WTKA Roundtable 3/14/2024: Josh Wallace But Fast
Things Discussed:
- Tony Alford: What does it say about Ohio State? Ryan Day's program might have a culture problem. If he loses to Michigan [they get to play one or two more times but] he's out, right?
- Seth checks OSU's schedule; somehow they got just @Oregon and vs PSU out of the Big Ten powers, so yeah, he could get to Michigan unscathed.
- You'd think Alford wouldn't be worried about job prospects if Day is fired; he pulled the ripcord early, which means there's something making being the RB coach under Ryan Day/Chip Kelly intolerable. Brian: Could be the offense doesn't let the RBs do their thing.
- Tony Alford: What does it say about Sherrone Moore? Guys wanna come work for him. Sam: They lost Adegoke because it got leaked so they kept this one quiet. Brian: That speaks to Moore's organization that they got the background checks and everything done.
- Seth: Taking a coach 2 practices into spring is bigger than getting their signs because by this point they have a plan, and they've already started talking about what they're doing for The Game.
- Sherrone: Good early signs. Had a competent assistants process, has a plan with recruiting, prevented Martindale from using up a staff spot. Making big baller moves, like how Harbaugh came in with satellite camps, etc.
- Losing Hart: Plenty. He was a *great* RB coach, a great judge of talent, and a great Michigan player.
- Seth: This exposes OSU culture issues. The Mattison comp: Matty got a title bump and $600k raise, but money can't buy the kind of Jerry Hanlon love he gave up to go to OSU, so there had to be something else. It turned out that something else was Don Brown was a Buddy Ryan, and as much as we love Brown it was a sign that Michigan needed a culture change.
- Quinten Johnson: not a small deal. Good NIL (more valuable to college than pros), great for Michigan, not a replacement for Sabb but does allow them to maybe start Q-Jo and try Moore at nickel, which can ameliorate the loss of Mike Sainristil, who was the QB of the defense at nickel.
- Wink Defense: Need to stop overplaying the differences between him and Minter, because Giants defense had more plays than any other NFL team inside their own 40, also once you have Jyaire Hill ready to go you can play a lot more man.
- Break: Sam mentions more guys who wanted to come work for Sherrone.
- Wink: You guys are doing stuff I wasn't even doing with the Giants. Brian: That's the Mikey Factor.
- Pernell McPhee for support staff: Pahokee guy that Rich Rod wanted, Ravens guy under Mike Macdonald who can step into LB job in the future.
- Lionel Stokes: Defensive analyst who worked with Morgan at Louisiana, been a DC and DB coach at Jackson State, gonna have big shoes to fill from Mallory.
[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]
You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
Segment 2 is here. You can watch the video here:
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Wink could walk into this defense, drink coffee for six months, and go back to the league.
March 14th, 2024 at 10:56 AM ^
I don’t need to know Mike Hart’s exact issues, but I’m dying to know the story, if for no other reason than to rule out health problems…
Worried about the guy, hope he’s ok.
Yes. Given how much the claim is being made that losing your RB coach can indicate a culture problem, it would nice to have some assurances that losing Hart was not a culture problem.
Hart was by all reports a good recruiter, good coach, and you’d expect him to be a Michigan lifer. He has no clear landing spot. There are no Sanderson style rumors out there and I’m not suggesting any direct parallel, but this is a similar level of “really surprised they let that guy go”. Tell my worried fan brain why I shouldn’t be concerned.
Isn't it just a case of he wanted the OC job and decided to move on once he didn't get it?
I don't see any reason to think it's more complicated than that.
He wanted the HC job too and apparently wasn't considered for it. Think about it, if him, he's thinking look all I've done for the this university and I'm as qualified as Moore... and not getting a look pissed him off and Moore felt that would linger.
Moore coached the O-line, which I believe is tougher than coaching RBs. Moore also had the OC experience. So, I don't think he was just as qualified. Kirk Campbell has OC experience at a couple of stops in his coaching career, so that would give him an advantage, too. Mike Hart may need to accept an OC job at a smaller school to gain some experience calling plays.
Hearing that Don Brown was Buddy Ryan was a revelation to me. That's why I like Sam Webb over the others of his ilk. He knows things, and eventually they're bound to be revealed.
Agree on the comparison of Hart's credentials to Moore's. Moore aside, promoting Hart to head coach wouldn't have made any sense.
OC at a Group of Five school (or smaller) seems like a next logical step for Hart. Or, head coach at a much smaller school.
This does not explain why he was absent during the parade and the celebration. There were no discussions of coaching change or who should be the OC. If it was not a health issue, then it must have been something besides wanting a promotion.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:12 PM ^
There has not been a good photoshop on MGoBlog in a while. Thanks for a good one.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:58 PM ^
This one just worked out. I've spent far longer on edits that wound up looking nowhere near as inspired.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:36 PM ^
Excellent recruiter and coach? Check.
Looks a little like Cee-Lo? Also Check.
man this dude has got some straight-ass teeth.
I do this, and my wife duly rolls her eyes
Gnarly! ass-teeth...
Cannot un-see in my mind....
P.S. TBH I was going for some variation of a puppet master or weird inversion of "dancing in the palm of a hand", but I feel this turned out looking like a very happy kaiju is about to devour Ryan Day and am quite pleased with that.
March 15th, 2024 at 10:28 AM ^
I was thinking of Polyphemus eating an Ithacan. Except for the wrong number of eyes, of course.
March 14th, 2024 at 11:57 AM ^
They didn't even want to say that they didn't want to talk about basketball. Just pretended that it didn't exist.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:07 PM ^
Yep, the season just came to an end and you don’t have any conversation about it? That’s a disservice to your listeners. I don’t need 45 minutes of assistant football coach talk.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:14 PM ^
just consume your free content and stop bitching.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:46 PM ^
You clearly are in the minority.
I mean what is there to say? We know this years team was putrid. No one knows anything about what Warde will do with Juwan, especially less than 24 hours after seasons end. So minus a semi-educated guess from Sam, which he’s said many times before, anything else is reckless speculation. And most people expect the majority of not all of the roster to turn over next year. So you can’t even have a discussion about what this means for next year because it could be entirely different.
So what is there to say?
Seriously? What is there to say? The team was historically bad. Every player on the team performed below the expectations of a middle tier D1 basketball program. The coaching was epically. Poor Ulting in one of the worst fundamental basketball teams I’ve ever seen. The coach obviously needs to go, but we don’t yet know if that’s going to happen. Despite all of this, they’ve been discussing basketball all season. What is left for them to say?
Make your own podcast then, you'll get like four people to listen to it when they accidentally click on it because who else would want to hear about the god awful basketball season?
If you are that big of a glutton for punishment, read Alex synopsis of the Penn State game and season.
Nothing more needs to be said...
March 15th, 2024 at 12:24 PM ^
I always need 45 minutes of football coach talk and I can’t stand when they cover basketball or hockey going back many years now. I’m a passionate football but haven’t cared much about basketball besides a season here or there in my life. Just my preferences and others are welcome to feel differently.
What is this basketball you speak of?
March 14th, 2024 at 12:08 PM ^
Just listened on my walk. Hearing the roundtable talk about Moore and the coaches he's bringing in you've got to feel good about the direction of the program. Likeability is so important.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:21 PM ^
Think there should have been a “I drink your milkshake!” reference. Because that’s what Moore is doing to Day.
"Here, if you have a coaching staff, and I have a coaching staff, and I have a good culture. There it is, it's a good culture, you see? Watch it. Now my culture reaches across the room and starts to hire your coaching staff. I... hire... your... coaching staff. I hire it up!"
It was semi worth it to sit through that awful movie just so I could understand all the drink your milkshake jokes.
I don't remember it being a bad movie
It's not. It's pretty universally well regarded and won a bunch of awards.
Plenty of bad stuff is really popular unfortunately, that movie was pretty dumb.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:59 PM ^
MIGHT HAVE a culture problem??
I would tread lightly on the culture problem issues. We have seen no shortage of issues in our own hockey, basketball, and pre-covid football glass houses. I'm OK leaving it as a great hire by Sherrone, and a big loss for a rival.
Why? Who would know better than us?
We talked about this on the show. We all still love Don Brown--he was a great coach--but Michigan couldn't be the program Harbaugh needed it to be with Don Brown as a de facto HC of the defense, and that caused culture problems, for which Mattison's departure was an early warning. There's a report that got the hockey coach fired that was about culture problems; that is just fact. And I'm sure there's going to be plenty to say about Howard's basketball program.
When we say Day's program might have similar issues, we're not saying it's just an Ohio State thing at all. We're saying we've seen this kind of thing in all three major sports within the last five years, and that OSU's football program is showing signs that we recognize from our own history.
Your approach is the one I'm thinking about when I say "tread lightly". It's great to learn our lessons and be able identify and call out similar issues in other programs. The level of honesty that asks "who would know better than us?" is a welcome and appreciated differentiator of this blog.
I draw my personal line at deriving cringe-level joy (see RCMB/11W) at the misfortune of other programs. Radical candor is one thing. Wallowing in schadenfreude (real or imagined) is unseemly.
I take it you weren't a fan of This Week in Schadenfreude, then.
Will have to agree to disagree. As a Columbus resident, I’m mainlining schadenfreude more lustfully then Jim McElvain during Shark Week
Fuck treading lightly. Fuck glass houses. Not talking about issues is what leads to bad shit getting worse. I don't care if it's Michigan or OSU when it comes to glass houses; if I see one I'm bringing a fucking onager.
Why do so many people want to protect "glass houses"? This feels one step removed from enabling scandal.
Our history of issues doesn't erase theirs. They are a sinking ship and our current issues are small, outside of a new coaching staff that needs to do a good job of CONTINUING the Michigan culture.
Yeah I think the “Jim Harbaugh is hard to work with” thing is probably but exaggerated
Both Moore and Gattis have teared up talking about him
Poggi and Partridge both came back to work with him. Both have also supported him while at other jobs, CP at Ole Miss and Biff at Charlotte
He brought Jesse, Clink, Elston and Herbert with him to LA. Drevno followed him a few times. Weiss was set to follow him to the Vikings
This isn’t to say he’s a dream boss for everyone but there are a lot of people who do thrive working with him
Yeah, with Hart at least in my head he left because he was upset Harbaugh was leaving to the NFL, not because he didn't love working with him.
It's an open secret that Hart and Harbaugh didn't get along. I don't think there was any chance Hart was coming back if Harbaugh returned. It's also not hard to figure out that Hart had high ambitions, because you'd get the insiders he talks to floating his name for future HC and stuff as far back as when Harbaugh was talking to the Vikings.
I can tell you in no uncertain terms Harbaugh isn't easy to work for. He's demanding as hell, and weird as hell--enough that a lot of people suspect he's a little bit on the spectrum. We used to talk about "Harbaugh Guys" in his program, people who got who he was and saw that he goes way deeper than the weird guy, and also people who got a chance to because they performed up to Harbaugh's freakish standards. I think a part of the 2020 turnaround was he started focusing on finding more people like that, until everyone in the program was a "Harbaugh guy." The Harbaugh guys tend to adore him. Go figure.
That's the end of shit I know.
My understanding of what went down is Hart wanted to be more than RB coach, Sherrone couldn't offer that, they couldn't come to terms somewhere in the middle, and that was why they parted ways.
I also think this would have gone down in January but something came up in Hart's personal life that caused the leave of absence and paused talks. Michigan wasn't going to move on without him while he was dealing with that, so we waited, and he waited, and then things progressed as they were going to.
I don't know how things ended but hopefully they ended well. I think Hart's going to be a great head coach one day.
It would seem that having freakishly high standards is what you want in a football coach. That’s one way to win when the raw talent is greater in the other locker room.
Hey internet, as an individual that works with people with disabilities, PLEASE stop assuming diagnosis from behind your keyboard! Even if you were qualified you wouldn't be able to asses such things without hours of in person interactions and testing. Harbaugh knows damn well what he is doing at all time and how he is perceived, he just doesn't GAF about public perception.
March 15th, 2024 at 10:39 AM ^
First off, Seth qualified his statement with "a lot of people suspect", which is true. It's not a diagnosis; it's an observation.
One of those who suspect happens to be me, and I am a diagnosed autistic.
I won't pretend to know anything about most disabilities or disorders but one thing about autistics is, we're not monolithic but we share many similarities (it is a syndrome after all) so there's a "takes one to know one" autism-dar. In other words, Harbaugh doesn't come off as nearly as weird to me compared to most, because I naturally relate to his traits that most find "weird".
BTW, one thing that REALLY bothers me is people who claim to represent those with disabilities, while not bothering to ever actually listen to them.
March 15th, 2024 at 11:00 AM ^
First off, I said "assuming diagnosis", not "diagnosing"...and yeah, it's called a spectrum for a reason, I get it, and I'm listening......I'm so sorry that people don't listen to you sometimes. I DO represent people with disabilities, 140 of them as a matter of fact, I listen to them all the time and am a big advocate for them each and every day. I meet their families and listen to them talk about the joys and struggles of raising their kids almost every day. Not sure what you are implying there. You can just be a weird person without being on the spectrum, ya know...have a happy Friday buddy!
Yeah, I suspect that Harbaugh is easy enough to work with as your boss and is more of a handful if he's one of your employees. I always assumed his players and fellow coaches liked him quite a bit.
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