Where Did Jim Harbaugh Go??
Disclaimer: To be completely clear, I think anyone even thinking about Jim Harbaugh's job status is beyond insane. He is our coach, and no one could be better than him. This is just a post with a small concern that I think is emotionally hindering this team and need to be solved.
In December 2014, when rebuilding our program from an absolutely catostrophic scenario, our interim Athletic Director Jim Hackett did the impossible and made IT H4PPEN.
What followed that was the reignition of our program by the wildest and gif-yiest head coach in College Football who attacked each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind, and certainly showed that every week on the sideline.
I could go on forever, you should get the point by now.
I don't know if you guys have noticed, but this version of Jim Harbaugh that we've known and loved has become almost non-existant this year. Instead, we find him pacing the sidelines, with a very stable amount of enthusiasm, not even close to enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
Michigan players have always (and sincerely) loved playing under such a coach, and I think that his activity on the sideline keeps a spark under the team and is a factor in their performance, as well as their positive opinion on him.
So where has he gone? Where is this Jim Harbaugh that we love? Where is the QB that guaranteed a win over OSU? Where is the coach who has a more honest and meaningful press conference, unlike his Hoke-like bland coachspeak we saw out of him last night? Where is his attacking of each day with an enthusiasm unkown to mankind?
I thought that this loss would be a breaking point and a huge wake-up call for him, where he realizes (and says) that this game was unacceptable, that at Michigan, you can't have such a losing record to your rivals. Followed by improvement back to the old, active, enthusistic sideline Harbaugh. Amazingly, we didn't see this. Instead, we heard the infamous "We're on to Cincinnati" approach.
Now, I've realized that he has still kept up his enthusiasm on the recruiting trail, and from what we've seen in practice, and that this seems to be strictly a sideline problem.
I have two ideas what the cause of this may be:
Number One: Tim Drevno needs to be on the sideline. Having a coaches in the press box decreases the ability to manage your team on a personal level. Our offense has sucked, and Drevno has been in the press box, our defense has flourished, and Don Brown has not only been on the sideline, but has looked more Harbaugh-like than Harbaugh has.
Number Two: Fear that the refs may call less favorably due to his antics. After the "technical in basketball" incident at OSU last year, I think he may have a fear that if he reacts too much to bad calls, the refs will tend to have calls go Michigan's way less.
Obviously, we have other problems that should be on our mind, and this isn't a direct factor to winning and losing games, but I think it does have an affect on how these guys play on the field, and if they show energy, passion, hope and care or not. With Don Brown pumping up the defense, they have stepped up, faced adversity, and delivered. With Harbaugh pacing the sideline and talking to Drevno up in the box, our offense has showed less emotion, and as a result, less success.
Has anyone else noticed this? Any thoughts? What needs to be done?
October 8th, 2017 at 3:50 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 3:53 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 4:23 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 4:29 PM ^
Idiotic.
They aren't recovering from two failed previous regimes.
October 8th, 2017 at 4:45 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 6:30 PM ^
importance of a good offensive line and how hard it is to put one together.
Coach Harbaugh had basically no time to recruit 2015.
Here's a look at how Hoke recruited on the O-line:
2011: Chris Bryant (med retirement), Jack Miller (retired with 1 year left), Tony Posada (left team)
2012: Kyle Kalis (undrafted), Erik Magnuson (undrafted), Ben Braden (undrafted), Blake Bars (left team)
2013: Patrick Kugler (starter), Kyle Bosch (left team), Logan Tulley-Tillman (kicked off team), Dan Samuelson (left team), David Dawson (left team), Chris Fox (medical retirement)
2014: Mason Cole (starter), Juwann Bushell-Beatty (starter?).
https://michigan.247sports.com/Season/2014-Football/Commits
That's a disaster of epic proportions and it takes time to recruit/develop O-lineman (generally 2-3 years). Not saying current coaches bear no responsibility, but Hoke, Funk & Borgers are more responsible for the current offensive quagmire than most people realize. Magnus is obviously more qualified to talk about this but I imagine he would have similar thoughts.
Also, Dantonio is in his 11th year, he had 1 really bad year, that's not the same as trying to recover from Rodriguez (spread offense, horrible defense) & Hoke (terrible offense, good defense).
October 8th, 2017 at 6:54 PM ^
Except Kalis, Magnusson, and Braden played together for 5 years if you include their red shirt year. And they are all on NFL practice squads.
Throw in Cole and the four of them had played together for 3 years and still looked lost last season.
Dantonio just recovered from the Bobby Williams and John L Smith disasters and by year 4 began a six year run of greatness. Hopefully Harbaugh can replicate, but it looks dim right now, but to be fair Dantonio went 6-7 in year 3 so I have patience.
October 8th, 2017 at 7:06 PM ^
but personally I believe Kalis, Magnusson & Braden weren't drafted more because of their limitations than coaching. Now if they end up being really good NFL players, that would change the equation.
October 8th, 2017 at 7:00 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 9:08 AM ^
It all comes back to two things: Skilled offensive units/players and luck.
Michigan has no playmakers (Elliott, Barkley, Samuel, Godwin, Dobbins). Perhaps guys like DPJ, Black and Martin become them, but its difficult for young receivers, so its a waiting game. Denard was the last guy who consistently could create something out of nothing. The offensive line is consistently mediocre to bad and has been since 2011, so our bad to decent QB/RB combos are never bailed out in big games. Compare this to the OSU offensive lines of 2014/15 (especially 14' when they were young). And our quarterbacks are...well. Yeah.
And Michigan has also been unlucky. Right now, Michigan is 24-7 under Harbaugh. They are 3-6 in one score games. In fairness, they probably should have lost the Indiana game (Minnesota also comes to mind as one in which Michigan was lucky, but in reality, Minnesota was lucky to even be in the game), but won MSU 2015, Iowa 2016, Ohio State 2016 and MSU 2017 (Florida State 2017 is tough to judge because of the Peppers injury). In those games, pretty much every break went against Michigan and they were still within a score of winning it. At a certain point, you have to think that will even out.
October 8th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
taking just 3 in the 2016 class.
Yes, 2013-2015 weren't great classes. All the more reason to stack up as soon as possible. Wtf was this staff thinking taking only three in 2016? Big fail.
As you said, it is hard to put together a good O line. Taking so few in 2016 is going to set us up for another struggle next year, and probably still somewhat in 2019.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:37 PM ^
hell- all of college football is young- get off that horse
October 8th, 2017 at 6:55 PM ^
While famous Jim Harbaugh was away throwing Sattlelight Camps, Coach Dantonio had a 'Michigan Week." While I would still question this continued smug approach, in this case it worked. Sparty won their S.B. again. With everything that has gone up there he has stayed focused and coached his team with the players that were still there, as "un-talented," as they may be. They came out and out-coached this famous staff of ours, and punched us right in the mouth.......AGAIN.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:49 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 7:21 PM ^
Dabo has always known what he wanted to run on offense, stayed the course with that philosiphy, and built a roster to exicute it.
Jim Harbaugh has tried to switch from building a roster with the first two classes to run power, and play action, to all the sudden scrapping that and trying to spread them out, and run some zone concepts. He thinks it will work because he hires some new coaches, and gets some new reciever's. You cant do that to a young stable of blockers, or even the upperclassmen at FB, and TE.
They cannot block for that stuff, and yet he has continued to try and force it. It has been plain as day for the first quarter of the season to me, and Booger McFarland called him out for it before the game last night. RUN THE BALL JIM. Run it out of formations that will give it the best chance to succeed. Help your defense out. Stop trying to build an offense form the outside in, and putting those carts before those horses. Stop being so wishy washy. Stop playing favorites on the field, and in the media. Stop cheating your seniors, and your defensive players.
Stop trying so hard to be a genius. Play defense, and run the ball untill it works, and then maybe the other stuff will open up, i.e. Michigan Football, and coaching BE 101.
October 8th, 2017 at 8:05 PM ^
Shades of Toussaint's 27 carries for 27 yards. I don't remember anyone praising Hoke for sticking with the run in that game.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:55 PM ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Comment of the month!
October 8th, 2017 at 8:28 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 5:10 PM ^
Watching Metellus kneel and cry at the end of the game made me furious at this pathetic offensive coaching staff. The kid along with the rest of the defense played their hearts out and still lost beause of sheer stupidity and incompetence from the offense.
The whole offensive side of the ball should have their helmet stickers pulled off and be forced to apologize to the defense.
Drevno needs to kiss Don Brown's pinky.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:17 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 6:20 PM ^
October 9th, 2017 at 8:15 AM ^
disagree
Don't put ANY of this loss on the defense. Tell my you wouldn't have given Sparty 14 points before the game? I would have taken that in a heartbeat.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:40 PM ^
regarding distractions- I believe that going to Italy was a major mistake- Siberia would have toughened them more (EAT MOR RAINDEER)
October 8th, 2017 at 7:03 PM ^
Allowing 14 points when your offense turns the ball over 5 times is not a fail. That is extreme success. Blow it out your ass.
October 8th, 2017 at 8:51 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 11:03 PM ^
"This includes Don Brown who had his first major fail since he has been here."
This makes the rest of your little diatribe irrelevant.
October 8th, 2017 at 7:29 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 9:28 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 9:47 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 11:01 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 8:53 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 10:14 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 9:07 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 10:17 PM ^
You're absolutely right that the loss wasn't on the defense. They held up their end of the bargain even though they were put in some difficult postions, repeatedly.
Nevertheless, I do think it's OK to point out that running a 3-3-5 against MSU wasn't one of coach Brown's better ideas. I was wondering as well going into the game whether they would switch to a 4-3 front finally. Seeing them get no pressure on Lewerke in the first half had me wondering what Brown was thinking.
In the end, despite that, Brown's 3-3-5 against MSU still came out a hell of a lot better than the disaster Drevno/Hamilton put out there.
October 8th, 2017 at 11:06 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 9:20 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 5:25 PM ^
While coming off of legit scholarship limits.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:26 PM ^
I wonder what the excuses will be when PSU smacks us around in 2 weeks.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:39 PM ^
You're right. We'll just lose 7-0 b/c our defense will hold em all game as our offense forgets to show up as per usual.
Or we'll have a late game moment to win it all and it will end on a QB fumble or w/e chokejob you can come up with that has been Harbaugh's Achilles heel here.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:46 PM ^
If PSU is a mediocre offense are we a shitty offense?
How is that possible since we have the Harbaugh "Brain Trust" and all our offensive coaches would be coordinators in the NFL if they didn't want the privilege, nay the honor of working for Harbaugh?
October 8th, 2017 at 9:24 PM ^
why, yes. we are a shitty offense
October 8th, 2017 at 5:44 PM ^
Next year in year four with all of this returning youth, there is no room for excuses anymore of any kind.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:44 PM ^
"How fucking long are we going to use this excuse? James Franklin won the conference in his third season at Penn State."
the interesting thing is that excuses never really die- they are like Jason or Freddy
Wait till Halloween- you will see this excuse pop right back up!
October 8th, 2017 at 11:19 PM ^
Speaking of idiotic - your comment.
October 9th, 2017 at 7:43 AM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^
You really follow MAC football?
October 8th, 2017 at 4:48 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 6:46 PM ^
Not sure i agree with the whole "lack of emotion"argument as important. Tom Landry and the Cowboys regularly dominated while being as emotional as Spock
Its about great playing technique- professionalism- thats what wins
October 9th, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
Some yelling and screaming without flailing? I don't watch every single CFB game but I have not seen 1 penalty all year on a coach for going ballistic on the sidelines. Is this rule just a myth? He just seems... resigned? More sad than mad?