What (if anything) has Harbaugh done wrong in Year 1?

But it can't be overemphasized: The punt. To be fair, it is easy to criticize it in hindsight, however, the amount of heartbreak it caused, which may exponentially increase should Michigan State win it all, makes it worth mentioning again.

I wish he would draw more attention to the program.

I find her shrill, not particularly smart, and generally annoying.  She's a terrible listener (an essential quality in a good judge), rude, and comes across as something other than thoughtful.  Kind of a crap judge, when the rubber meets the road.*

Apart from that, I'm pretty much good with Year One.

*Yes, I know she's more of a talk-show host / personality than an actual practicing judge, but she still grates.

I mean, the man could stand to show a little more enthusiasm.

The running game was a big disappointment. I never thought a Harbaugh/Drevno coached team would struggle all year to have a competent running game. We can question the punt all we want, but it should have never come to that if the offense had picked up 4 yards and finished the game.

At least one play call this year where we throw a bomb to Drake Harris

Colin Cowherd interview.

Just kidding. Who cares.

1. Defensive game plan against OSU in the second half. Should have adjusted to stop the run more.
2. Should have called a time out before the punt after seeing how MSU was lined up.

Offensive game plan vs Sparty was too conservative. I know Rudock could not hit the deep ball at that point, but you still have to attack that man to man deep, over and over. Running game was setting downs on fire anyway, go deep!

are Tyree Kinnel and Grant Newsome if either/or both of them fail to become multi-year starters. Other than that I can't think of anything that hasn't already been said.

1. Running game. A few strong games, but overall it was well below standard. 2. Fumble recoveries. Luck is the driving factor, but 2 for the year and 126th in FBS? 3. Roster depth. Really thin at almost all position groups. DL had the bulk of injuries and fortunately good depth. Thank goodness Rudock only missed a couple of quarters. He will fix 1 and 3 and luck will improve 2 (maybe Brown has some cure). But 9-3 is impressive in the face of these limitations.

Can't blame him for the MSU loss. A million things had to go wrong on the field in order for that final play to end the way it did, and they all happened. It was a fluke play that had nothing to do with coaching. The defensive gameplan against OSU, however, could have been much better. Installing a 3-3-5 in the last game after running a 4-3 most of the season was perplexing. We were repeatedly gashed by OSU's inside zone and made no halftime adjustments to reinforce our defensive front. It was painful to watch.

but maybe letting Rudock expand the field a little more earlier in the season? Yeah he threw a decent amount of INTs early but I feel the offense could of benefited from stretching defenses vertically. It's really a non-issue as Rudock probably just needed time to sync with Chesson, Darboh, etc. Besides OSU, I thought the O looked great in the second half of the season.

Say the punt formation vs MSU. Still can't believe the ending to that one...

Just the punt. Could've been handled better. I'm sure he would even say that.

I will only add what others have said-  but put them from most to least important:

1. Bad call on the MSU punt- running down the clock with a sweep should have been called. Too many bad things can happen on a high pressure punt with a kid punter- but if your gonna punt at least have max protect when nobody is set up for the return.

A hail mary success from that position for MSU is way below odds of a punt block- when you only look at punt stats where the defense intends to block it (punts- in general, always look safer than they are because these stats include punts where the opposing team is setting up the run back more than blocking the punt)

2. The decline of the run game during the season- we are facing the Gators as a one dimensional offense

3. Very little creativity on offensive play calling- very bread and butter stuff that uses fewer skill players than we have- every player should be seen as a weapon to move the ball (the Peppers use was nice but seemed more out of desperation as the season progressed)

4. I actually felt JH was too relaxed this season. I expected more fire TBH. 

 

I do beleive the program is heading in the right direction and we will top this win total next year

The lack of adjustments in the OSU game. I don't know nearly enough coaching to say if that's Harbaugh, or Durkin, or Harbaugh should have overruled Durkin. But that is the only "welp" moment of the season for me. It was way too Lions.

The punt formation at the end of MSU was obviously an error, and I do think you can put that on Harbaugh.  As importantly, though, the staff should have done the quick math and realized if they just ran some plays that took a little longer to develop, like plays to the sidelines, there might not have even been 10 seconds left on the clock and we would not have even had to punt.