Where Do YOU Stand On... (your personal rating of Harbaugh, Howard, Manuel, etc.)

I don't know enough about all the names to give an honest opinion so I'll go where I can:

1) Jim Harbaugh - 4. Would probably be a 5 if it weren't for this dancing he's doing with the NFL and then just the atrocious level of readiness and preparation we have in the postseason under his watch. In his defense, Michigan has been this way for a long time, but Michigan is 1-6 under Harbaugh in bowl games / CFP. That is extremely bad. 

2) Juwan Howard - Probably a 2-3, but closer to a 2. I'm clinging to hope that there is still something in there from the 2020-2021 season that he can figure out. That was not a team stockpiled with Beilein's guys that he won with. Yes there were some key Beilein pieces in there with Livers and Brooks, but Mike Smith, Chaundee Brown, Dickinson, Wagner? Those were all Howard's guys. Beilein recruited Wagner but he never played for him, so I consider him Howard's guy. I'm not ready to fire him, even if they don't make the tourney this year, as long as no off-court issues happen. But next year will be make or break, as far as I'm concerned. But Howard didn't just forget how to coach. Something's just not connecting. 

3) KBA - Somewhere between a 4-5. I don't know how much higher Michigan's ceiling is with her, but it seems like she's got the women's program in the best spot its been in, maybe ever. 

4) Warde - I have no idea. I know where MGrowOld stands, that's for damn sure, but so much of what I hear about Warde feels unsubstantiated and like people are just angry and need to find someone to blame. If all the rumors are true, then yeah it'd be a 1, but based on the stuff I do know, with him not backing Harbaugh after the 2016 OSU disaster and this whole NCAA investigations crap, I'd probably put him somewhere around a 2. Just me, but if you're going to come after my football coach over some f*****g hamburgers, I'm setting up a press conference, inviting every media outlet in the greater Detroit area, and asking point blank into the camera why the NCAA is looking the other way on Arizona, Kansas, UNC, Texas shelling out over 100K to recruit and schmooze the Manning family, why is the NCAA giving them a pass and crapping on MY GUY over stuff that really does not matter? I'm making sure Harbaugh and everyone in the free world knows that he has my backing, my unconditional support, that these infractions are garbage, not worth the paper they're printed on, and if the NCAA has a problem with it, they know how to reach me. So yeah, I'm furious that Warde is not publicly backing Harbaugh in all of this, as is his job to do. 

5) Santa - Too early to say, grade is incomplete. He's checking the right boxes so far but its too early to say. 

(I made my scale out of 10. I didn't notice you asked for 5s)

Jim Harbaugh 9.5/10. He only loses points for this annual BS.

Juwan Howard 3/10. Not good enough. Should have been fired after the slap.

Kim Barnes Airco No idea, don't follow.

Brandon Naurato 8/10. Stepped into an extremely tough spot. Team is inconsistent but he's a very smart coach and all the kids like him. Definitely a rising coaching star and I hope (and expect) they remove the interim tag. 

Tracy Smith I don't know who this is.

Warde Manuel 2/10. +1 because he's not Dave Brandon. Bungled everything he's touched so far, yet at the same doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. 

Santa Ono 9/10. No perfect score only because the body of work is too small. Great start, love his energy. Better than the last guy. 

Kevin Warren 1/10. Total cunt. Glad I'm not a Bears fan.

The coordinating abilities of Matt Weiss/Sherrone Moore/Jesse Minter/Steve Clinkscale (together): Offense: 6.5, Defense: 9. 

"The Current State of College Football" Idk..like 3? It's an absolute mess but we're good so it makes it seem less shitty 

1. Jim Harbaugh - 4.25.  5 throughout most of the year, significantly lower in Jaunary.
2. Juwan Howard - 4.  This is a tough year so far, but basketball teams oscillate between up and down years much faster than football.  If Frankie doesn't flake and/or Llewellyn doesn't get hurt, you're probably looking at a much different year so far.  Maybe the program is trending down, but then again they could be 1 good transfer/freshman class away from being the top of the B1G next year.  
3. Kim Barnes Airco - 5.  She's the best in Michigan history.  
4. Brandon Naurato - 3.
5. Tracy Smith - No data
6. Warde Manuel - Hoo boy.  1.5.  My glimmer of hope in favor of Warde is that he's always been in the background, while objectively awful AD Dave Brandon was always front and center.  So I've always had a suspicion that Warde was doing SOMETHING right in that regard.  But that's the only positive I can say about him, otherwise the results just aren't there.  And as others have mentioned, this goes beyond the headline revenue sports.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of action on a number of issues.
7. Santa Ono - 5.  Love him.
8. Kevin Warren - 1 unless you're talking about him leaving.  I get that commissioners aren't supposed to be popular, but they guy had an obvious anti-Michigan bias.  And even if you don't love Michigan, you should realize that your commissioner should be supporting ALL successful members of your conference equally, not trying to undermine one that could be bringing national success to your conference.  Glad he's gone.
9. The coordinating abilities of Matt Weiss/Sherrone Moore/Jesse Minter/Steve Clinkscale (together) - 5 the results speak for themselves.
10. "The Current State of College Football" - 1.  I'd say burn (most of) it down, but frankly the entire enterprise is trying to do that to itself anyway.  The stratification of the haves and have-nots is going to make the enterprise unsustainable when the have-nots start giving up en masse.  It's already brutal that only about 6 teams have a real path to the national championship in a given year, but that number expands to only about 20 when you talk about the entire history of the CFP.  It's just not sustainable to expect ~80% of the participants to go along with a losing proposition in perpetuity.

I took this assessment and the results indicate that I am criminally insane and probably have leprosy.

Wondering why people who are blaming Warde for Beilein leaving aren't also blaming him for Hutch leaving. 

1. Jim Harbaugh= 5.  My first game as a Michigan fan (and student) was Appalachian State.  Then I got 3 years of Rich Rod (and a financial crisis which made it impossible to find an internship lol).  This two-year stretch is light-years better than anything else I've experienced as a Michigan fan.  Hand him a blank check, a statue, Larry Page's remaining equity in Google...whatever it takes.  

2. Juwan Howard=4.  I realize this is unpopular and there are a lot of frustrating things about the team right now, but a Big Ten Championship, an Elite 8, a Sweet 16 (very likely would have been 3), developing Franz Wagner into "it's only a matter of time until he's an All Star" (seriously, if you have some time watch a Magic game, he's incredible) don't get erased this quickly.  People really forget how much Beilein struggled when massive turnover left him with a young roster.  Kobe Bufkin made a soul-crushing error yesterday; he's also only 19.  Look at the teams you see us losing to and see how many 22 year olds they have.  Then look at us.  We have Joey Baker, two juniors in Hunter Dickinson and Terrance Williams...and everyone else is a first or second year player.  

That said, there are still puzzling decisions from Juwan Howard.  I actually liked going with Reed yesterday at the 4, but I have no idea what Tschetter has to do to get more minutes right now.  Looks so much more comfortable offensively than Williams.  The rotations need some work, but guess what, that was also a criticism I had at many points of the Beilein era.  Lest we forget, John Beilein once left Moritz Wagner on the bench for basically an entire season where we limped in to the tournament with an 11-seed.  No coach is perfect at these things.

I also don't blame Juwan for Frankie transferring, or that him seeking transfer PG's somehow prevented him from developing one.  Dug is young but developing, Kobe has taken a jump in year 2, Tschetter looks much improved from year 1.  It's happening but with this much youth it's going to be a long and arduous process (much like 2015-2017 for Beilein).  

3.  Kim Barnes Arico - 5.  Not only has she built this program into national relevancy, but it's been encouraging to see her maintain that success even after losing Naz.

I do not follow hockey or baseball closely enough to have a strong opinion.

6.  Warde Manuel- 2.  Way too many mishaps.  He has mismanaged the Harbaugh relationship (not to belittle any other sports, but the relationship with the Michigan football coach is the most important part of this job), bungled the Pearson situation, and has had many other PR blunders.  I thought the Howard hire was good and still do, though it's worth noting Ed Cooley was on the short list.  Not familiar with AD space to provide a name.

7. Santa Ono- not much to go on, and ultimately I think we should judge a university president more on expanding the university's research and educational prominence, but as far as athletics and PR he's been an easy 5.  

8. Kevin Warren- 1.  Good riddance and fuck off.

9. 4.  I need to see more from the passing attack.  I'm highest on Minter of this group and while the TCU game wasn't great, I think the issues are fixable and improved from before he got here.  The team still struggles to defend tempo, but it's not as bad as when Michigan's ineptitude handed Kenneth Walker an NFL contract.  I think the formations, motion, and diversity got to Michigan, but like I said, for a guy in just his second year as coordinator Minter did a terrific job.

Moore and Weiss have turned this into an elite ground game, but wasn't in love with the diversity and creativity after 4 weeks of prep.  TCU's D-Line and LB's were underrated, but there was no reason Michigan couldn't have broken tendency more, run the QB more, and attacked the edges.  Also given how deadly JJ is with it and how much teams sell out to stop the run, there is no excuse to spam PA way more than they did against TCU.

10. 2.  Weird situation.  We are transitioning to an era where it's basically a minor league, and there are some growing pains.  

If Harbaugh gets an NFL offer he likes, he'll leave, but I don't think that offer is coming.  The rest is just contract negotiation tactics.

Juwan is struggling, but the team can right the ship this season and make the tourney.  Not thrilled with recruiting as the roster could be bad next season.

1. Jim Harbaugh - 5
2. Juwan Howard - 4
3. Kim Barnes Airco - No opinion
4. Brandon Naurato - No opinion
5. Tracy Smith - No opinion
6. Warde Manuel - 3
7. Santa Ono - 4.5 - too soon to give a 5.
8. Kevin Warren - 3 - but glad he's gone due to his MSU ties.
9. The coordinating abilities of Matt Weiss/Sherrone Moore/Jesse Minter/Steve Clinkscale (together) - 4.5
10. "The Current State of College Football" - 3 - some positives, some negatives.  We're in a weird in between phase for the sport.  It will find a happy medium soon enough.

My biggest differences from others seem to be in Juwan, Warde, and Ono.

Juwan. His Michigan resume is:

• 2020: Would have been about a 6 seed in the tournament before it was cancelled.
• 2021: Big Ten Champs.  One Seed. Elite Eight with Livers injury.
• 2022: 11 seed.  Sweet Sixteen.  Amazing recruiting class. With a black mark of the slap. 
• 2023: Likely miss the tournament.  

Back to back disappointing years (pre-tournament last year) is a bummer but this was always going to be a rebuilding year with losing four starters.  Juwan should not be considered on the hot seat based on on-court performance.  YMMV with the slap incident.  

Warde.  This is the tough one given current public sentiment.  I would caution people against rushing to judgement based on a message board post or stuff Anson is saying on twitter.  The same people calling for his job today are the ones who were begging him to fire Harbaugh post-2020.  It's hard to overstate how significant of a decision it was to retain Harbaugh and get him to take a pay cut.  He deserves immense credit for that.  Also, the Juwan hire was a really good hire especially considering the timing of Beilein's departure.  

Santa.  I love everything about him so far.  But it's a little early to anoint him legend status when he hasn't really had to do anything so far.

TL:DR on the points system, but this latest round of nonsense with Harbaugh has substantially soured my opinion of him. It's largely about integrity; failing to keep his word.

That said, he certainly hasn't ascended to Saban status in a very critical aspect: Saban has kept winning through assistant turnover for a long time now, demonstrating that he's the reason Alabama is so good. Harbaugh hasn't proven that yet, at least to me.

We all laugh MSU handing Tucker a mountain of gold after one good season. Now it seems like Harbaugh wants a bigger pile after just two. So who's the fool?

I'm thoughts are this has been a shit show that Harbaugh deserves more heat over than he is getting. I absolutely believe JH wants to be in the NFL far more than he does being at Michigan. I think this whole shit show will truly never go away as long as JH is at Michigan, and in turn will make his run here successful BUT will be looked back on as a "what could have been" era because of the consent harm this whole not knowing one year from the next is causing. 

I don't think I am knowledgeable enough to be fully comfortable giving ratings based on anything more than feelingsball, but we're on a two game win streak against a OSU so not much else matters in comparison 

Actually a really good board topic given where things are these days. I would suggest that having "1" = "0%" is a bit odd, but 1-5 scales are pretty standard, so I give this topic a 4.5.

1. Harbaugh: 4.8
Which, by the way, is where I'd have Hutchins and Hackett. Takes a lot of work to be perfect; Harbaugh's teams do have some shortcomings, and we focus too much on that .2, but it's there. The TCU loss stings pretty badly but this is the best stretch of Michigan football since the national title and hardware aside the best two-year stretch of Michigan football of my lifetime and it's not that close. Harbaugh has proven me and everyone else wrong.

2. Howard: 4 still.
I think he's a good coach. I do not deny that the trend the last two years has not been encouraging, but I think he's the right guy. Doesn't mean questions can't be asked or that corrections don't need to be made--people calling for Beilein to be fired were wrong, but a lot of the noise complained about the defenses he fielded, and he made key efforts to correct that issue and the result was a transformed team and a number of players getting rich in the NBA.

3. Arico: 4.5.
She has made the program matter.

4. Naurato: 4 and trending way up.
Only reservation is that he's young and he *did* inherit a lot of talent. But he absolutely should be signed and paid.

5. Tracy Smith: No rating, file not found

6. Warde Manuel: 1.8
I was in the 4 range with him for a long time. I don't think you fire him now; I think you get Harbaugh signed, remove the interim tag from Naurato, and let him play out the season... and then he resigns. I disagree with many about some areas of critique: the AD is not supposed to be the face of the University's athletic programs. Most of their work is behind-the-scenes. But: a. you are responsible for securing and working with the coaches, and in both the Pearson and Harbaugh sagas it appears that he is failing to do that well; b. The Pearson report reveals a very troubling lack of engagement in the behind-the-scenes day-to-day stuff.

I will continue to suggest that there may be mitigating/exculpatory facts in the Harbaugh situation that make this less of an issue, whether people want to admit that or not. But the Pearson saga alone is two strikes against him at least.

7. Santa Ono: No rating
His public moves have looked good, but pro-athletics tweets and meeting with the football coach aren't really the essence of his job, and since my stake in the University is different than a lot of people's, I'm not a great source to evaluate that stuff anyway. I like him. But I can't rate him.

8. Kevin Warren: 3
I'm troubled by what conference expansion is doing to college football, but if it is going to happen, USC and UCLA are good moves. The conference is raking in the cash, and the conference fields premiere programs in multiple crucial sports. But he is, after all, just a suit.

9. Coordinators: 4.2
It's always tough to know exactly what coordinator does what. Michigan's rise in football is almost certainly in significant part staff-driven (as it is under any good head coach) and these guys get credit for a lot of that. I'm not the rageful reactionary about the TCU game--sometimes games like that happen in spots like that--but I did knock three tenths for some disappointing gameplan decisions.

10. The current state of college football: 3
America's greatest game and you can't take that way. It's in flux right now and there's a lot of wait-and-see. 

Harbaugh - 5 based on your scale, but with major concerns about his ability to get the team all the way to the top of the mountain. 

And not because of the need for better recruiting (although it would be nice to close the talent gap with other top teams significantly) -- but because this year's bowl game performance (and last year's to a lesser extent) look more like a feature than a bug.

I would need to seem him get the more of out the skill position talent he does have and demonstrate that he can find better ways to beat teams he can't bludgeon to death to reach the top of my scale.

If Michigan had one shot to beat the Georgia team that played on Monday night, do we really feel that Harbaugh would give us a better chance to win than....(name your coach)?

Howard - 2  I know nothing about the Xs and Os in basketball (or football for that matter), but I have to wonder if Howard might a better NBA coach than college coach.  There have clearly been plenty of games where Michigan has obviously run a variety of offensive sets, and he certainly experiments with player combinations, but I see what seems to me like an awful lot of hero ball.  I wonder if his ideas simply work much more effectively with players who have a higher level of skill.

What I don't see is any one thing that I can consistently identify Michigan being really good at.  What is it they they typically do better than other teams do?  

Harbaugh: 5
If he leaves, the chances that the next coach will be worse are ~95-99%

Juwan: 3
50/50 shot any replacement would be better/worse

State of college football: 3
Regular season still gets a 4 or 5 for me, but the postseason is still a mess

Warde drinks skim milk

1. Jim Harbaugh - 4.8 He’s the right man for the job. Will at some point win it all.
2. Juwan Howard - 3.6 LOVES MICHIGAN!! Will grow and get better.
3. Kim Barnes Airco - 4.8 Will at some point win it all.
4. Brandon Naurato - ????
5. Tracy Smith - ????
6. Warde Manuel – 3.0 Starting to lose faith in him. Needs to pay J.H and KBA whatever it takes to keep them.
7. Santa Ono – 4.0 Involved in a good way.
8. Kevin Warren – 3.6 USC UCLA
9. The coordinating abilities of:

Matt Weiss/Sherrone Moore 3.4 (Philly Special on 4 and 2????? WTAF WAS THAT)

Jesse Minter/Steve Clinkscale 4.0

Together - 3.7 I Think we need a single OC and DC. If we lose Weiss, we can find another QB- Coach. We need to do whatever is needed to keep Moore involved in the O-Line. Make Minter the DC and pay him. I hope we can keep Clinkscale, but if not, find a new CB-Coach

10. "The Current State of College Football" 4.7

1. 4

2. 3 "cruits?

3. 4

4. 3

5. 3

6. 2 Derek Jeter

7. 4

8. 0 A ham sandwich

9. 5

10. 2 Officiating uniformity and review. Preferred older bowl system and voting imperfection to dilution and extending a season for more opt outs/injuries for student athletes for our jollies.

I need a nap.

We beat Ohio state in football. I'm happy. Leave me alone.

Kim Barnes Airco sounds like a small airline company started by somebody named Kim Barnes.

I don't have any real knowledge about what goes on behind the scenes but my gut feeling from what I read is Warde is a problem when it comes to understanding, or at least admitting, the value of a good coach. I don't really follow anything other than Basketball and Football with the odd exception of watching some of the hockey, but in both of those sports i feel like we had A+ coaches.

The football program specifically has a great staff from top to bottom and with the money this AD has, contract negotiations should have went as follows: Hello Jim. Here at the U of M we believe you are one of the top 5 coaches (maybe even top 3) in all of America. We love what you've done with the program and want to make you the highest paid coach in the country to reflect that. Your staff are incredible and we believe they should be the top paid staff in the country in an effort to keep them together. Here's the money. One caveat: we want you to retire here so the contract is for 10 years and the byout is 60 million. the rest I don't really care about.

Harbaugh - 5

Juwan - 2

Warde - 2 

Santa - 4 

KW - 0

Coordinators - 4.5

Current State of CFB - 3

Take the incentives out of the contract, it should be 12 million base, with a 20 million buyout. He's obviously worth that to the university, and maybe Warde wouldn't have to offer that if he didn't get himself into "fuck around and find out" territory with the stupid lowball offers.

Like any of this matters, at all, to anyone with the slightest modicum of control over any of this.

Delusional.

1-5

2-3

3-4

4-4

5-3

6-3

7-3

8-3

9-5

10-1

Not doing 1-10

UofM has 2 very high profile head coaches in the 2 highest profile sports.  That's a good thing.

Both are arguably majorly successful.  

Athletically the Michigan brand is about as strong as it's ever been (in my life at least)

Not sure what the Warde hate is all about.  Other than the NIL lag (extreme), but almost seems like some conference pact to not become the SEC.

CFB has changed, quickly and drastically, and is not changing back.  Michigan coulda forseen this as most did and been ahead of the curve, but seems to be way behind.  If there's criticism for Warde this is where it is.

1. Jim Harbaugh v5.0
2. -
3. 5...00
4. -
5. -
6. -
7. 3.14159265359
8. Shouldn't the scale have negative numbers!!?
9. -
10. 4 the players