Mike Hart explains his philosophy on the RB Rotation
https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-hart-explains-running-back-213649198.html
Breath of fresh air right here:
"That’s one of those things, whoever earns those jobs, that’s who’s gonna be in those situations — when it’s clear as day. Obviously, you can’t just say, ‘Oh, he’s in the game,’ and it’s gonna be a pass, right? If it’s third-and-12, (put in) the third-and-12 back?”
Furthermore, I think we can put to rest the idea that the RB coach was not in charge of the rotation during the game. Hart most certainly will be the man on the sideline sending backs in and out of the game, something I fully expect him to be better at than Jay.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:24 AM ^
It'll be great to see Mike Hart on the Michigan sideline again. It just didn't look right when he was coaching against Michigan.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:41 AM ^
The prodigal son has returned!
August 20th, 2021 at 10:14 AM ^
UM hiring Hart isn't how the prodigal son story goes. Didn't make sense with Jim nor does it with Mike.
But it's neat to say it whenever a former player or coach comes back.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
It’s funny people use that example and have no idea what it means. You could make a case that Marcus Ray was more like the Prodigal son when he came back to this area.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:55 AM ^
Or Braylon if he is ever affiliated with the school in the future.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:57 PM ^
"University of Michigan has announced that Ted Kaczynski has been hired as passing game coordinator to develop an offense that can deliver bombs to all parts of the field."
August 20th, 2021 at 2:44 PM ^
"Replacing Coach Hutchinson after 40 years and establishing Michigan as the first powerhouse softball program east of the Mississippi, we'd like to introduce the new Archie Van Elslander family softball coach, Ann Coulter."
August 20th, 2021 at 5:21 PM ^
yeah, gross
August 20th, 2021 at 7:26 PM ^
Zing!
August 20th, 2021 at 10:54 AM ^
Didn't make sense with Jim
Sure it did. Jim badmouthed Michigan while at Stanford and then came home.
It doesn't apply for Hart because he never fell out of favor.
August 20th, 2021 at 11:47 AM ^
Jim acted out because he was pissed both Lloyd and Bo rebuffed him when Lloyd needed a QB coach and hired Loeffler instead. So much that he tried to get the MSU job.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:30 PM ^
Badmouthing academic policy isn't the same as wasting your dad's inheritance and living with pigs if we're following the biblical story. (I said the b word here come negs).
Jim was at the height of his coaching career when he came to UM. Michigan needed Jim 100x more than Jim needed M.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:04 PM ^
Michigan needed Jim 100x more than Jim needed M.
Oh, were that to be true!
August 20th, 2021 at 9:12 PM ^
I'd bet money if Harbaugh gets fired this year he'll be a head coach in the NFL next year. Would have happened last year.
August 20th, 2021 at 3:26 PM ^
I’m not religious but I’m fascinated with the stories. Was not familiar with this one, & I just mistakenly assumed that prodigal was equal to prodigy. Glad to understand now that wasteful extravagance is not the same as exceptional ability.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:04 AM ^
You can say that again!
August 20th, 2021 at 10:37 AM ^
Too bad Dantonio is not at MSU still... The "reunion" would have been great.
August 20th, 2021 at 6:56 PM ^
He's going to be a head coach one day...and wouldn't shock me if it was at Michigan.
Perfect world, Harbaugh turns it around and dominates for 7 years before passing the torch to Mike.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:17 PM ^
As long as Hart is on the sideline, we should not see a letdown against sparty
August 21st, 2021 at 12:27 AM ^
Maybe they need to be coaching against to be gaining the attention. Hello again to Nick Sheridan in the future?
August 20th, 2021 at 9:25 AM ^
Thanks for the heads up on the article, mpb. Here's a clickable link:
https://sports.yahoo.com/mike-hart-explains-running-back-213649198.html
August 20th, 2021 at 9:27 AM ^
Appreciate the help. Long time lurker. First time starting a topic.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:27 AM ^
I never understood why people were adamant that Jay wasnt in charge of substituting running backs.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:12 AM ^
Pecking order on a football coaching staff:
1. Head coach
2. Offensive coordinator
3. Running backs coach
August 20th, 2021 at 10:24 AM ^
Of course The head coach and the OC can override a substitution but the vast majority of play to play substitutions are the responsibility of the position coach on game day.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:52 AM ^
Not really. Plays are designed for certain players throughout the season/week. You have practice scripts that are determined by the whole offensive coaching staff. If Player A is good at running power but sucks at running outside zone, the staff decides whether Player B should go in for outside zone plays. Or if Player C should go in on third downs.
Substitutions are not made willy-nilly on the sideline on Saturday afternoons by the 7th-highest-paid coach on the staff (note: I made up the salary order, but hopefully you get the point).
If Hassan Haskins gets 300 carries this year, it's not because MIKE HART gave Haskins 300 carries. It's because Mike Hart, Sherrone Moore, Josh Gattis, Jim Harbaugh, etc. got together and determined that Haskins is a bell cow running back who needs to get the vast majority of carries.
It's also important to realize that this discussion is all for naught if Haskins gets 160 carries, Corum gets 120, and Edwards gets 80, because that type of distribution has been the norm basically since Harbaugh arrived. This isn't going to be like 2003, when Chris Perry (Hassan Haskins) got 338 carries and David Underwood (Blake Corum) got 52.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:17 PM ^
Of course they aren’t made Willy nilly and are discussed during the week by the offensive coaching staff.
But you are dead wrong if you think the position coach isn’t in charge of substitutions on game days. I don’t know how else to explain it to you.
Let’s say Haskins is gassed and taps his helmet to come out. Do you think Gattis is taking the time to tell Hart who to put in? Of course not. He’s focused on the next play. It’s Hart’s responsibility to put in the next man up given the situation.
Gattis isn’t calling the plays AND telling the RB coach who he wants in the game play in play out. Same goes for the WR coach. And if he is doing this, it’s no wonder we constantly look lost out there with no semblance of a strategy. That’s simply way too much responsibility for him to do his job, calling and building upon plays, effectively and efficiently.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:52 PM ^
"But you are dead wrong if you think the position coach isn’t in charge of substitutions on game days. I don’t know how else to explain it to you."
This doesn't make you sound very smart. What he said in his post is that players practice a set of plays. So the play call determines what player is on the field. If the primary player for Play A cannot go, then the RB coach would obviously decide that the secondary player for Play A goes in. What you are saying, though, is that the RB coach decides who gets on the field regardless of play call. You are, essentially, saying that the RB coach is deciding which set of plays is run.
You should open your eyes and ears to what people are actually saying, rather than closing them to only what you want to hear.
August 20th, 2021 at 1:45 PM ^
The play call determining what player is on the field is EXACTLY what Hart alluded to in my original post of being a problem.
It is Hart’s call on who is in the game after he hears the play call. It’s also Hart’s call to ride the hot hand if he wants. It’s Hart’s responsibility to give a RB a breather. It’s Hart’s call to bench a RB if he fumbles. Of course he can be overridden by the HC and OC during a game, and occasionally he will be. I am stunned this is a debate.
This is how it was done under Lloyd and Fred Jackson and I’m not guessing. If Harbaugh is doing it different then it explains a lot.
Sheesh.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:15 PM ^
Anyone negging this man is wrong.
I don't think it's impossible for the system Magnus describes to exist, and of course the plays a player reps in practice influence who does what during the game. But there is no scenario in which a player cannot possibly run one play or another, and the position coach is the one who decides whether he does.
He can be overruled, but how often do people think the head coach micromanages at this miniscule level? There isn't enough time to call the play, get the subs in, have the head coach learn who has been subbed, overrule the sub, and make his preferred sub.
Besides, who the hell would take a position coaching job and accept the caveat that he can't make personnel decisions? He would be leaving his future job prospects on the whims of someone who doesn't coach the players in his own meeting room.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:21 PM ^
I'm getting the impression there's some talking past each other going on here.
August 22nd, 2021 at 11:57 AM ^
Who the hell would take an assistant principal's job with the caveat that they can't make personnel decisions? Who would take an assistant to the regional manager's job with the caveat that they can't make personnel decisions?
Everyone who's not THE BOSS has his/her career balanced on the whims of THE BOSS. Jim Harbaugh can't do everything he wants if Warde Manuel doesn't give the okay. Warde Manuel can't do everything he wants if Mark Schlissel doesn't give the okay.
So I'm going to flip your statement around on you, and it will make even more sense:
WHO THE HELL WOULD TAKE AN OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR JOB IF THEIR JOB DEPENDS ON THE WHIMS OF SOMEONE PAID HALF AS MUCH AS THEM?
If I'm Josh Gattis and want Blake Corum in the game but the running backs coach won't put him in, then we're going to have issues. If I'm Jim Harbaugh and I want Mike Macdonald to run Cover 3 but he insists on running Cover 2, then we're going to have issues.
August 22nd, 2021 at 8:22 PM ^
You ever hear of the term “trust”?
You trust your staff to make the right decisions. It’s why YOU hired them.
August 23rd, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
Fair enough.
The answer, I think you would agree, is that they speak about rotation during the week so each coach has a pretty good idea of who will be in and when.
And then on game day, the position coach makes the substitutions based on those prior discussions. At which point, as I said in my first post, he can be overruled by the guys above him.
My argument, and the guy who originally responded to you, is about what is the default. Magnus, you’re a good poster, and I’m sure you’re a good coordinator, but are you really arguing that the coordinator determines every game day substitution in real time?
As I said earlier, I can imagine that sort of thing existing, but I think that it must be exceedingly rare, because it puts a lot of responsibility on the coordinator and because I’ve been in a couple hundred football games in which the position coach made the decisions subject to the boss’s veto.
August 24th, 2021 at 11:28 AM ^
No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the rotation is determined during the week/season by the coaching staff. It's up to the RB coach to make the position changes based on the personnel/situation/play call, but it's not HIS decision - it's a staff decision. It's only the running back coach's job to implement the decision.
This is the same as any job. It's not any individual police officer's job to decide to execute a warrant on someone wanted for unpaid child support, but the individual police officer (and his partners) is tasked with making the arrest. The decision comes from above (the court system, the shift supervisor, etc.).
August 24th, 2021 at 12:28 PM ^
Ok. I figured you weren't really arguing that.
It seems like where the disagreement lies in whether the position coach has any discretion when implementing the decision.
I think this is a reasonable place to disagree. Your team seems to not allow for discretion. The teams I was on did.
In fact, I once overheard a notable position coach and coordinator cussing each other out about exactly this issue as I was doing some film study at night. For what it's worth, the position coach seems to have won that time, as he stuck around for many years and the coordinator only had a few years left.
August 20th, 2021 at 1:37 PM ^
I'm paid much less than Josh Gattis to call an offense, and I'm fully aware of who's in the game and who needs to go in the game. If a certain RB is in the game that can't pass protect, I'm calling a play/tag to get him out of the backfield so he doesn't have to protect. If a RB is in the game that's afraid to run inside, I'm calling outside zone or a toss. If a slot receiver is in the game that can't do anything with a bubble, then I call plays/tags that make the bubble irrelevant, such as a snag or glance RPO.
Conversely, if we need to run a play in a certain situation, I'm fully capable of sending in a guy or telling one of the other coaches to send in a guy.
I'm not even trying to be conceited. Coaching is a PROFESSION. We go over these scenarios through the off-season, before practice, during practice, when watching film, etc. I could call a game by myself sitting in a booth with no headset, as long as I had a button to push for whichever substitution I had to make.
And here's the thing...so could YOU. It's called "Madden."
Football isn't brain surgery. If Gattis is so overwhelmed that he can't call plays while also considering substitutions, then he is in the wrong profession.
August 20th, 2021 at 1:56 PM ^
You're missing the point.
When Gattis calls play X, it has been predetermined which player is optimal for that play and everyone already knows who is going in when he calls it, the RB coach doesn't say, "okay, play X, I want RB Y in for this one." They decide by committee based on practice/camp who plays for certain plays/in certain situations, a decision where I'm sure the RB coach has great influence having observed the players most closely and who should have the best understanding of their capabilities. In fact, it probably determines where practice reps get focused as well.
There is just no way that for each play each position coach is making a game-time call on which players are going onto the field....that's ludicrous.
In your scenario, for every play the OL coach, WR coach, RB coach, is listening to the play call and subsequently then communicating to the players in their respective groups who should be on the field and one needs only watch a game to see that this isn't happening.
August 20th, 2021 at 2:23 PM ^
I can't tell you what happens on the current sideline, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that for the 50 years or so before Harbaugh took over (barring the Coach Rod years when they often didn't huddle), that is exactly what happened on every play of every game.
The players on the sideline do not even know the play; how do you think they would know when to sub in or out without that critical piece of information? Their position coach tells them if they are in or out, and the ones who are in then get the playcall.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
After all this time I can't believe people actually think that the position coach routinely substitutes players on their own. Do people think that the OC is calling plays without knowing exactly who will be on the field?
August 20th, 2021 at 2:31 PM ^
It is just another worthless argument by people who want to make Jaybaugh out to be a terrible coach in order to make Jim look bad by proxy.
August 20th, 2021 at 5:35 PM ^
That may be the reason and I have absolutely no basis to praise or criticize Jay's coaching. However, he'd have a lot more credibility if he struck out on his own. He may value closeness to family above other considerations or a steady paycheck because daddy is the head coach. He'll always appear employed because of his daddy though.
August 20th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^
You don’t need a proxy to make Jim look bad.
August 20th, 2021 at 12:35 PM ^
If Hassan Haskins gets 300 carries, that means he has somehow morphed into Earl Campbell. Yes, please.
August 20th, 2021 at 1:21 PM ^
A lot of coaching and game day decisions seems to have been done willy nilly by the Michigan football staff over the last 3-4 seasons.
August 20th, 2021 at 5:48 PM ^
Obviously certain players are better at certain things but the way you describe this sounds like the most predictable offense ever. Player A is in, expect power...stack the box. Player B is in, here comes outside zone. Pass blocking RB is in...pass play. Wildcat...run up the middle. And if things were as smoothly operated as you say Sean McKeon would never have ran the ball. This play/substitution was as willy-nilly as it gets.
You need to balance offense between being unpredictable and putting your players in their best position to succeed. Yes, certain plays are designed for certain players week in and week out. Player A will likely run more inside carries than outside, but he better expect to execute both. All RBs need to know the whole playbook and be ready to execute all plays. There is no "Oh I'm not a zone read back, coach won't put me in for that play. That would be will-nilly of him"
No one here is disagreeing the hierarchy of a coaching staff. You, and no one else here, knows exactly how much substitution power is given to our position coaches compared to HC/OC so this whole argument is stupid. Some HC's give their position coach way more control than others. Fact is we will never know so arguing like you do know is ridiculous.
August 20th, 2021 at 9:35 AM ^
Too bad Brady Hoke and that OC whose name I've thankfully scrubbed from my memory didn't understand this concept.
August 20th, 2021 at 10:07 AM ^
If you’re talking about Nussmeier, you can see him every Tuesday on hard knocks. Dude’s voice is worse than Cajun Hoke these days.