that are fed up
September 8th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
A lot of alums are prissy lil’ bitches.
September 8th, 2019 at 11:47 AM ^
Stick to posting Simpson’s gifs.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:22 PM ^
Alot of alums around the country that are fed up
How do you know this?
September 9th, 2019 at 9:18 AM ^
some people actually travel or live places
September 8th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
A lot of alums also would never write "alot"
September 8th, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
Terrible article, other than the fact that everything written was 100% accurate to anyone with a faint pulse. Wisconsin has only teed off on teams with far less talent than the brutal juggernaut of a noncon we have had to endure where other teams line up patsies (Army beats cincy 10/10 times). Relax - we have top talent and coaching and our bye should get us nearly 100% healthy, not to mention the top rb in the B10. I see us potentially clobbering Wisconsin with speed in space once the offense really opens up the playbook and gouges defenses for chunks of yardage. The 7 fumbles are an anomaly and give opposing teams a false sense of superiority on D so that when the O starts clicking like a well oiled machine, you better be able to put up 40+ to have a chance against us! 2-0 go blue!!
September 8th, 2019 at 11:53 AM ^
This guy gets it LOL
September 8th, 2019 at 1:38 PM ^
He's a troll
September 8th, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
Was this supposed to be sarcasm? Keep drinking that cool aid pal. 0-4 vs OSU and so many horrible coaching decisions the last five years. If his name was Hoke or Rich Rod, you'd be calling for his head. Who in the hell doesn't kick the fg in that situation? And then.....runs it up the gut which was proven not to work all fucking day? Jimmy...that's who. "Don Brown - please win me another game - my offense is ass.......again."
Year 5 people. Year 5.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
This times 1,000. The only reason everyone isn't screaming bloody murder after yesterday is because his last name is Harbaugh. That isn't good enough at this point. JH is just a decent coach. No more, no less. Michigan will not win a Big Ten championship under him
September 8th, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
I think the “Not sure if serious” meme should go here.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
I see us potentially clobbering Wisconsin with speed in space once the offense really opens up the playbook and gouges defenses for chunks of yardage.
Too much caffeine. Walk it off.
September 8th, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^
I didn't see the /s