Lovie Smith out at Illinois
December 13th, 2020 at 12:12 PM ^
Yet our athletic department can't afford to fire Harbaugh
December 13th, 2020 at 12:20 PM ^
Well Illinois didn’t fire Lovie. So what’s your point here exactly?
If we could get Harbaugh to agree to part ways, that would be the most ideal. It’s been that way from the get-go.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:22 PM ^
Facts--those little. . . issues. First thing to go flyin' when the coachmob starts gettin' riled.
December 13th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
his point is that every single thing that happens can be traced back to #FIREHARBAUGH. for some people, anyway.
December 13th, 2020 at 2:04 PM ^
Is Illinois’s athletic department a model for us to follow?
December 13th, 2020 at 2:39 PM ^
Harbaugh has too much ego to just "part ways".. that's essentially admitting he failed his alma mater. If he's let go, it's going to be "Jim Harbaugh has accepted X position with Y NFL team". No way he's going away without another job in hand.
December 13th, 2020 at 3:04 PM ^
Even if this is true, and that's a big IF, I think it's more pride than ego.
December 14th, 2020 at 12:26 AM ^
Sincere question... what's the difference between pride and ego?
December 13th, 2020 at 12:13 PM ^
I loved his demeanor, but his beard is his true legacy to fans
December 13th, 2020 at 12:15 PM ^
Too bad it didn't work out, it seemed like a great hire. Not sure you can win at Illinois anymore.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:19 PM ^
From a distance I had high hopes for Lovie. I hoped he might mess up Notre Dame's Chicago-area recruiting.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:50 PM ^
Frieze, people could say the same thing about Michigan when Harbaugh is gone.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:09 PM ^
People have been saying it about Michigan since Carr has been gone.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:24 PM ^
Ironically it's only Michigan fans who say that.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:29 PM ^
That's because no one else pays any attention to Michigan football anymore because it is nationally irrelevant.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:55 PM ^
Nope. I live in SEC country and people constantly ask me when we are going to get our shit together and get back to where we belong. See also Urban Meyer and the national media.
December 13th, 2020 at 7:53 PM ^
Hard No. SEC folks don't say that about the powerhouse UM program.
You need some make up simpacy from a conference we play once every 4 years
Sure they're thinking about us alot
December 14th, 2020 at 12:49 AM ^
Actually, I lived in SEC country for most of my adult life and that's exactly what I heard from the fans when they saw me sporting a Michigan hat and shirt. The problem is I never had an answer for them, and still don't.
December 14th, 2020 at 7:37 PM ^
I have been wearing a M hat in ACC country for many years.
This year for my online Christmas-- I ordered a M helmet to wear so I won't hear the comments at the Food Lion any longer.............
Go Blue!
December 13th, 2020 at 12:53 PM ^
many parallels between the two. /sad face
December 13th, 2020 at 12:54 PM ^
Why? It is all a question of getting the right people with the priorities and also the ability in place.
Wisconsin and Iowa were TERRIBLE programs for a long time.
Then they got the right people in place--Barry Alvarez and Hayden Fry--and...then they were winners.
No reason that could not happen at Illinois.
Oregon was TERRIBLE forever. Then they stumbled on Mike Bellotti (21-25 at Chico State then Oregon OC), and then later had Chip Kelly at his prime.
Florida State: Atrocious program since the beginning of time. Then they stumbled on Bobby Bowden (a good but not spectacular 42-26 at WVa).
Nebraska: Mediocre to bad for many decades. Then the hired Bob Devaney (from U of Wyoming!) and Tom Osborne. Boom. One of the very top teams for a 35 year span.
No, Illinois is never going to be a perennial CFB playoff contender (neither is Iowa or Wisconsin). But they could win as much as Iowa or Wisconsin, provided they make a really good hire that can get the ball rolling. Iowa State did it with Campbell. Why not Illinois with their next hire?
Michigan underperformed for 15 years under Oosterbahn and Bump Elliot. Then they found the right guy--Bo--and won more games than any other school in the '70s.
75% of CFB success is just getting that elite head coach that makes it happen. The other 25% is the basic fundamentals of the program--resources ($$$), huge stadium or not, fan base, conference, location, etc.
Michigan is very strong on the non-coach fundamentals factors, but...seems to have a series of sub-par (RRod and Hoke) to good but not elite (Harbaugh) coaches.
Michigan made what at the time were considered very smart hires with RRod and Harbaugh. One was a disaster. The other has been good but not great (with a terrible 2020).
OTOH, nooooooobody would have known that Bellotti, Alvarez, Fry, Devaney, Bowden would be elite HCs. Same goes for Bo when he got the Michigan job. Nooooobody (except maybe a few coaches at other schools) imagined that Bo would end 15 years of underperformance and win more games than any other school in the 70s or end with a .796 win percentage...
December 13th, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
One of the best comments, backed up by actual examples, that I have read on here in awhile. Get the right guy. Install a system and stick with it. Recruit guys to that system and coach them up, and you will have a good team. That’s why Wisconsin almost always seems to dominate with a tough OL and running the ball. That’s why Iowa plays a vanilla defense effectively year after year. Do those things and recruit better players, and you can be elite. But we haven’t done the basics.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:10 PM ^
Oregon's breakthrough occurred under Rich Brooks. He took them to their first Rose Bowl in forever, then went to the NFL and was replaced by Bellotti.
Part of it is definitely hiring the right guy, but another part is not having big obstacles in your way. OSU has been a major obstacle. If Harbaugh could have competed against the John Cooper or even Jim Tressel versions of OSU, he probably would have a few wins in the series and Big Ten titles, and then if this 2020 season had even unfolded like this, it would just be regarded as a freak occurrence, like that 4-8 season Brian Kelly had a few years back, rather than a backbreaker.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:39 PM ^
Rich Brooks' best year was his last (9-4 overall). Mostly his teams were mediocre to bad. 91-109-4 record over 18 (!!!) years.
Agree that playing against OSU during Meyer-Day period was super hard for Harbaugh. But Bo had to go against many of Woody's best OSU teams.
I guess JH seems to me to be actually a pretty good HC. Before this year his results at Michigan each year ranged between 'good' (7-5 year, and that really should the absolute floor at Michigan) to 'very close but just short of the goal' (2016 and 2018).
You don't get those results, or the Stanford and 49er results, if you are not at least a plus HC.
But I also think he is not really likely to get Michigan to its maximum potential. Just has certain personality features and other things that drag things down and have made the best results so far (2016 and 2018) just short of the goal.
December 13th, 2020 at 2:52 PM ^
I think most OSU fans expected UM under Harbaugh to be the 2016 and 2018 teams every year.. either undefeated or a one loss team that was dangerous as hell.. I would think most UM fans had the same expectations. The multiple loss seasons and piss-poor bowl record I didn't expect at all. OSU is admittedly at an all -time high right now, but no one saw Harbaugh sinking the program.. mostly through poor recruiting and poor player development.
At worst, I expected UM to return to 90's level of achievement.. regularly upsetting a higher ranked OSU team in The Game. It's a head scratcher for sure.
December 13th, 2020 at 5:46 PM ^
Yes, from the day Harbaugh was hired I expected pretty much what you described. Thought M would be just a quarter notch behind OSU withing a couple of years and that The Game would be restored to what it was from '69 until the early 2000s (and really for decades before)--a wildly entertaining greatest rivalry in sports with each school getting their wins and losses.
Two things happened.
First, for whatever reason Harbaugh has not been as good as expected. Why not? The speculation ranges from medical/medication issues that changed him, family issues that distracted him, just not hitting it with an NFL draft quality QB, letting his better assistants leave, to just a series of unlucky twists...or maybe some combination of the above.
Second, Meyer actually stepped it up when he shifted from the JT Barrett style offense to the Haskins/Justin Fields offense. I guess that is the Day/Kevin Wilson factor. Even when Harbaugh looked like he got MIchigan really close in 2018, D Brown was not ready, and it has gone down hill ever since.
So, yes Harbaugh's tenure at Michigan is head-scratcher. But so is Frost at Nebraska (looked superb at UCF and as Oregon OC), and Herman at Texas (looked superb at OSU and as HC at Houston).
Most of the hires that look really smart at the time of the hire...end up not really working out.
Out of every 10 HC hires that are predicted to be the next big thing, one or maybe two end up being as predicted.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:12 PM ^
Sure they did. Otherwise they wouldn't have hired them. Having the right AD is key. Bill Martin had no business deciding on football coach.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:53 PM ^
People forget that Alabama sucked for about a decade and had a coaching carrousel similar to ours before they got Saban.
December 13th, 2020 at 2:17 PM ^
Much more than a decade.
Post-Bear Bryant they had thirteen years of just o.k. performance (sort of like late Carr level performance at Michigan), then another decade of even worse performance (remember Mike Shula and Mike DuBose?).
Some of their best post-Bear Byant years (Gene Stallings years) were negated by vacated wins (major NCAA sanctions).
OSU now overdue to have its post-Urban Meyer bad two decades...
December 13th, 2020 at 2:29 PM ^
Does anyone remember that Bo was 43 and 17 at Miami of Ohio (1963-68)? He didn't exactly kill it down there. The point is that Don Canham didn't hire a new HC in 1969 who was a real rising star. Canham must have seen something in Bo that could make a difference.
If that were to happen in today's blog and social media age, The Michigan AD would be getting tons of criticism, that is until that unknown new HC wins and beats Ohio State.
The second point is there IS a lot of raw talent out there. Can Warde do his due-diligence if and when the time comes to step and hire such a new HC for Michigan?
December 13th, 2020 at 6:01 PM ^
@MRunner - really brilliant observation. Canham saw the ‘it’ factor with Bo. You need your AD to look beyond the situation and read the future in some respects. Can WM do it?
December 14th, 2020 at 9:25 AM ^
Good question indeed. We know he hired Pearson and Howard and they've done well. But both of them were the default people to hire. No vision required, just point the money cannon and sell the job and it's done.
Also, neither of them have been at the job as long as Harbaugh. 2-3 years into Harbaugh's time at M, it looked like a great hire too.
What I do know is, Harbaugh isn't organized at all. And he doesn't stick to fundamentals. Those are never good things for long term success.
December 13th, 2020 at 3:06 PM ^
Good stuff, though I would point out that all of those examples happened decades ago (Bellotti was the most recent). And most of these programs were able to take advantage of fortuitous changes in the landscape that opened a door, from FSU basically deciding the rules didn't apply to them to Nebraska and PEDs to USC being hit with sanctions under Carroll and never really recovering (and frankly, being a bit mediocre for the decade or so before that). Wisconsin is probably the best example of a modern-day program figuring it out and carving out a spot for themselves, but they also appear to have a ceiling with the Alvarez style (and him booting anyone who tries to deviate from it) that I think UM fans would get tired of.
The thing with Bo is that there are two eras and people tend to conflate the two. From 1969 to 1979 Michigan won, like you said, a ton of games (85%) are very a reasonably elite program. But from 80 to 89 they won about 75% of their games and were a solid, plugging-along team with an occasional shot at elite. Michigan had a couple of good years under Moeller and Carr but they've been a lot closer to that second-half Bo run since he left Michigan, and so I'm not sure that they are just one amazing head coach hire away from being able to sustain that type of elite success unless a bunch of other things would need to change.
December 13th, 2020 at 6:24 PM ^
Well you want a more recent example? How about Dabo at Clemson?
Clemson was just an o.k. program for most of its history. They had a pretty good decade in the 80s. Mostly just average the rest of the time.
Nooooobody would have thought that Dabo would have turned Clemson into the second most successful program in the nation.
The one you point out--Pete Carroll--is s sort of recent good example. Carroll was like USC's fourth (!!!) choice after three others turned down USC. Few thought he would be the guy to return USC to the very top.
Another older example: Howard Schnellenberger at Miami. Bad to mediocre program for most of their history. Schnellenberger was that special HC that changed their program.
Yeah, one can always say that Miami, or FSU, or Nebraska, or USC (or today Bama and Clemson) cut certain corners. But still, it was certain elite HCs that made the difference. LOTS of places have cheated, but most of them never became even close to elite.
Bo: Superb in the 70s up to and including 1980. Had a slight dip in the first half of the 80s, then finished fairly strong in his final five years.
I agree that Moeller/Carr era Michigan was below the level Bo produced in the 70s. And obviously it has been much worse since Carr.
But...my basic view of CFB is that there are a few schools that really are just one really good hire from being a top 5 program. Michigan is one of the schools in that group.
December 13th, 2020 at 10:25 PM ^
I mean, Pete Carroll also oversaw such a corrupt tenure at USC that they basically had to throw out one national title and a Heisman; the sanctions from that tenure also hamstrung USC for a while and they haven't quite been able to recover. So...not a really compelling example for Michigan to follow in terms of getting them "back" to consistent winning.
Dabo is a good example but...Michigan won't let a coach go full Dabo. Honestly, it just wouldn't happen at Michigan, and while that's not really a morality argument Michigan has shown that they care just enough about appearances to let a coach and team go to that level. Also Dabo has been helped immensely by FSU falling on their faces recently; if FSU was humming along as they were for most of the 90s and 10s (under Fisher) my guess is he'd have struggled to break thru. Honestly, if OSU suddenly fell apart Michigan would undoubtedly benefit.
I think Michigan can absolutely make a good hire to compete, at times, with the truly elite programs in the country. But I just don't think Michigan will ever be able to have sustained , year-in-year-out elite teams like you see from Alabama, Clemson, OSU, etc. There are a finite number of elite-level players, elite-level coaches, etc. out there, and Michigan doesn't have a natural recruiting base, a friendly conference configuration, etc. to be truly elite in my opinion. People can disagree but I'm just not sold that Michigan becoming Clemson is a single hire away.
December 13th, 2020 at 1:02 PM ^
One right coaching hire can change your program!
December 13th, 2020 at 12:15 PM ^
This is shaping up to be an embarrassing offseason for Michigan where even schools like Zona and Illinois have had enough.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:28 PM ^
It's different for the Illinois's and Arizona's to fire a coach during COVID-19, though. The expectations at Michigan are much, much higher and the bar to acceptability in a hire is much, much higher.
So, the realistic pool of available candidates is going to be a lot smaller, and who knows which, if any, of them will be interested in the job? If Michigan moves on from Harbaugh and guys like Campbell and Fickell aren't interested, you run the risk of a very publicly embarrassing coaching search in which you end up with a mediocre coach and an even further tainted reputation.
Not saying UM and Harbaugh shouldn't part ways, but there is a lot more risk for Michigan beginning a coaching search in the middle of a pandemic than there is for programs without such lofty expectations.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
Exactly right - no announcement should be made by Michigan until they actually have a new coach in place. The search should be done as much in private as possible. Any speculation should be denied and make it clear to the applicants that any breach of confidentiality by them or an associate prior to the announcement ends any deal.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:50 PM ^
A couple of other good examples of how to do this with less risk.
Saban to AL from Miami was pretty secretive, even though it had some media speculation - the first announcement came from AL after Saban was signed. Also, I seem to recall the same scenario when OSU hired Tressell. The hiring took everyone by surprise - I think Glenn Mason was the favorite. I think when they announced Tressell, everyone was like - who??? Point being, it was a very secretive process.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:32 PM ^
When you're feeling like a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:37 PM ^
What if you’re feeling like a jackhammer?
December 13th, 2020 at 12:54 PM ^
Lovie wasn't fired and Sumlin went 9-20 in an easy conference
December 13th, 2020 at 12:16 PM ^
Long live The Beard!
December 13th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
No shock - he has a similar resume to Harbaugh in one regard - a Super Bowl appearance and loss.
Illinois has had two really good seasons - 2001 and 2007 with Sugar and Rose Bowl appearances. That's it for the last 20 years.
They do seem to get some talent but have no idea how to develop it.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:57 PM ^
What talent have they gotten? I can't think of any NFL offense or defensive players they've put in the league recently. Geronimo Allison? I don't even remember him playing at Illinois
December 13th, 2020 at 2:34 PM ^
He also has a resume similar to Harbaugh in regards of number of appearances in the B10 title game and wins over Ohio State.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
Stinks to lose your job this year... He seemed like a decent fit there. That being said, I want Harbaugh back next year.
December 13th, 2020 at 12:24 PM ^
You had me in the first half, I’m not gonna lie
December 13th, 2020 at 12:26 PM ^
WHO WOULDA KNOWN?
/S