On John Baxter's Exit
[Bryan Fuller]
John Baxter has returned to USC after one year as Michigan's special teams coach. This is not ideal. Despite some late hiccups, Baxter was a godsend for a special teams unit that was amongst the country's worst under Brady Hoke. Michigan went from 66th to 16th in special teams efficiency in a single year under Baxter. Since most of the hiccups were acts of God* rather than strategic or coaching errors he largely lived up to the hype even if Michigan didn't block a billion kicks.
In his absence, Michigan looks set to give Chris Partridge a full assistant job.
John Baxter to USC = opening for @CoachCPartridge pic.twitter.com/28RLHHDiyR
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) January 8, 2016
This is good for recruiting. What it means for special teams is unknown—Partridge is likely to come in as a linebackers coach. Jay Harbaugh will probably pick up some of the slack since TE/ST is a common combination, and then you might see Mike Zordich chip in since Michigan is splitting the secondary.
There will probably be a drop. Baxter is the best at what he does and there was a flood of fond goodbyes from Michigan players on twitter—he was well liked. As long as Michigan doesn't go back to NFL punting I'll be happy.
If Michigan does end up promoting Partridge they will need a new recruiting coordinator. Devin Bush Sr., who built Flanagan High into a power from very little, has been rumored to be a candidate for a job even if this hadn't happened. Now you might want to pencil him in. He's basically a Florida version of Partridge. Michigan will hope to make up for Baxter's loss with a crootin bump.
*[Dropped snaps, missed tackles, and ridiculously bad refereeing against MSU, Indiana, and Rutgers, respectively. Michigan got a punt blocked against Penn State that was due to bad tactics.]
January 8th, 2016 at 2:03 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:07 PM ^
Sounds like he really missed California and wanted to go back out there. I'm sure the staff knew this was coming.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:17 PM ^
John Baxter has spent most of his coaching career on the West Coast. It's possible his family is happier there. I don't think you make a lateral move like this otherwise. It doesn't sound like there were any issues between him and Harbaugh or that he was being forced out due to performance.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:32 PM ^
I grew up in Ann Arbor, but have lived in the Bay Area for 30 years now. Every year I come home for a game & a visit, and get nostalgic and fantasize about moving back.
Then, I realize that after awhile I'd just be nostalgic and homesick for the West Coast, so I don't make the move...
Now imgaine how John Baxter feels, who did NOT grow up in A2!
January 8th, 2016 at 8:33 PM ^
26 years in the midwest was enough. 30 in SF area has been great ! Just miss the football games. ( Cal and Stanford not a big deal like we are in Michigan )
January 8th, 2016 at 2:25 PM ^
Caused him to leave in the first place. He might have been concerned about that situation (which would not have been unreasonable), and with the opportunity to work under Harbaugh he took the Michigan job.
Now that the USC coaching situation has cleared up, he may be missing the weather out west.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:52 PM ^
My observation about the punting "style" is it will likely (will likely ;) depend on who's punting.
Did we really only punt once in the Citrus? I only remember once, and Kenny Allen dropped straight back and boomed it what I'd call "old school" style...
Now if only we'd used that method for the final play vs msu!!!!!
January 8th, 2016 at 3:01 PM ^
I could be wrong but I think he rolled out a little to his left and punted. But he definitely hammered it.
January 8th, 2016 at 5:10 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 11th, 2016 at 8:38 PM ^
But got sick of working for a guy who showed up to work drunk all the time.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:03 PM ^
Special teams were night and day compared to 2014. Apart from the MSU punt nightmare, hellavua job by Baxter.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:24 PM ^
January 8th, 2016 at 2:41 PM ^
instead of having the gunner completely uncovered, they recongnize State has all 11 on the line and the gunner get ass into the line to block.
The play was a miracle, but it was allowed to be a miracle because of our own breakdown.
January 8th, 2016 at 3:03 PM ^
On the other hand, when the other side is rushing 11, simply dropping the snap spells doom. I don't think there's anything that could have been done strategically that saves the play after the snap was dropped and he reverted back to an Australian and tried to pick it up and punt it.
January 8th, 2016 at 3:39 PM ^
January 8th, 2016 at 2:45 PM ^
O'Neill gets ALL the credit for dropping an 80-yd bomb on the goal line, but coaches HAVE to be accountable when a player makes a mental error due to lack of preparedness. That's just the lot of life of a coach.
Also, we got too many roughing the punter penalties, including one that looked huge vs osu at the time it occured. I wonder if we'll change up being so aggressive in that regard?
All that said, ST were absolutely a night & day improvement over the Hoke staff (especially kick coverage!) And I expect them to continue to be...
January 8th, 2016 at 3:08 PM ^
January 8th, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^
the whole year, that the coaching staff failed to put the players in the proper position. Was O'neil ultimately the one who dropped the ball, yeah, but part of it might have been knowing the whole MSU team was ready to overwhelm him. If you recall, after 2nd and 3rd down, Harbaugh decided to let the clock wind down and took his last 2 time outs. This was a tactical mistake. If you're ahead, you should alwasy have that last time out, in your pocket. There's no reason to call 2 time outs to milk the clock. If you don't have enough trust in your QB to go to the line, and run down the clock, then you've failed in your preparation. Had he done that just one time, and had that last time out, they could have used it when MSU came out with all 11 men at the line, and and obvious overload on the left sideof UM's line. Now, watching games the previous 8 years (and often with Carr, as well), you could find any number of these situations every game. This was, honestly, the only time I felt like it happened the whole year. And, I imagine, Harbaugh, being an ex-QB realized that his own QB should have been able to shoulder that responsibility.
January 8th, 2016 at 8:19 PM ^
January 8th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:12 PM ^
You Ernie a good ST unit, not luck into one.
January 8th, 2016 at 5:17 PM ^
Don't be such a Grouch!
January 8th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^
January 8th, 2016 at 2:10 PM ^
I also felt like we were playing more starters on special teams. Could be a big part in the improvement, which one would expect not to change as long as Harbaugh is the coach.
January 9th, 2016 at 3:58 PM ^
Some do and some don't.......It looks like JH is a some do guy here.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:39 PM ^
Baxter's the guy who brought him in.
January 9th, 2016 at 12:06 PM ^
Trading a guy with 30 yrs experience focusing solely on ST for a part time coach who will be busy with TEs or LBs is a big step back IMO/.
I forgot who keeps the stats but nm diary section someone counts what % of plays per game are ST related and its 20%. That's a huge amount and having a dedicated coach there is important. I believe Durkin did it for Jim At Stanford.
While I did not like the breakdowns in coverage in the 2nd half of the year, the team had the best ST unit in the country thru the 1st 6 games. This is a loss.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^
I know his Academic Gameplan was well-respected, any insight on whether some of that will stick around?
I wish Coach Baxter well -- USC is closer to Australia, he's just following his heart.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:13 PM ^
I think it's great that this is a part of what he does and encourages. That said, every school in the country has teams of academic support staff for students. I'm sure they've got it under control. I always wondered how they would deal with a football coach coming in with his own plan.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:20 PM ^
Wonder if Don Brown will pick it up in Baxter's place. Pretty much his entire career was spent at strong academic institutions in the northeast so he has experience in that regard.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:06 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:20 PM ^
If you look at the Football Outsiders breakdown, our fg kicking, punt and kr defense, and fg defense were all very average.
We were ranked highly in KR and PR, and Peppers and Chesson will do that.
I don't see a big drop off coming.
January 8th, 2016 at 3:12 PM ^
Being good at returns isn't just about putting a fast guy back there. For kickoff returns, especially, a lot of it comes down to blocking, and we were very good in that regard this year - the best I can recall. On Chesson's TD, he had a monster hole to run through.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:06 PM ^
Is there an advantage to not splitting ST coaching duties? Seems to me each of the 6 special teams units are entities unto themselves and could each be coached by different guys with no disadvantage.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
I've read that Nordin was close(ish) with Baxter. I won't completely kiss our chances of landing Nording goodbye, but ... yeah.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:12 PM ^
Gonna miss him. He found a way to get 11 guys on the field for every special teams play (and get them to seriously perform). Best to Baxter.
January 8th, 2016 at 3:20 PM ^
I believe it was the Utah game, check it out. That was at least once. Since Harbaugh definitely wasn't getting fired there was no reason to bang on about such a faux pas. I'm guessing O'Neill's fake on 4th and 14 wrong side of the 50 falls into that category, along with his dropped snap and blocked punt. Man, for such a highly rated ST they certainly suffered more than their fair share of "acts of god."
January 8th, 2016 at 2:13 PM ^
Respectfully disagree with the deus ex machina "acts of God." That's not an explanation, more of a biased rationalization. While special teams improved from the Hoke era, that's not saying much. At all. To have a dedicated STs coach, the several hiccups should have been diminished.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:17 PM ^
I agree, there was nowhere to go but up.
January 8th, 2016 at 3:22 PM ^
especially the punt team, regressed.
January 8th, 2016 at 4:12 PM ^
I don't know if we've ever been as good at pinning teams inside their own 10 as we were this year.
January 8th, 2016 at 6:43 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 9th, 2016 at 10:13 AM ^
we didn't have a Baxter to bring him in.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:17 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:24 PM ^
There was actually a lot that could have been done formation wise on that punt. We had guys running downfield to nobody.
January 8th, 2016 at 2:32 PM ^
That was a pretty major tactical error that really changed the landscape of college football this year. In fact, you could argue that it was the biggest play of the entire college football season (and it didn't go Michigan's way). It's kind of hard to explain that one away.
In addition, there were a lot of long returns against Michigan this year (especially against Rutgers). Indiana took a punt back for a TD.
Special Teams were better this year......but definitely not elite.
January 9th, 2016 at 4:29 PM ^
they were ranked 16th overall in CFB at the only website that I know of that takes all of special teams play into account (Football Outsiders).
I'm sure if you were to watch any team special teams over the course of an entire season you'd feel there were quite a few breakdowns each year but when you take it all in the Michigan postives on ST play far outweighed their opponents ST against them.
Since they've been keeping this stat over at FO the past 9 seasons, the best Michigan ranked special teams play BEFORE this year was a 37th ranking back in 2009.
Most importantly proving how great of a job Baxter did this season, they improved from last year's 66th overall ranking to finish ranked 16th this year BUT also going from being ranked a very mediocre 7th best special teams in the Big Ten last year to being ranked #1 on special teams among Big Ten teams this year.
January 8th, 2016 at 6:42 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
January 8th, 2016 at 2:20 PM ^
on what most people would consider a huge improvement in special teams performance this year with the same Hoke players. Were we perfect? Of course not. It's too bad they didn't live up to your expectations, but everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Comments