RE: Matt Campbell, et al, what does it really take to go from midlevel prodigy to winning the Big 10?
Because it certainly isn't a sure thing or anything close to it. There are essentially 4 transcendent coaches of the last 20 years, Meyer, Saban, Swinney, Carroll. All coming from pretty different backgrounds. Behind them are a graveyard of people like Matt Campbell who were hot and up-and-coming, making no translation whatsoever to the next level. What makes anyone think Matt Campbell will consistently beat Ryan Day and compete with a 20-year juggernaut? The next best thing, competing with PSU, Wiscy, we already have. In recent years, if there's one coach that Brian, Ace, etc, really saw as a can't miss genius it was Tom Herman. I remember Brian saying on a podcast when Herman was at Houston that he hoped he'd get a career job "like USC" so we'd never have to worry about him coming back to OSU. Rich Rod was a similar hot candidate with as good or better credentials. All flops. Running a major program is a unique skill, not directly translatable from success at lower levels. No one would have predicted from Swinney's resume that he'd build a historically above-average program into a Death Star. What's the secret sauce for these fellas?
January 11th, 2021 at 2:42 PM ^
I don't really think Matt Campbell would "consistently beat Ryan Day and compete with a 20-year juggernaut" but I know for damned near certain Jim Harbaugh won't.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:46 PM ^
Exactly. He has enough success on the field to warrant a chance. He has seemingly enough success in the locker room as well. Now, can he recruit at a high level year after year? Will he think he can recruit the same caliber athletes at Michigan, and win, that he could at ISU? Will he aim higher? Does he have the sustained drive? His actions til now seem to suggest yes. Harbaugh's actions seem to suggest some of those are no, which to me warrants a change.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:20 PM ^
I can't argue with the Saban, Meyer, Carroll, Swinney quartet. They have been the dominant coaches the last 25 years. But I think we should give a tip of the cap to Pat Fitzgerald in an "others receiving at least a mention" sort of way. A coach of a smaller, high-academic private school thrown among the big boys. He cannot recruit the talent that the large blue-blood public football factories can. His true peers are Stanford, Duke and Vanderbilt. He actually has student-athletes on his team. Yet, year-in and year-out, Northwestern punches far above its weight.
January 12th, 2021 at 2:55 AM ^
Can I get 100-1 odds with you on a bet then?
January 11th, 2021 at 2:44 PM ^
SCORCHING hot take!
January 11th, 2021 at 2:52 PM ^
Terminator! Nice
January 11th, 2021 at 2:57 PM ^
Oh good call. I thought it was MSU fans seeing the most recent bball polls.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:45 PM ^
A winning culture. Adaptability to employ new ideas within a consistent base scheme. Consistent vision among coaches, admin, and alum/boosters preventing dysfunction and dissonance. And patience to see the plan through.
January 11th, 2021 at 3:01 PM ^
Having a stupid amount of football talent in your state and administration that DGAF about what you do <looks south, ponders "tattoo gate" and loans from car dealers> <returns gaze to laptop>
January 11th, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
I think one of the biggest things is early success and actually getting over the hurdle in the first few years. I still feel like if Harbaugh wins the 2016 game and wins the Big Ten / goes to the playoff our program would have had a chance. We would have received a continued boost in recruiting from when Harbaugh first came and would have propelled us.
Also... the QB misses hurt as well. Having a stud QB in the early years would have won us some OSU games too.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:08 PM ^
Obviously losing the 2016 OSU game hurts, but I guarantee the conversation is 100% different if Harbaugh had been going 11-2 / 12-1 and winning his bowl games. If he could have taken control of the rest of the conference, sans OSU, then the team, the program, recruiting, everything ALL suddenly finds itself on solid ground and context for slowly taking that next step, similar to Clemson.
But we're still stuck in the middle to bottom of the conference, losing to horrible teams like MSU, barely scraping by Rutgers, and getting blown out by Wisconsin and Penn State. I feel like there's three levels in our conference:
- OSU
- Wisconsin & Penn State
- Everyone else
We're somehow still stuck floating in-between levels 2&3 despite recruiting more talent than every other team not named Ohio State. The potential to take that next step has been there, this staff just isn't getting the job done for whatever reason. Hopefully this shakeup finally gets the ball rolling.
January 11th, 2021 at 8:21 PM ^
Harbaugh has replaced many coaches and the end result is the same against anyone with a pulse...L
January 11th, 2021 at 8:34 PM ^
I would say 2-4 years is a reaosonable window to look back at to determine where we are in the conference and I would say in that period we are in the Wisconsin/Penn State tier.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:49 PM ^
We're competitive with Wiscy? The score the last 2 years is like 85 to 30 so no I would disagree with that.
January 11th, 2021 at 4:05 PM ^
Why did you only go back 2 years? Is it because the 3 years prior to that we were 2-1 against Wisconsin, outscoring them 62-44?
January 11th, 2021 at 4:42 PM ^
Because that's the most recent data we have? Don't see how anyone can watch us get steamrolled by Wisconsin the past 2 years and come out thinking we're competitive with them.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:58 PM ^
But don't you know we are the winningest program in the history of college football? Didn't we beat Wisconsin 84-0 in 1903?
January 11th, 2021 at 6:54 PM ^
“Because that’s the most recent data we have that proves my point.” FIFY
I get no one is happy with Harbaugh right now, but saying 2 years of data is the only thing that matters but 5 years of data is somehow not relevant is a ridiculous point. I took Harbaugh’s entire tenure here as my data point, which you’ve said isn’t relevant, and you’ve taken 2 years of data, one of which a PSU team with a losing record should have gone to the B10 championship before they changed the rules of a shortened Covid season, and said that is somehow more relevant.
January 11th, 2021 at 7:03 PM ^
COVID is such a lame excuse. Wisconsin's entire team had COVID and they still destroyed us. And this was a .500 Wisconsin team, not their typical team. With our complete lack of DTs does anyone wanna predict that our next game against them doesn't go like the previous 2? We're not on Wisconsin's level and that's pretty sad.
January 11th, 2021 at 9:18 PM ^
Because there are still people playing football now that were playing football then for both teams
January 11th, 2021 at 4:12 PM ^
Harbaugh is 3-3 vs Penn State and 2-3 vs. Wisconsin so clearly competitive.
January 11th, 2021 at 4:41 PM ^
Considering the on-paper talent disparity, that seems like a rather poor record to me.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:00 PM ^
And 3-3 against MSU......ouch!
January 11th, 2021 at 6:04 PM ^
0-2 against both those teams in the past two years.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:50 PM ^
JFC. This is just as bad as the Harbaugh post last night...
When the coach you have isn't going to get you further than you are today, but you still want more, then you have to look elsewhere. There is no answer other than that. There are no guarantees for anything in life - there is no such thing as a 'perfect candidate', a 'can't miss guy', or a 'zero risk' choice. Harbaugh was a close as you come to all of those - and yet...
If you want more than you have, and current leadership can't get there, you must change. There is nothing else to do. Failure to change only extends the current, which will begin to tail off (ie: get worse) at some point.
January 11th, 2021 at 3:36 PM ^
Jesus, the gatekeeping on this message board is out of control. There's nothing wrong with this post.
What have you contributed? "You must change?" Sure, and OP doesn't preclude that. The interesting question posed is what exactly do we change to.
A HC at a smaller program? A coordinator? An NFL guy? An internal hire? What qualities make for a successful coach at a top ten program?
Of the teams with more than one playoff appearance, the head coaches have either been an internal hire (Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, Dabo Swinney) or had already won national championships at other big schools (Nick Saban, Urban Meyer).
Other successful recent coaches were coordinators at top programs (Ed O, Kirby Smart).
January 11th, 2021 at 5:34 PM ^
He's just mad Harbaugh is still the coach. Fine, but the deal is done so time to move on.
A quick wikipedia search shows that the one common trait amongst Dabo Swinney, Urban Meyer, and Nick Saban is that they were all formerly fringe college football players who likely had realized at an early age playing professional football wasn't going to happen so they dedicated themselves to understanding the game. They got their degrees and immediately started working as graduate assistants, building their knowledge base, network, and coaching skills at a very early age.
Meanwhile, Jim was getting knocked around in the NFL for 14 years before he started coaching.
So be on the look out for former walk-on/fringe CFB players who have started to make a name for themselves as young and up and coming positional coaches.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
I was surprised to learn recently that Campbell has never beaten Iowa. That seems like a bad omen.
I know he's beaten Oklahoma and that's awesome, but I'm guessing that OU didn't take that game seriously, in the same way that OSU occasionally has brain fart games in the middle of the season. I doubt OU was circling the Iowa State game on its calendar beforehand.
Our problem is that OSU does take our game seriously; we're not going to sneak up on them. We have to somehow beat their A game. And that's where Campbell's 0-fer against Iowa is a problem, because that's a game that Iowa probably brings its A-game for, too.
I don't know that we're going to beat OSU anytime soon, with any coach, which is why I wish college football would stop with this 4-team playoff crap and have a real tournament like every other NCAA sport.
January 11th, 2021 at 3:40 PM ^
Yes to both.
Ferentz has a consistent scheme and has beaten OSU convincingly in '17 and ISU in every head to head competition.
I'm guessing most on the board don't want him though.
We will never, at least in the next few years, square off against an OSU that overlooks us.
Campbell may well be a new coach, but I don't see how he's an upgrade from Harbaugh pre this year. He looks alot closer to Hoke, and I'm not comfortable with that risk.
January 11th, 2021 at 3:58 PM ^
You think Oklahoma overlooks Iowa St? You realize he has beaten them twice and lost by 10, 10, 1 and 6 correct? There is zero chance Oklahoma overlooks Iowa State after year 1.
January 11th, 2021 at 4:04 PM ^
Maybe not overlooks, but I doubt take as seriously as OSU takes us. Does Oklahoma take time in every practice to work on IS stuff?
I'm not saying the guys a bad coach. Just maybe not a great one, and I find the 'Beat Oklahoma' fact that is offered up as his ability to take us to the next level as not convincing or relevant to his ability to beat OSU.
January 11th, 2021 at 8:07 PM ^
To be fair, I don’t think anybody takes anyone else as seriously as Ohio State takes us. Even when looking at the other “major” rivalries in college sports, it really seems like the level of hatred and devotion to beating the snot out of the other team is unparalleled when it comes to how OSU views Michigan.
January 11th, 2021 at 4:01 PM ^
Brady Hoke was 47-50 prior to taking the UM job. Matt Campbell is 70-43. Seems like a significant upgrade when you consider the competition each faced.
I'm calling their MAC work a wash. Hoke at SDSU had to face against TCU, BYU, and Utah. Campbell has had to work against OU, OK St, TX, TCU, Baylor, and WVU.
January 11th, 2021 at 4:22 PM ^
That's fair.
I've said before, and I'll stick with it, if he ever comes here I'll cheer the dude on like nobody's business. I'm just not convinced its an apparent upgrade right now. I could easily see him coming here and getting toasted by OSU still and still having trouble with Iowa.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:54 PM ^
From The Athletic podcast today which is a source I trust and respect on covering Harbaugh press conferences: “It’s tedious and exhausting to try to get Jim Harbaugh to acknowledge reality.” Ouch.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:55 PM ^
He sounds like a major Rump in the ass...
January 11th, 2021 at 3:11 PM ^
Tbf, if we're strictly talking press conferences aren't many other coaches the same?
January 11th, 2021 at 3:22 PM ^
I mean the guys who do this for a living say getting a full sentence out of him acknowledging and addressing what happened on the football field is impossible so I’d say no.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:13 PM ^
I mean I've heard plenty of other coaches do it too. I'm sure reporters wouldn't dare be hyperbolic over a dude that's easy to shit on at the moment, especially sports reporters, they're always so straightforward and objective...
Harbaugh has plenty of things that are unique to him to criticize and he should've been fired months ago, but this just reeks of petty BS.
January 11th, 2021 at 5:39 PM ^
Like Bill Belichick perhaps?
January 11th, 2021 at 4:00 PM ^
He's almost always been like that in press conferences. Look at some of his San Francisco pressers. I don't see this as a valid complaint on his coaching ability.
The fact of the matter is that alot of the press has been fairly snarky of him for a long time. I don't blame him for not giving them anything. Hell even the 'trying to get him to acknowledge reality' is a bit of an accusatory statement.
I'd be more interested in the opinions of someone like Fisch or Partridge in terms of his ability.
January 11th, 2021 at 7:33 PM ^
That’s funny! His offense is also tedious and exhausting.
January 11th, 2021 at 10:53 PM ^
The Athletic guys are hung up on some pretty dumb stuff, quite frankly, which is surprising because I think they are smart observers of college sports. But in the end, who cares if Jim takes media seriously? (Does that impact players, recruits or fans? Not really.) Who cares if Warde Manuel saved $4 million? (Will those savings impact WINNING somehow? Only if it goes directly into recruiting.) Is Warde Manuel Jim Harbaugh's boss all of a sudden? (No, not in any way that practically helps the team achieve its goals.) That said, I do think there is one non-trivial point that they have right, COVID really mattered to outcomes this year, and as the year progressed, teams that still had stuff at stake continued to perform, and teams that had less at stake began to slack off at a much, much greater pace than normal. And the Athletic guys have been signaling Covid as a financial and performance outlier for a long time.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:56 PM ^
I don't really classify the OP as a hot take. It's an interesting question of how and why so many sure-thing up-and-comers never blossom after taking the leap from a high profile assistant coach position at a football power or making the successful transition from a lower level program to a traditional football power with resources and institutional backing.
Hell, the Detroit Lions have perfected the art of horrible coaching choices. Jim Caldwell and Wayne Fontes notwithstanding, both up-and-comers and coaching retreads have failed in an equally miserable fashion.
January 11th, 2021 at 3:14 PM ^
It would have been interesting if it was the first one. The same opinion has been posted several times on this board and was more interesting when it was relevant and we had no word on the HC situation. The fact is we have Harbaugh for another year so the timing is entirely pointless for the most part.
3 days ago: titled: "Inquiring opinions on Matt Campbell"
January 11th, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
I see your point. I guess I interpreted this as asking the larger question of why some up-and-comers do or do not succeed at the next level and not specifically related to Campbell, but your point stands. We've apparently reached saturation.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:57 PM ^
Winning anywhere requires a combination of leadership, resources, recruiting and luck. The ratio of those things change over time and by location - making it difficult to truly evaluate a coach (individually especially, since fball uses such a large staff).
There is no such thing as a "can't miss" coach or opening.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:59 PM ^
This Matt Campbell obsession on this blog has got to stop. This guy has consistently gone 9-4, 7-5, 8-5, and 7-6 and 9-3 this past season at both Toledo and Iowa State. Like it or not, Harbaugh has been, 10-3, 9-4, 8-5 and the ugly 2-4 here in COVID season at UM. Harbaugh may not rebound after this season BUT he may turn it around. Like Desmond Howard said, the biggest step was getting rid of Don Brown who people on this site are still in love with which reminds me of how RR was loved on here until his crap at Arizona was FINALLY proved. This will also happen to DB in the Pac 10 playing man coverage every snap against Oregon and some of those offenses. If Harbaugh turns the corner in AA then the very people on this blog who have openly called for his head will be blubbering about how tough Jimmy is and how they knew all along it would take time. I am angry with Harbaugh's lack of leadership and unwillingness to replace Brown after giving up 1000 points to Meyer and Day BUT who on earth is going to replace him right now???? Campbell because he went 9-3 and beat Oregon. Please!!!
January 11th, 2021 at 3:15 PM ^
Iowa state is the exact same institution as Michigan, with the same facilities, the same access to talent, the same resources to hire assistants. Everyone KNOWS this you guys!