Rank the greatest UM football HCs?

1. Crisler

2. Yost

3. Harbaugh

4. Bo

5. Carr

X. Moeller will forever be an <<Insufficient Data>>/<<What Coulda Been!>>, however.

What pisses me off about Harbaugh is all the absolute horseshit he spew.  "I'll be here for as long as they'll have me" " Creek don't rise" "one time thing".  God damn it he would have just said he wanted to go back to the NFL eventually if the right opportunity came up Id be less bitter.

I don't know man....  Harbaugh could have been the clear #1 if he would have stayed another decade and let the machine he built run a while.

I'll put him slightly ahead of Lloyd outside of the top 3

it's hard to judge though because if we hadn't been screwed in 2016 (the spot) we might have broke through much sooner.  You also have to factor in that OSU was historically great during his tenure and factor in the state of the program when he arrived.

He's the best coach we've had during my fandom (since my freshman year in '91)

I believe that attempting to rank coaches from completely different eras is a fools errand. 

My honest answer is your opinions are trash.

Harbaugh is absolutely number 1. Bo is 2 bc of longevity and Lloyd is 3. Yost and Lloyd can switch 3 or 4. Don’t care

1. Sherrone Moore (undefeated, wins over Penn State and Ohio State)

2. Everyone else but Rich Rod

3. Rich Rod

Agree with Bo, Lloyd, Harbaugh ranking.  Don’t know how to compare Yost and Crisler.   Harbaugh could have changed that had he stayed.  He had 3 epic seasons, 3 mid 10-3 seasons which should be Michigan’s floor and 2 bad (9-4 and 8-5) and one disastrous season 2-4.

I wish he would have kept it going.  

To me, to be at the top of this list, you have to be here longer than Harbaugh.

If we're talking modern era, that means:

- Bo
- Carr
- Harbaugh

Though, to be honest, you could make the case for Carr #1, because of '97. But Bo was ridiculous from '70-'74.

Of course, old school coaches were great too, but way different game.

The thing I don't get is the Moeller love some put forth. He was mediocre at best:

1990    Michigan    9–3  
1991    Michigan    10–2 
1992    Michigan    9–0–3  
1993    Michigan    8–4
1994    Michigan    8–4

Lloyd turned the program around. 

Great coaches from different eras had unique challenges. No pecking order is needed between coaches of different eras; arguments about who's better are really just a lot of hot air.

To rank them, or even argue about it is silly.

It is Harbaugh at the top for me.  Prior to Rich Rod, I didn't think we could be bad at football.  We were good for my entire life.  The program ran on autopilot.  Then the RichRod Hoke era occurred and for 7 years it felt like we were never going to be great again.  Harbaugh won 10 games the first year and basically game my Saturday's back.  The last 3 years have been spectacular while it seemed like the program was always at a disadvantage in recruiting, admissions and even NIL.  I still have zero idea how we won a natty.  I would have said it was an impossibility the way we recruit compared to the big boys.  I hope Harbaugh gets a statue someday.

Bo is a vastly overrated coach whose stature is vastly overinflated by a certain generation. It’s Harbaugh absolutely. He inherited a program that was on life support and built it back up into a championship team. I don’t care about Bo beating up on the little sisters of the poor. 

Stuff from 1901 is almost pointless to use for comparison.

1. Harbaugh

2. Bo

3. Carr

1. Yost- his teams were dominate against their competition

2. Harbaugh

3. Bo

4. Crisler

5. Carr (Should be Moeller, but he didn't coach long enough)

Harbaugh
Yost
Bo
Crisler
Carr

Here's the crazy thing about Harbaugh. His resume would be even better if we lived in the BCS era. We were the #1 or #2 seed three years in a row, meaning we would have had three straight national title game appearances. Who knows what happens if we play '21 Alabama or '22 UGA/

Yost, Crisler, Carr, Harbaugh, Bo, Moeller. 

I know it hurts the Boomers to not have Bo number 1, but he didn't win a national championship and played against significantly weaker competition than Harbaugh and Carr. I still think without Moeller's bad night he's probably in the top 3. 

In the context of the University's position within the sport at the time of his arrival and the state of the sport, in general, relative to what Michigan is able to do within that frame, this is very easy:

1. Jim Harbaugh

I know we had some all timers who won it all while the sport was still being invented but to climb to the top of modern college football with the constraints on Michigan as a program is the greatest achievement by any Michigan football coach. Simple as.

I'm sorry, but you really can't rank Yost -- the game was so different

Harbaugh > Bo

1. Yost 

2. Crisler

3. Harbaugh 

4. Bo

5. Carr

Yost, made Michigan into an elite football institution

then any way you mix it is really easy to make arguments for the others. 

These coaches all put together a great team won a natty or had great sustained success. 

Kipke, two natty's is impressive!  4 big ten titles to boot, not as impressive overall record though

Crisler 47 Natty, the mad magicians, the winged helmet before retiring and turning it over to Oosterban,

Oosterban 48 Natty, an assistant for several years prior and considered the mastermind of the mad magicians offense.  Won 3 consecutive bigten titles. 

Schembechler 13 big ten titles, and 4 other seasons finishing second with 1 conference loss!!!  Bo finished a couple seasons with the same record as the voted national champion.  Restored the rivalry with ND

Lloyd Carr, 1 Natty and 5 big ten titles.  12-0 for the 97 Title for the first title since 1948. 

Jim Harbaugh, 1 Natty, the cfp champion going 15-0.  3 big ten titles in 9 seasons going back to back to back and finishing the greatest season in school history. 

This is the worst list I've ever seen.

The real questions here are:

1. how much you penalize Bo winning tons and tons of games that ultimately didn't matter while constantly falling short of the ultimate prize

2. how much you reward Carr for winning tons and tons of games that ultimately didn't matter while also putting things together enough to win the ultimate prize

and to a lesser degree:

3. how much you care about guys like Crisler and Yost doing all kinds of insane shit before any of us, even MGrowOld, were alive

4. how mad you are at Harbaugh for leaving and Bo for abetting a truly noxious situation 

Given these and my own answers to them, the ranking would be:

1. Harbaugh - had by far the hardest task of any of these coaches and succeeded with a three year run that surpassed any in living memory

2. Yost - have to hand it to one of the GOATs of the sport as a whole. Did you know the entire Alabama dynasty comes from a branch of Yosts coaching tree? 

3. Crisler - another titanic figure in the history of the sport, have to give him his due

4. Carr - presided over the tail end of a dynasty but he got it done when nobody else could. And while App State was crushing, his recovery that season was lowkey incredible and should be remembered 

5. Bo - Gets points for establishing the dynasty that ended with Carr but never quite put it all together and his legacy is completely tarnished. 

Kipke and Oosterbaan are obvious honorable mentions

I think it's hard to compare coaches across eras, but here's my list:

1. Harbaugh -- I just think that it's harder now with the number of competitive teams, NIL, the portal etc. He also came into a situation that required at least a partial rebuild. The last 3 years have been incredible, but 2015 & 2016 were very good ('16 was a play or two from being great), and I would argue that the '18 and '19 seasons with wins over Penn State, Michigan State, Notre Dame etc are better than remembered.

2. Crisler -- His tenure is strange because WWII meant that so many players were unavailable, but I feel like his dominance at the end of his tenure (I give him partial credit for the team that came the year after) and success at the beginning is remarkable as well as his innovations.

3. Yost -- his era was so far in the past it seems like comparing a Model T to Corvette but he created Michigan football.

4. Schembechler -- Maybe he should be higher. He had 20 years of consistent success (ignoring 1984), but the Big Ten was down and the bowl record was a step below the national elite (though USC was arguable the 'Bama or Georgia of the '70s and part of the '80s).

5. Carr -- Again, maybe he should be ranked higher given that his accomplishments in terms of winning percentage and championships are similar to Harbaughs. He was a great recruiter, and if Henson had stayed I bet we compete for the natty in 2021.  That said, I suppose I deduct a few points for the fact that his greatest success with a team that partially Moeller's and what seemed like slippage at the end.

Yost

Harbaugh-Crisler

Bo

Kipke

Oosterbaan-Carr

1. Yost

2. Harbaugh 

3. Crisler 

4. Carr 

5. Kipke

6. Oosterbaan 

7. Bo

Winning a natty matters more than anything else 

Mentally downvoting for the Crisler typo.

I love Lloyd. Your case is very strong. I'll allow it.

But I put Harbaugh above Lloyd. His national championship and Big Ten titles were harder to accomplish.

1. Harbaugh

2. Bo

3. Carr

The end

Starts and ends with Bo