Steve Addazio out at Boston College

Submitted by SinCityWolverine on December 1st, 2019 at 6:03 PM
https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/1201270956355751936?s=20

Not in the initial tweet by Feldman but you would think that they would look at Don Brown if they can't get Fickell.

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Fishbulb

December 1st, 2019 at 6:27 PM ^

The Don Brown hate...yes, because there are dozens of DC's out there that REGULARLY beat the Buckeyes, right?  They are just sitting in some magical waiting room waiting to be hired.

Michigan under Harbaugh and Brown is going to pound the piss out of bad teams, beat every average team, beat most good teams, and occasionally beat a very good team at home.  This will continue until they get the athletes on defense to compete with OSU's offense.  

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OwenGoBlue

December 1st, 2019 at 7:00 PM ^

I really like the guy and I don't expect him to lock down OSU's offense with how good it's been. It does seem reasonable to expect a team with NFL talent at every level of the defense to do better than 7 and 8 TDs allowed the last two years.

To me that's not just scheme - it's also how Michigan's defenders respond to adversity. When things are going bad (which is rare) they lose discipline and full-on collapse.

If he leaves I'm not going to be mad about it. 

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BroadneckBlue21

December 1st, 2019 at 9:38 PM ^

How many points did Ohio State score on Penn State the last four years? Or Michigan State? Penn State held them to 28 this year; Sparty, 34. Both teams gave up 27 and 26, respectively, in 2018. 201$ was the outlier year, where OSU scores 38 and 48, respectively. PSU won 24-21 in 2016; MSU lost 17-16.

You’re telling me that the two rivals we have outside of OSU are able to play better defense than our similarly rated defenses for three of last four years? You think that giving up 59ppg against the biggest rival is okay?

Don Brown’s defense has given up too many points and have never won a game against a ranked team. The strongest win was against Wisconsin, 13-6. That game and this year’s ND game the defense has looked its best against highest competition . 

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stephenrjking

December 1st, 2019 at 6:16 PM ^

Guys wishing Brown would leave might not like what we wind up with after. The players in his defense always seem to develop well, and he can't magically invent DTs out of thin air.

But at this point I wouldn't be devastated if he moved on, either. BC would be, for a number of obvious and not-so-obvious reasons, a great fit for him. 

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DrMantisToboggan

December 1st, 2019 at 6:24 PM ^

Yeah, definitely a "careful what you wish for" feeling here. If Brown leaves, and we hire anyone other than Chris Partridge as DC, we will probably lose Chris Partridge. If we promote Partridge to DC, we retain our Recruiting Coordinator, but are rolling the dice on a first time playcaller on defense next year.

My hunch would be that Jim would not promote Partridge, we would make an outside hire, and Partridge would leave, which would have ripple effects in recruiting.

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stephenrjking

December 1st, 2019 at 6:38 PM ^

It's not clear to me what's out there for Michigan that will be better than what we have now. Of course, I have been as vocal as anyone here about how much more important the OSU game is than any other part of the season, and they're scoring almost 60 ppg against Brown in the last two years, so I get the frustration and the "let's change anything" attitude to some extent.

But I'm not sure that we'll like what we get if we do that. We had a good (from a reputational and schematic abilityh standpoint, if not in personal character) DC in Durkin, and he got shredded by OSU. Mattison preceded him, and we were ready to move on from him after multiple shreddings by OSU, and... he was good enough for OSU to hire.

If you look at the top defenses by metrics like S&P, most of them are teams that have great talent. Georgia, Clemson, Bama, OSU. They have great players. When Michigan had great players at almost every position in 2016, OSU struggled to get anything to work against us. This year the defense is patched together with multiple pieces that are... well, sub-optimal. Our DT situation was a known problem going into the season, and powerful running teams exploited it to devastating effect in two of our losses. Our secondary has a couple of talented guys but also some weaknesses, and... well, we've seen what happened.

Auburn had the fourth ranked defense by SP+, and they got absolutely roasted by Alabama with a backup QB yesterday. Great teams score in today's college football landscape. 

I will say this: I have spent years rolling my eyes at Iowa's persistent good-but-not-greatness and their stodgy, never-changing schemes. But they've got the 8th-ranked defense in SP+ without any of the athletes the big boys get, and what they lack in excitement they make up for in reliability. We can't get that defense, because that's Kirk Ferentz's defense, but I've never longed for something that unspectacular and reliable like this before. 

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DrMantisToboggan

December 1st, 2019 at 6:52 PM ^

Yeah, the best defenses in 2019 dominate non-elite offenses, and merely slow down the elite offenses enough. The era of the impregnable defense is over.

Ohio State's defense looked otherworldly for 11 games, and then Michigan put 400 yards on them, over 100 yards more than any other team had managed all year. Great offenses will move the ball. The modern great defense gets enough stops for their offense to pull away.

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MGlobules

December 1st, 2019 at 6:52 PM ^

Multiple blown assignments yesterday that are likely not on Brown. And if the offense comes through in about ten key situations, the score on both sides likely looks a lot less assymetrical.

Given that we knew Brown was looking to patch a lot of holes with young guys this season, the D overperformed until Saturday. We're playing woulda should coulda all too often with the football team, but I think there's a solid argument that Brown was pretty great this year. Given what ingrates we are, though, he might be happy to get back to Boston. :)

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Ajcoss

December 1st, 2019 at 9:08 PM ^

Its the bend but don’t break mentality. The problem with Brown is too aggressive. How many TD’s yesterday were over 30 yard plays? All but like 2? PSU game? All I think...Make them string several plays together. Cashing in on TD’s in the RZ is hard when the field shrinks. That was our problem yesterday. Against good teams, keeping them to 3 is a win sometimes.  

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Ajcoss

December 1st, 2019 at 9:56 PM ^

McGrone gift wrapped one of those. Not saying it works 100% time. This OSU team is really good. Roster management is a big part. How can you play a season without a 300+ DT? Crazy at school like Michigan.

Look at PSU and ND last year though? Both of those were big play scores and not drives. Big reasons why we lost. 

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YoOoBoMoLloRoHo

December 1st, 2019 at 7:24 PM ^

Is Brown a highly effective recruiter?  Nothing indicates Zordich has strong recruiting chops, so 2 lesser recruiters significantly hurts our recruiting capacity. Maybe a key factor with our middish D recruiting.

Obviously need a DC who is excellent with scheme and teaching, but recruiting is too important for a hands-off DC.

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PaulWall

December 1st, 2019 at 7:31 PM ^

He's the dc, right? How is he getting a pass on not having enough dt? "Well,  we don't have this,  and we don't have that....". Well,  he's the boss of the defense. How he's allowed there to be deficiencies at not only 1 key position,  but 2! is beyond me. He may be the best x and o guy,  but is he the best overall guy if he lets 2 of his key positions be undermanned? To me,  that's worse than getting torched by Ohio state.  Shit,  everyone is going to get torched by Ohio state this year.  But not everyone has let their dt and cb be poorly staffed. It's not like he couldn't see it coming either. 

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stephenrjking

December 1st, 2019 at 9:20 PM ^

So the question these two responses (including the one above yours as well) posit it this: Is Don Brown a liability in recruiting?

That's a good question, and one that only Harbaugh can really answer. I imagine, but do not know, that there are coaches on every staff that are more beneficial for their schematic chops than their recruiting ability, and vice versa. It is, ultimately, Harbaugh's job to ensure that the roster is properly staffed at every position, rather than Brown's. If Brown isn't the guy whose job it is to make sure there are DT recruits, it's someone else on the staff.

We don't hear much about Don Brown's recruiting skill, but that's not really what Harbaugh has wanted him to do. He's got guys like Chris Partridge who seem competent in their positional roles but are primarily assets as recruiters. The question is, why has Michigan not been able to get the guys they need?

One of the reasons, I'm afraid, is that I don't think we will recruit equally with Ohio State any time in the near future, barring a change in the landscape based upon NIL rights. That's a real problem. But there are also roster management issues with the guys we do get, and I have questions about how good Harbaugh is at that. Sometimes it seems like we lose more guys than we should (though nothing, so far, compared to the portal disasters that are MSU and PSU, thankfully) and miss on recruits that we shouldn't. 

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CLion

December 1st, 2019 at 6:52 PM ^

Firing a coach is not a solution in and of itself, but I think we can do better in terms of finding someone that can figure something out against OSU. Even losing a couple WRs next year, the offense could be very good if mccaffrey is good. We can't let the defense give us approximately zero chance again next year unless we just want to give up on the rivalry.

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bronxblue

December 1st, 2019 at 6:33 PM ^

Yeah, I would be happy for him if he got to coach at BC but on a football level it would be a blow to Michigan.  And I'm sure next year when Michigan doesn't look as good on defense as expected the same "good riddance" crowd will complain about Harbaugh or Manuel not paying to retain Brown.

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