OT: 49ers are cleaning house?
January 1st, 2017 at 8:47 AM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 8:54 AM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 10:19 PM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 11:53 AM ^
and OSU, any school in the country would jump all over Harbaugh, including our friends in EL (if they were honest).
January 1st, 2017 at 2:57 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:26 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:44 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 10:20 PM ^
Under Hoke we went 11-2, 8-5, 7-6, to 5-7. We scored exactly 3 touchdowns in 4 years against MSU under Hoke...one of those was in garbage time. We had scandals of concussions and more...it was a very dark time, our recruiting class for 2015 nearly completely evaporated. We didn't know who our next coach would be.
If anyone came in and said during that bleak December of 2014 that we would go 10-3 back to back years and have top 5 recruiting classes in 2016 and 2017 we would have jumped for joy and said it was an A+ hire.
December 31st, 2016 at 10:33 PM ^
Not only was last year's Florida game a big game that he won, he has also reset the balance of power in the MSU rivalry immediately and brought us onto a level playing field with the Buckeyes. There are only 5 teams in the country that have a better record than Harbaugh's 20-6 since he was hired. If you aren't wildly happy with that result, after the shitstorm that preceded it, you're delusional.
When he was hired, the expectations of his first season were 8 wins. If someone would have told me that Michigan would go 20-6 over his first 2 years and be in the playoff conversation late in the season both years playing with the same Hoke squad that went 5-7 before the transition, I would have PAID MONEY to guarantee that result.
It's as though some segment of this fanbase wants a return to a dominance that Michigan never actually had. Michigan has won 1 national championship in the past 60 years. It was always going to be a gigantic task to get Michigan playing for a national championship in today's college football and with the team and program that Harbaugh inherited. That process is still very much moving in the right direction, and Harbaugh is guiding it with class, intensity, and dignity.
I hate using the word, because I feel it's been used against my own generation far too liberally in the past several years, but there is a vocal segment of the fanbase that thinks they are entitled to a national championship right now, because... reasons, I guess. There is no one else in the country that I want at the helm of my team than Jim fucking Harbaugh.
I am not saing I don't have a few disappointments with play calling, but is far less than with any head coach in my adult lifetime stretching back to Lloyd Carr, and it is not a quality that is only a problem at Michigan. Just look to OSU v MSU last year as a shining example.
January 1st, 2017 at 2:34 AM ^
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January 1st, 2017 at 8:46 AM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 10:37 AM ^
I agree wholeheartedly with all of your points with the exception of this one—my recollection is that there was a sizeable portion of the fanbase—especially MGoBlog—who expected immediate return to elite status.
Regardless of whether I'm right about that, the bitching about Harbaugh is bizarre.
December 31st, 2016 at 8:58 PM ^
These two facts are not incompatible:
1. Jim Harbaugh is a great coach, and there is almost none better that we could have.
2. I am deeply disappointed the team ended the year 1-3, and I think the way it happened (especially in the Iowa and OSU games) falls on the staff.
It's OK guys; we can both love our staff, want to keep them, and also think the team could have played better at key moments...
December 31st, 2016 at 9:02 PM ^
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December 31st, 2016 at 9:43 PM ^
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December 31st, 2016 at 10:32 PM ^
I still don't understand this narrative. What is on the staff besides dragging a very good but fundamentally flawed team to within a play or two of the playoff?
Iowa: a consistent series of errors by the players themselves, any of which could have won that game. The team was 9-0, the pressure was on, road game against a good team with nothing to lose - Michigan has their bad game (I believe every team has at least one each year) and melted a bit. This happens when a team hasn't been accustomed to the pressures of winning. Lost by 1.
OSU: yes officiating, and a great game lost in OT. In Columbus.
FSU: M's offense didn't belong on the same field. Lost their two best players. Lost by 1.
Let me guess, you thought the offense wasn't very creative? This is such a lazy narrative. Didn't like the toss sweeps? Then I guess you must have liked the inside runs. Oh, can't run the ball inside or outside. Can't hold protection for more than a few moments. FSU DL literally chucking guys in a moment and sprinting at Speight. "Go deep, why didn't we test their safeties deep?!" They could not protect for more than a few moments, and our WRs got no separation on anyone all year. How the hell would we go deep? Can't run, can't pass. Do you think there's a magical scroll that allows even great coaches to solve that problem against good teams? There's not. And Harbaugh's staff still almost did.
What are your specific complaints? Iowa played like madmen, beat our DL pretty good. Otherwise the D was excellent at OSU and pretty good at FSU. Offensive personnel is nowhere near playoff level and wasn't in any of those games.
January 1st, 2017 at 12:59 AM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 1:07 AM ^
Exacty correct.
January 1st, 2017 at 10:45 AM ^
I agree that Harbaugh and staff did a very good job of getting us close to a playoff spot without any real difference-makers on offense, but no coaching staff is infallible. Do you seriously think that Pepcat was the optimum way to use Peppers on offense?
January 1st, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
What are the alternatives? Have him throw? We tried that and teams sniffed it out. Use him as a receiver and catch the ball? That takes away the man advantage and none of us know if he can catch (jugs machine video or no).
You're talking about good teams late in the year who'd seen it. Maybe you don't put Peppers in, but he's your best player. And the regular offense wasn't doing much in the red zone those games either.
I agree no coach is infallible, but what is the alternative here besides observing that it didn't work as a fan and then complaining about it. Pepcat didn't work, regular offense didn't work. I say that's due to the limitations I note in my post above (which everyone already knows). But I'm open to a suggestion of what they should have done.
January 1st, 2017 at 2:35 PM ^
Alternative? How about having Peppers on the field on offense with an actual quarterback on the field with him the way Denard and Devin Gardner were at the end of the '12 season and the way Woodson was never on the field without Griese in '97?
January 1st, 2017 at 11:20 PM ^
Then he's just a RB and you've lost the extra blocker. You've also limited the number of plays available drastically. Do you decoy and if yes, can he pass block? That's not easy to do as we all know. If you throw to him, can he catch?
10,000 mgopoints says if Harbaugh had done this late in the year (though by this I don't know exactly what you mean), ran the plays and it got stuffed - because to my original point all our stuff got stuffed in the red zone late in the year, which is what happens when you can't run or protect - you and a dozen others would be up in arms that Harbaugh didn't run the Pepcat. "It worked against Colorado and Rutgers and yada yada, why wouldn't we krep rinning it yada yada..."
January 1st, 2017 at 11:52 AM ^
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December 31st, 2016 at 9:05 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:28 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:33 PM ^
What's a pratigal?
December 31st, 2016 at 10:26 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 10:29 PM ^
It is a hybrid between "practical" and "prodigal." When Harbaugh returned home it was a very practical hire in part because he was our prodigal son, making him pratigal. :-/
January 1st, 2017 at 8:44 AM ^
This is outstanding!
December 31st, 2016 at 9:36 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:42 PM ^
The phrase "if we fire Harbaugh" even being uttered at all shows how utterly foolish parts of this fanbase is. After two 10-3 seasons. Gross stupidity.
December 31st, 2016 at 9:52 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:58 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:57 PM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 1:33 AM ^
UM was in the championship conversation in year 2. People were not shocked how quickly (last year) Harbaugh rigthed the ship. 2017 will be a 9-10 win season and the 2018 we will be right in the conversation again. That would not have happened with any other coach unless UM hired Meyer or Saban.
December 31st, 2016 at 10:14 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 11:18 PM ^
January 1st, 2017 at 3:03 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:07 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:16 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 10:29 PM ^
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December 31st, 2016 at 8:51 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:12 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:36 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 10:04 PM ^
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January 1st, 2017 at 12:44 PM ^
December 31st, 2016 at 9:16 PM ^
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December 31st, 2016 at 9:18 PM ^
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