Strategies for Rebuilding a Program?

You have to go back to what has always made Michigan a good program - recruit successfully in Ohio and keep all the top talent in Michigan. From there you focus on PA and then you bring in talent from outside the midwest but the most important thing is this -> you don't have to motivate kids from Ohio or Michigan to play against OSU. You don't have to motivate kids from PA to play against PSU.

This is what made Dantonio successful and is why Fickle is now doing so well at Cincinnati taking Ohio kids that MSU used to pull. You have to build those local connections because you need a successful regional footprint first.  

People keep wondering what else is wrong with the program besides coaching. It's easy look at the past, look what made us successful. Hoke was not a good coach but he was correct in his recruiting strategy.

If you can't recruit th very best, then coach the players up until you can, have them stick around, redshirt, whatever.

This year is pivotal for giving players a free year of eligibility. 

Look at all the players and coaches that have left for the nfl, other schools, or lateral positions...

Something people are forgetting: Adapt or die. Urban went away from recruiting the JT Barrett, Tate Martell run first QB to recruiting more polished passers in Joe Borrow and Dwayne Haskins and totally shredded us in 2018 and set it up for Ryan Day to continue to do it. 

I feel like all three of our last failed coaches and even Lloyd were set in their ways that they were going to win a certain way and not change anything and it ended up dooming all of them. 

There are so many things fucked up right now that it's hard to know where to start. I don't envy the next coach.

Anyone else think keeping Warriner around might be OK? Related: To hear some around here, you'd think we should hire a bunch of 30-year-old "recruiters" and generally forget the value of coaching.

One other thing: Zordich is a curious case. I suppose he's a lousy recruiter, but I don't know that for sure. He's coached a lot of guys up, though. Also, he apparently is able to tolerate Harbaugh's psychology. No small feat.

You pose a lot of really good thoughts/questions.  You need everything you mention, but the order is difficult.  

You need a line to protect the QB and give whatever RBs you have a chance (otherwise you end up with a broken Devin Gardner type).  But those guys have to have skill/ability to take advantage of what the line does.  

Early on, in the line's development (and probably at all times with the way football is now), you need a QB who can move and cover up line deficiencies.  You look at what Ohio State has had since what, Troy Smith, and how a mobile QB who can extend plays wreaks havoc in college football.  Those longer plays are what lead to pass interference/holding down field, late hits as LBs come chasing late, receivers coming free after coverage breaks down.  

Burn everything to the ground

Fire everyone associated Michigan "football culture"

Hire a coach and tell them you want a football factory - someone who can build relationships particularly with high schools and who doesn't have a bullfrog mouth!

Put the OSU starters and backups on the recruit board and recruit players that can go 1on1 with their OSU assignment

No favoritism - skill and work ethic win the job

Hire a professional recruiter who can will insure we don't have holes in our yearly talent

Hire the best S&C coach you can find...ditto with the nutritionist and whoever else can turn these young men into monsters

Construct a football system where we have an identity and hire coaches that fit it.  The assistant coaches we hire must be able to get the most out of the talent we have not run "their scheme" irrespective of the talent we have

Hire someone who knows how to study game film / opponents and have them hire people to translate this knowledge to the various player groups

Teach fundamentals in practice - bench players that make continuous mistakes

The culture at Michigan has to change. There’s arrogance and entitlement that infects each new staff and their players.  

1. Recruiting and position coaching hires needs to focus on OL, DL and QB. Everything begins and ends with those positions. At least 3 DLs and 4 OL and one QB every year, no exceptions. ID them early, failure is not an option here. Get Hoke for the DL, keep Warriner for the OL. Find the best OC/QB coach in the nation to develop QBs who can TEACH QBs to excel sooner than later. CBs are second prioriety. Everything else is a distant 3rd, IMO
2. Organize the recruiting effort overall. Since 2017, this program has floundered in recruiting other key positions like CB, DL and the rumors and reports of disorganization  due to retainment of staff and players is criminal. WTF are we doing? What are we doing? 
3. Offensively, speed in space, RPOs, zone reads, get a QB that can run a bit and is accurate. The rest (cannon arm, 4.5 speed) doesn't matter as much but would be icing. Speed at WR is the focus, but a size guy or two on the outside every other year would be fine too. Gattis's philosophy is good here. Either that or go to the Wisc model fully like how we though JH would stay with back in '15-16. I think it could work, but it'll require major league QB play and coaching.
4. Defenisively, IDK. Football has moved away from the defensive version of the game for 40 years now. There are no defenses that can stop the best 10-15 offenses they way we would expect- less than 20pts is not reasonable to expect anymore against these teams. I actually thought DBs system was the best available. Aggressive, get pressure, play man more than not and win with better athletes. Could have thrown in more zone blitzes to stop quick slant plays. Win recruiting and teach technique, and you're already mostly there. 

All this is secondary to the thing JH is obviously missing: relationship building. We assumed he was good at it, but somthing about him makes it easy for all these coaches and players to leave for other opportunities sooner than what you'd think. I don't think it's as simple as the "abrasive personality" and "he runs people off" stuff we heard back in 2014-2015. He just doesn't develop loyalty out of his staff and players. The "known friends and trusted allies" line was COMPLETE bullshit. I'm leaning toward the Hafly train right now, inspite of his limited resume.

Top tier talent, and a star QB who can lead an explosive offense. 

Georgia has top tier talent, but their QB situation has been shaky lately. From was good, but their offense was run dominate with Fromm managing the game. 

Oklahoma has had the QB/offense part down, but not enough top tier talent across the board.

I would build the lines on both sides. 

Find a coach the players buy into.
 

That’s the first step. The jury is out on guys like Campbell, brohm, Fleck, Frost (at UcF), or even Day to an extent, but the belief is giving these teams the X factor and go out and get wins they ordinarily wouldn’t. Gotta start here.

To answer your questions in order...

#1.  I'm not prioritizing one side of the ball over the other.  This bullshit that offense wins championships is just that, bullshit.  Look at the teams in the playoff.  Teams with the worst defenses are knocked out.  TEAMS win championships.  And there are years where an average offense has won the playoff.  Yes the rules favor the offense now so that is important, but stop acting like our defense this year could win us a conference title every year if we had Clemson's offense.  

#2.  Given the class we are working on right now and the early word on 2022 recruits, I'm personally focused on retaining them first while my assistants work tirelessly to recruit anyone who will listen; taking top talent first if we can pull them.

#3.  You build from the inside out and our lack of elite defensive line talent is enormous.  I am zeroing in on any line talent that talked to us before and committed elsewhere as well as all uncommitted prospects left; obviously prioritizing talent.  Yes, grades matter too, don't get it twisted.

#4.  Because you didn't ask about this I'm mentioning here that I'm retaining Warinner.  Staff continuity can help a lot and I feel hiring the right assistants is one of the, if not THE, most important jobs of a head coach.  I'm retaining Ed because I feel he is an elite offensive line coach and has already started the rebuilding process there.  Remember he was hired so late he had no say in the 2018 offensive line haul.  His first real recruits are just 2nd year players now.

#5.  I'm not sure I understand this question.  Once the first team is established I focus on the rest of the roster for depth.  Wouldn't that be the common sense answer?  I don't care what year they are, what their recruiting ranking was, or where they came from, if they perform well in practice they will be where I start for depth.  Once I see them in a game then I can make adjustments.  By the way, there's really only two positions that will have absolutely no rotation and thats quarterback and offensive line.  The rest will be rotated in accordance with situation, need, and performance level.  Defensive line, wide receivers and running backs will have a two-deep that play starter's reps.

#6.  In my program, hopefully playing time will be plentiful.  I want to mimic the general idea of the elite programs which is to use a player's season before they become a starter as their preseason.  What I mean is I want both my coordinators to be smart first, but be aggressive.  My goal is to go into halftime of each game up by 40 so that in the second half the starters can play a series or two and then take the rest of the day off.  I feel this helps in three ways.  First, it keeps your starters fresh for those games you need them the whole game.  There's less wear and tear and by extension hopefully less injuries.  Secondly, the gameplan is always the gameplan.  Sure we may run the ball a little more to bleed the clock late in the game, but I'm not sending my back up QB out there to just hand it off.  If the second string qb scores a couple more touchdowns and our defense is still shutting them down, then the 3rd string qb goes in.  We are conservative with our personnel instead of getting conservative in play calling when the game is out of reach for the opponent.  This keeps players excited and engaged and also keeps the staff's attention focused instead of allowing them to let up.  And third, it gives playing time to a vast majority of the roster so you cut down on transfers for playing time.

#7.  My position on any player who is good but not great is to put them in the best position to help the team, whatever that may be.  For all the talk about getting away from "Bo's Michigan" I feel there are a few things that transcend time and one of those is "The Team".

#8.  In my interview, when the time comes, before I sign anything at all I'm asking for a meeting with any administration who can have an impact in any way on my team.  All I'm asking is that they commit to this team and program as much as I commit to this team and program.  I ask for open communication and the right to raise concerns and/or float ideas no matter what they are.  I am taking the job for way less money than Harbaugh ever made and asking for the remainder of what they were paying Harbaugh to be dumped into the assistant salary pool.  Also, the moment they call me to guage my interest in the job I am beginning to keep a close eye on Texas.  If Tom Herman is fired he may very well be the first call I make.  The second is Charlie Strong, which, if he takes the defensive coordinator position, means Brian Jean-Mary will probably be retained as well.  I would also try my damnedest to keep Sherrone Moore on the staff as recruiting coordinator.  The four assistants who are flat out gone, no questions asked, are Ben McDaniels, Shaun Nua, Mike Zordich, and Bob Shoop.  The others I didn't mention are negotiable.   I prefer Jay Harbaugh to move back to tight ends (I feel he was better there) so that I can offer Mike Hart for running backs.  I would be willing to keep Josh Gattis as co-coordinator to give him an opportunity to learn a bit more from another great play caller.  And the defensive backs are being streamlined to being coached by one voice. 

We should also have co-coordinators.  If one guy leaves you have some insurance that there will be continuity.  

Until they expand the CFP cracking the OSU, Bama and Clemson ceiling will be difficult and add in Oklahoma as well. Those 4 will eat up 2 or 3 spots every year. This translates into recruiting where a majority of the top kids are going to continue to go to the teams they see playing for the title every year. The hope for the rest of teams is to get lucky and hope they have a 2016 type season and get help from someone else to knock off one of those 4 teams to open up an extra spot. 

My rambling ideas:

Coach & Organization:
-Next coach needs to be adaptable to changes in the game. The coaches this board clamors for fit this. I especially like Campbell for both his Big 12 connections and his understanding of Ohio/Michigan dynamics.

-Get all facets of the program on the same page. From boosters to players to school/admin to even the AV/Graphic Designers in the department. Everyone needs to be going in the same direction and on the same page from day 1. Coddle the stakeholders to exert this downward pressure across the organization.

-New coach needs to connect with current roster and identify leaders early, while also purging roster of anyone who they believe will hold the team back or will not commit 100% to the cause.

-Identify talent early and nurture that relationship to the point of recruits being able to turn down the bigger schools when they come knocking.

Assistants and Recruiting:

-Suck up to high school coaches. Yes, they are often turds, but they hold a ton of sway over their player’s choices in college. It sounds like Harbaugh never did this with quite a few coaches. If I recall, Lloyd burned bridges as well.

-Build outward from the lines on both sides of the ball. Keep Warriner for both continuity and the fact that he’s a solid line builder. With a solid OL, most QBs can look halfway competent.

-Get young and hungry coaches who see Michigan as a pit stop in their career as they move up to being head coaches. Great coaches build teams coaches by mercenaries. Look at Alabama/OSU and others. They rotate through coaches in a few seasons. This keeps the team identity/playcalling from becoming stagnant and predictable, while also bringing in new concepts. Alternatively, marry an inexperienced playcaller with an older coordinator. These young CPS VG es can also better recruit and connect with young players while being willing to go above and beyond the hours of travel/calls needed to secrete the players.

-Ideally, if they recruited an entire team every year, we would solve a lot of issues. Don’t neglect a position for an entire recruiting cycle. Alabama/Clemson/OSU and others understand that they basically need to recruit an entire team every cycle  Harbaugh/Hoke/RichRod never got this.

-You need those recruiting dawgs. Ideally, like OSU, the next coach needs to make inroads in Texas/Florida.

-Midwest talent is great, but should really be the icing on the cake and not the cake itself. Getting a footing in DFW/Houston/Austin would be a huge game changer for this program in terms of talent. Someone like Chad Morris/Sonny Dykes or similar - coaches with huge Texas connections - would really help.

-Don't be afraid to recruit athletes and turn them into football players. 

I'd think

1. You have to be a blue blood and/or someone in decent recruiting area just to be able to recruit well enough to win. Nebraska will never be elite again for that reason as their closest recruiting location is Texas and playing in corn country most of the season hurts their recruiting down there
    
2. You have to have a good enough coaching staff to endure years as you build. Dabo & Co is a good example of this. They were nothing special for the first 7 or so years of Dabo's tenure in a fairly soft ACC but finally got over the hump in year 8 and beyond

I think OSU has hampered this program badly and it's something Clemson didn't have to deal with because the ACC is meh ever since VT and FSU fell off the map of the Elite. If Michigan were able to swap spots with Clemson, we probably have a few ACC titles, recruiting is better, and you're able to build that foundation that Clemson has now. Either OSU has to crater themselves or you have to find someone who can beat them at least half the time while they're at their current top 3ish level

I do very much like the topic and the questions.  The responses completely lack depth and detail. 

Specifically, how does the team identify and sell/recruit the best players?  Wisconsin recruits linemen who know they are not going to be starters for years.  OSU could never do that. 

What do recruiters actually do to get the best recruits?

Are the best coaches great teachers or recruiters?  What should their teaching philosophy be?

And so on

I do not think this blog has the answers.  If you do know specifics, relate them.  That would actally be interesting.  (Did I just quote Neil Paige?) Save me from the blab.

1. You have to build the culture around "no one will outwork us" in any facet - weight room, film study, tackling drills, etc. ALONG with what did work in JH's 1st summer practice in '15 about taking the team off the radar into the submarine. Five years later, that culture has been perverted to something ugly like we see this year and games like the Florida bowl loss.

2. Rely on some key transfers for QB, safety, etc. but the rest of the team is built around recruiting and offering people a chance to play and maybe start early. Forget trying to match the OSUs out of the gate - look at Indiana which has clearly better skill players but guys who had a chance to play/start as freshmen. And gave OSU their toughest game this year.

3. Man up on both lines - this was one recruiting success from Hoke's four years. You can win some ugly games like 16 13 by just controlling the trenches. We're seeing what it's like to have poor lines this year. You should always have 2-3 starters coming back every year. 

4. For the returning players, be straight forward and honest and ask them - why did you come here to play when you had other choices? You need to find those character guys from the roster like Kovacs, RVB, etc. were for Hoke in the early years. 

I would start with recruiting the offensive and defensive line. Then make sure you recruit the state of Michigan and Ohio. Harbaugh had pissed off a lot of the high school head coaches in the state.

100% solid O-line and D-line. Those 2 can win you games with average skill players and QB. 

Choose a style of offense and defense that complement each other.  B1G seems to require stout OL and DL.  I think style of play is overrated.  The main thing is to perfect what you are.  Also, within your style adapt to your players strengths/weaknesses.  This isn't rocket science, but too many coaches have no ability or desire to adapt.

  My personal favorite is a spread style offense like Lloyd used in his last game against Florida.  It was a great mix of run and pass, that forced the defense to defend the entire field.  That offense was designed around a traditional drop back passer (Henne), with great wideouts.  Lloyd would have probably won a couple more times against OSU if he used that offense. 

This job pays millions of dollars per year if someone actually knows how to do it.    Apparently, it also pays millions per year if you don't know, it's just a tougher job to get without some kind of track record.  

Strategy #1: Assemble the cash needed to pry Rhea & Ballou away from Alabama. Since that is highly unlikely, identify & hire the guys who have worked with Rhea & Ballou at previous stops and are trying to duplicate their work. I think there is at least one guy at Indiana who is doing that.

The key to modern defense: Deep & dominant dline - speed at your other positions. If you don’t have a dominant d line that can create pressure on its own, all other strategies will fail. Having space fillers is no longer enough. 
 

The rest is about having speed to keep up the track meet at the rest of the positions - long enough for your dline to get to the QB. 

Here is Urban Meyers take on the state of the UM program:

"You have to develop and implement a culture,”

“Number two, you have to acquire talent. It’s called talent acquisition and development.

You watch them play, and they’re 2-5 in the last seven games. I think it’s time to blow it up. I think it’s time to really evaluate the culture and dig deep …

There’s something going on. Once again, I said this a couple weeks ago, don’t start saying they’ve got bad players. That’s not fair.

Do you have to evaluate your staff and your assistant coaches? Because when you start talent about talent acquisition, that’s recruiting, and that’s coaching. Are you recruiting the right players that fit your puzzle or are they being developed?

“Everything is fixable. Everything is fixable. I’m not sure you can in the next two weeks, but you have got to lift that hood up and say, ‘Tell me about our culture. Is it the right culture?

Do we need to change?’

Second, talent acquisition. Are we recruiting the right players? As important as recruiting them, what are you doing? How’s your weight room? How’s your nutrition program? How’s your training staff? How are your assistant coaches

Please tell me JH has uttered anything this clearly in 6 yrs.

Building a Team 101: start with the big guys then move out from there.  Recruit the best OL and DL you can.  Next up is QB, linebackers, safeties, running backs, corners, then wide receivers.  Always be overly nice to the high school coaches of the players you are trying to recruit.  Build pipelines on trust and integrity.  Find the best available assistants, coordinators first.  These guys have to be charismatic people that kids respond to and trust implicitly.  And they can kill it on the recruiting trail.  Knowing X's and O's and how to manage players and play calling is a pre-req.  Demand excellence from your coaching staff first.  Enforce that they trickle this demand down to the players.  Pay attention to every detail in practice, emphasize mistakes and work on those mistakes until they no longer occur.  Encourage and reward the players when they do things well.

It sounds simplistic but doing all this takes skills that I do not have.  But that is your template, IMO.

All starts with the lines. You need to have to an organized offensive line no matter what. They don’t have to be Wisconsin or Bama but they need to be cohesive. Absolutely have to have a playmaker at QB, this is also non-negotiable. Athletes at the Quarterback position allow you to do a lot offensively and if you’re rebuilding a program you’re not going to be able to “out-talent” teams so adding a QB to the run game is big. I’m not saying every 3-star QB who's fast is Lamar Jackson but he ended up at Louisville under Petrino, in his second go around there. Need to have good backs (easier to find than not) and tight ends/flex players. Receivers are a saturated position so they’re going to be a bit lower priority for me. Not unimportant but just behind RBs for me. 
 

Defensively, it’s all about effort and knowing what you have. You have to instill a culture of effort first and foremost. This is running to the ball, gang tackling, etc. You’re also probably going to want to set up a defense you can run a couple of looks out of so you can compensate for the lack of talent like with QB run game. Personally, I’d probably roll with something similar to what Iowa State and Wisconsin utilize. This ends up with a smaller reliance on quality Dlineman and the ability to put more space players on the field. It’s easier to find LBs and Safeties than it is all world d tackles. Primary focus recruiting wise would be corners. You can more or less, build linebackers from safeties and you can build edge players from defensive ends and LBs. Have to take 3-4 dlineman who can become space eaters every class though. 

I would be active in the portal 100%. Not going to build a 2deep with it, but it’s stupid not to utilize it more. It’s produced a lot of success stories. 
 

If we’re applying this exercise to a washed up Blue Blood, you’ll be able to acquire talent easier. So that’ll lead to the ability to run a more diverse defense and result in more of an identity on that side of the ball. Offensively, if you’re able to build a diverse run game and have fun on that side of the ball (emphasis on fun), you’re probably able to pull in a couple of good passing targets as a result. That means (in theory) you’ve got a diverse run game that includes the Q, talented enough on the outside so the opposing defense cannot stack the box and then you’re good. Have fun, let your guys be playmakers. If I had my druthers I’d probably run something similar schematically to what Baylor ran under Briles. Massive WR splits (use the whole field), tight oline splits, and involve the QB on ~ 7 designed runs, include another 5-6 read options (Arc, midline, etc.). Score as often as you can, TOP isn’t going to be as big of a concern as it currently is but the focus on the run game would in theory allow more time to be chewed off the clock. 
 

This may seem overly simple, but, you just have to look at where the talent trends in young football players today and what they’re good at? They play 7v7 all year unless playing for their high school, they run zone all the time too. What does that mean? There’s wide receivers galore, there’s football players who will be familiar with more complex zone concepts or at least the ability to learn them. Additionally, the inverse of this means if you can build a cohesive, diverse run game you’re going away from natural strengths in younger players when you’re running your offense. 

Dabo Sweeney did it by mostly 3*’s with a few top 5 recruits @ QB,RB,DT/DE,LB,WR and DB. Once his #1 QB,Watson, pulled out a national championship his recruiting top 50 recruits increased exponentially. And a lot of PED’s!