Semi-OT: the Fightin' McCaffreys of Northern Colorado
Seems the season has been a frustrating one for everyone's favorite football playing family. A 2-3 record has driven eldest brother and OC Max to toss clipboards into the stands, striking fans.
On the plus side, he was only reprimanded, and the fan wanted to keep it as a souvenir. For all Hatbaugh's antics, at least he never injured any innocent bystanders.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:17 PM ^
Looking at the box score of the game, it was a rough day for Dylan and even for longtime favorite Tru Wilson (as a receiver, which Max coaches). Not endorsing his lack of self-control, but I can feel Max's frustration.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:22 PM ^
Ouch, 3 picks and less than 100 yards passing
Maybe Milton did beat him out?
October 7th, 2021 at 12:25 PM ^
If Milton truly beat him out, then boy is that saying something. And its not saying anything good for Dylan, based on what we've seen out of Milton this year at UT and last year at Michigan.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:51 PM ^
I think he did. But it in the end neither ended up being anything special. It’s incredibly unlucky that Mcaffrey, Milton, and Peters all ended up as busts. Hopefully Cade and JJ can turn the tide.
October 7th, 2021 at 1:18 PM ^
Not sure if you can totally say Peters was a bust. He just can't go 2 games without getting injured. Also, I'm not sure that Tom Brady could win at Illinois.....lol
October 7th, 2021 at 2:49 PM ^
Part of playing sports is to learn how to avoid injury. Favre did it best. When it happens over and over you gotta question it, and can call them a bust.
October 7th, 2021 at 5:43 PM ^
Favre did it best.
Yeah, by eating Vicodin like they were M&M's.
October 7th, 2021 at 9:32 PM ^
Favre did it best with or without Vicodin. He went to rehab early in his career and still played.
October 7th, 2021 at 2:58 PM ^
Look at how often great college QBs wash out as high NFL draft picks? Projecting QB play from one level of football to the next is incredibly difficult, even for people who are paid millions of dollars to be experts at it.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:28 PM ^
Tru Wilson still have eligibility left??!!!
October 7th, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
He's going to be pulling social security before his covid eligibility runs out.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:31 PM ^
Give the kid a break. He was recruited by Moeller, then Carr talked him into staying, he gave RichRod a chance, then played for Hoke before finally carving out a small role under Harbaugh. Can’t blame him for wanting to play out his last three years with a bigger role.
October 7th, 2021 at 6:33 PM ^
Didn’t Bo also sleep over at his house?
October 7th, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
Tru Wilson is a running back for Northern Colorado, not a receiver.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:57 PM ^
Word of advice for Max, if a Dan Campbell ever calls, better hang up.
October 7th, 2021 at 1:12 PM ^
Tru Wilson is a running back and led the team with a solid 60 yards on 11 carries.
October 7th, 2021 at 1:32 PM ^
Kinda funny that one of NCU's wins against Northern Arizona....that just beat Arizona. So, basically they are as good (bad?) as the bottom feeders of the Pac 12.
Also, Dylan went 24/42 for 236yds, 1td/1int against Colorado. Not terrible. Could be that he just has a terrible OL.....or coach.
October 7th, 2021 at 1:49 PM ^
Could be that he just has a terrible OL.....or coach.
Tough times in the McCaffrey house.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:12 PM ^
24/42 for 236 1Td/I int is pretty terrible, that's 5.6 yd per pass attempt.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:24 PM ^
"For all Hatbaugh's antics, at least he never injured any innocent bystanders."
Speak for yourself.
I've been injured and deserve to recover damages. I'm seeking to become whole.
I
October 7th, 2021 at 1:34 PM ^
Agreed, emotional trauma is still trauma!!
October 7th, 2021 at 3:56 PM ^
I am forever injured by Harbaugh’s “Spaulding” episode. My Hawkeye in-laws never let me forget it.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
Maybe we are seeing why Dylan did not become the starter...59%, 597 yds, 4.9 ave, 4 TD, 4 INT, 104 RTG.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:46 PM ^
I suspect those stats are a reflection of the coaching and teammates he has. We all saw how he moved the team against Wisconsin - until head hunting ended it all. I'm pretty sure that we all also agree that he had permanently taken over for Shea at that point.
I still maintain that had he not been head-injured, his trajectory would have been a lot better. That concussion kept him off the field for 6 weeks (or something like that), and by the time he got back to practicing he was so far behind that he couldn't catch up. From there, my opinion says he probably expected the job back, but didn't get it and lost his attitude as a result.
I hate saying that, but I don't see any other path because I will forever fail to believe he just 'lost out' to Joe Milton. Maybe it was more to do with Harbaugh's 'QBs regress' thing? I dunno, but I really wish he wouldn't have been targeted twice in successive plays by UW.
October 7th, 2021 at 1:38 PM ^
I'm sure the lost time to injury didn't help but like a lot of things we tend to take a small sample size and make it big, and in this case it was looking about 30 pass attempts and a couple of runs and assuming they'd trend out to a good QB. But Joe Milton did make significant strides from the player he was coming out of HS to the guy he looked like last year and I can see how he "passed" McCaffrey because one of them showed upward mobility and the other one didn't. And Milton, as we've seen, has the physical tools that can make people believe he could be a top-level QB.
The thing I don't get is the idea that all QBs regress under Harbaugh because look at what happens to them when they transfer. Wilton Speight's UCLA career was bad, Brandon Peters has struggled at Illinois, Shea Patterson was fine at UM and probably as good or better than he was trending at Ole Miss, Milton won the spot at UT and then got "injured" while also playing poorly. Now, maybe Harbaugh breaks guys so badly they can't even be fixed by other coaches but I have my doubts about that.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:02 PM ^
I suspect Harbaugh has just had a run of QB recruiting that hasn't panned out. Both McNamara and McCarthy this year look better than anyone since Rudock.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
My sizzling hot take: Shea Patterson is unfairly maligned. He was a pretty good quarterback.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:13 PM ^
I'd like to agree, but he had his limits. His deep ball sucked ass and he couldn't/didn't read anything to save his life. The few times he did keep were successes!!! Nonetheless, his passing game hurt in a lot of different ways. Look no further than OSU 2018 (though injured late) and Alabama 2019. If he could hit a fucking pass...
October 8th, 2021 at 12:15 AM ^
And a scratch golfer.
October 8th, 2021 at 7:20 AM ^
October 7th, 2021 at 12:48 PM ^
Just another failed QB recruit by the "whisperer." SMH
October 7th, 2021 at 12:49 PM ^
Well, in his defense (or not depending on your perspective), his head coach had one year of experience coaching a high school team before getting this job and his OC had never coached ever, anywhere....If he really wanted a chance to make the pros, it probably wasn't the best decision...
October 7th, 2021 at 12:26 PM ^
Back about 15 years ago, Northern Colorado's backup punter went all Jeff Gillooly and stabbed the starting punter in an attempt to get more playing time. That effort earned him several years in jail.
In comparison to that, this is pretty tame. (I suppose nearly everything is tame compared to that)
I do think it could turn into a dumpster fire pretty quickly up there in Greeley. They do have a couple wins (which already means this season won't be worse than 2020, 2019 or 2018). But I don't think Ed has any sort of long-term investment or interest in UNC football.
October 7th, 2021 at 2:11 PM ^
You're in Colorado, right? Any insight into why Ed would leave powerhouse Valor Christian to coach a nobody FCS program with a combined 7-26 record over its previous three seasons?
October 7th, 2021 at 3:07 PM ^
Yep, I'm in Colorado.
I honestly think Ed's rationale was as simple as "I want to continue coaching some of my sons, while also providing coaching opportunities for some of my other sons, and UNC is a nearby (the only nearby, mind you) FCS school that affords me this opportunity."
I think the more interesting question is why UNC is doing this? I think their rationale was "well, we don't really care about football that much anyway, and this gets us some publicity. If he succeeds, fine, if he doesn't, well, that's fine too."
Shoot, the previous UNC HC got to stay 9 years while winning 28% of his games! And they hired him after he went 8-14 at a SWAC school! UNC really just doesn't care. Someone like Montana State, the other school in this weekend's game, wouldn't consider Ed in 1,000,000 years.
Valor Christian is very successful, but I don't think much of that was due to Ed, who was only there 2 years anyway. Valor has so many structural advantages it's crazy. Dave Logan is the true best HS Coach in Colorado, IMO.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
I’m not in Colorado and have no inside info, but my best guess would be money, followed closely by getting to coach his son again, maybe not even in that order.
October 7th, 2021 at 7:58 PM ^
The Norther Colorado incident was based on another incident that happened in the late 70s. It's a tale as old as time. The backup quarterback at Washington State, Tony Harding, desperately wanted the starting quarterback job that he narrowly lost to the starter, Nathan Karrigan in spring camp. Now Nathan had everything you could ask for in a starting Quarterback, a strong arm, nice hair, a delicate touch on his deep balls, but he lacked that killer instinct. An instinct that Tony had been cultivating from the very beginning, growing up just a poor boy from a poor family.
Now Tony knew that if Nathan were to somehow get "injured", the starting quarterback's job would be his. So he hired a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouch, Scaramouch to do the Fandango on Nathan's throwing arm, giving Tony the starting quarterback job. Unfortunately, the whole thing was caught on video, and eventually Scaramouch was arrested after being caught in a landslide trying to escape from reality.
This was a huge media story even back then, as America fell in love with "Broadway Nathan" as he became known after the video footage of the incident was broadcast coast to coast. Unfortunately, due to the huge media attention, and the popular song written about the incident by the rock band "Queen" everything lead back to Tony, and he was disgraced and kicked off the team, never to have played the game of football ever again.
October 8th, 2021 at 7:07 PM ^
Greeley turned into a dumpster fire a long, long time ago
October 7th, 2021 at 12:27 PM ^
Surprised he didn’t hit a cow instead. Greeley (UNC), for those who don’t know, is known for the meat-packaging industry and the smell of the town is legendary across the Colorado Front range.
Hard pass
October 7th, 2021 at 12:30 PM ^
I was initially very disappointed when McCaffrey left. Not any more.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:39 PM ^
If McCaffrey had the exact same skill set that he had, but wasn’t named “McCaffrey” he wouldn’t have been hyped nearly as much as he was. He was a good runner, threw a decent short/medium ball, but lacked arm strength. Never really got to see how he was at reading coverages. He wasn’t better than Shea, and he may have not been better than Milton
October 7th, 2021 at 1:21 PM ^
I believe he would have been better than Milton.
But that's not saying much.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:45 PM ^
The performance of the QB's who've transferred does somewhat vindicate Harbaugh's record as a developer of QB talent. Peters, Milton, McCaffrey have gone on to perform no better than they performed at Michigan.
That being said, it does bring in to question his talent evaluation of QB's.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:49 PM ^
His evaluation of QB's has been Borges-esque.
October 7th, 2021 at 2:53 PM ^
Still bummed he move on from Speight. But he has recovered nicely. Both Cade and JJ will play in the NFL I think.
October 7th, 2021 at 3:06 PM ^
Dunno about Cade--but at his size and speed he will need to be Drew Brees like to make it in the NFL and I don't know what he's got that level of accuracy in him.
Not ripping on him--I like him quite a bit, but for comparison, Jake Rudock threw 5 total passes in the NFL. Would you take Cade over him right now?
October 7th, 2021 at 1:06 PM ^
Disagree a bit. These guys were all highly rated (ratings are perfect prognosticators), but this also calls into question JMFH ability to develop QB talent.
October 7th, 2021 at 5:00 PM ^
Ratings are perfect prognosticators? I recognize that you're disappointed with Harbaugh, but the qb ratings since he's been back at Michigan indicate that qb ratings and development are anything but an exact science.
Since 2014, here are quarterbacks (pro style) ranked in the top 100 overall recruits -
2014
Kyle Allen, Will Grier, Keller Chryst, David Cornwell
2015
Josh Rosen, Blake Barnett, Deondre Francois, Brady White, Jake Browning, Ricky Town, Drew Lock
2016
Shea Patterson, Jacob Eason, KJ Costello,, Malik Henry, Feleipe Franks, Brandon Peters, Dwayne Haskins
2017
Davis Mills, Hunter Johnson, Jake Fromm, Jack Sears
Now, how many of those guys became great, or developed into NFL talent. These 22 players were the highest ranked Pro-Style quarterbacks for 4 recruiting cycles. Basically EVERY head coach missed on these guys. There's one Heisman Finalist in the bunch, two 1st round picks, 9 who were drafted, ZERO franchise quarterbacks, and a half dozen or so that only the most rabid of college football fans would remember.
Even the GOAT Saban has 2 misses in there! There are a handful of qb stars in each class. How they turn into stars is not necessarily about ranking or development. Something has to be inside of each guy, and there is no formula to detect it (Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, etc...)
October 7th, 2021 at 1:46 PM ^
He's also had just awful luck at QBs staying healthy. Wilton Speight got knocked out by Purdue, then Peters got hurt against Wisconsin, then he got a healthy year from Patterson only to see him get injured the first game of 2019 and never fully recover, then we have Milton and McNamara fight through injuries all of 2020. When people wonder why he doesn't like to see his QBs run the ball a lot I can sort of see his fear that he just wants a guy to last and, especially with limited depth, he absolutely can't afford to expose a guy to hits.
October 7th, 2021 at 12:54 PM ^
I'll be completely honest: I never expected Cade Mcnamara to end up as hands down the best QB out of him, Milton and McCaffrey.
I initially looked at him as a class filler/afterthought. Oof.