On the basis of one somewhat and one very weird game, how would you revise the assumptions made in 2019 5Q/5A? Hopefully the answer is not at all, but … ugh.

-Dirk

I don't think anything about the defense has changed significantly. MTSU had 200 yards on an all-perimeter gameplan before Backup Events, and Army is a service academy triple option. If anything I think the situation there feels significantly better than it did preseason:

• Uche looks like a Winovich-level dude and seems set to be a full time performer going forward.
• The Ambry Thomas colitis scare is over.
• Jordan Glasgow grabbed the WLB job and looks like a player.
• Aidan Hutchinson is going from potential star to star.

The downers aren't downers at all if Michigan gets Dwumfour and Jeter back from injury. We knew Ben Mason wasn't going to be ready to be at DT. The one thing that is a bit concerning is the lack of immediate impact from Chris Hinton and Mazi Smith, and Uche might provide a way around that.

Offense… well. Uh. Missing DPJ and Runyan plus having a clearly dinged Patterson is a drag. But Patterson's main issue this season has been his decision-making, and that was his issue last season. If that isn't tracking towards an improvement for whatever reason (transition costs, that's just his ceiling) Michigan's not going to approach our optimistic preseason takes.

One thing that's probably making our offense takes more negative than they should be: fumbles. Michigan lost three all of last year. They've lost five already this year. They were probably due for an increase just as they regress towards the mean, but that's absurd.

Offense is stock down, but not as catastrophically as a lot of people seem to think.

[After THE JUMP: positive questions that reflect a faith Michigan will right the hahah no just more BPONE]

Hi Brian/Ace/Seth/Whoever Reads Mailbag If You Even Still Do It Anymore:

Is there a more fascinating and perplexing enigma of a big time college coach than Harbaugh? He has an uncanny ability to turn programs around and coach his players up to a near-championship level. But at the same time his team often looks totally lost and confused.

What is it about Harbaugh that, despite a talent and coaching advantage, makes many of Michigan's losses (and some of the wins) so grueling? So many of these games feel like bad dreams and seem to be characterized by a special Harbaugh brand of ChaosBall (I'm trying not to use the term 'sludgefart').  The Army game was Exhibit A of this. 

Why does Michigan so rarely plays its best game? Is he just a horrible in-game coach? Is he asking his college-aged checkers players to play professional 3-dimensional chess? I still think Harbaugh is a great coach but I'm amazed by the dual-nature of his coaching identity. Thoughts?

Sincerely,

A perplexed L'Carpetron Dookmarriot

I get a portion of this sentiment but just last year Michigan hammered Nebraska 56-10, Maryland 42-21, Wisconsin 38-13, and Penn State 42-7. The slide at the end of the year wasn't hard to diagnose, either. Michigan's pass rush got nerfed since it needed its DEs to get it done and those DEs were hurt, and Ohio State ruthlessly exposed Brandon Watson's lack of speed. The bowl game was low-effort, down four players and then several of their backups.

These were personnel issues. Michigan got away with zero pass rush from their DTs and a 4.6-4.7 third CB for most of the year. They turned out to be unable of coping with OSU because of it.

That said, I do think Harbaugh's a bit of a chaos agent who may provide a ceiling on the program that's lower than what we want. The 2018 recruiting class is a good example: Michigan was extremely disorganized, whiffed on a ton of guys, and came in with the #22 class in the country. Harbaugh revamped and Michigan recovered but that class is likely to provide a critical deficiency at one position or another—the secondary most likely—that costs Michigan at some point.

At least the defense has reached a measure of stability under Brown. I think Michigan will get there at some point; I don't think it'll be regular.

 

Corner recruiting seems to have been down the last few cycles outside a few of the already heavy leaning local kids. Is this a worry going forward? It does not seem to be improving.

— Jarrett (@JTAlex20) September 11, 2019

Honestly yes. Corner is a spot at which there's a lot of correlation between high rankings and NFL success, and unlike some other spots there are close to no examples of "college greats" at CB who the NFL does not have any interest in. Michigan's CB recruiting was bouyed by the Lewis-Hill-Thomas run of instate stars; add in David Long and that's a recipe for a half-decade of success.

But since adding Thomas, the #90 guy in the composite, in 2017 Michigan has not gotten a top 100 corner. In 2018 they got Myles Sims (composite #170), but he's already gone and the rest of that class consisted of three stars. Last year's class had Jalen Perry (composite #200), but he was processed by Georgia and has landed in Ann Arbor with nary a whisper despite a clear need at the position—one even more pronounced in spring with Hill out. 2020 looks set to be another class without a blue-chipper even if Michigan closes on one of their two main CB targets.

Pretty much the only issue that rankles in last year's class is the way Michigan handled Julian Barnett's recruiting. Barnett would have continued the string of top-100 instate corners that Michigan needs to bat 100% on if they're going to continue expecting the hard-nosed press man guys Don Brown relies on.

Why would people ever cite yards per carry stats to two decimal places? Plays are only recorded in stats are gains or losses of whole yards. Whatever happened to significant digits?

— n vietry (@sitdownstand_up) September 11, 2019

Yes thank you this is a giant pet peeve of mine. 5.1 is a lot different than 5.9. 5.10 vs 5.19 is not worth communicating. The basic stats site I go to, cfbstats.com, does this and my internal reaction to seeing 5.26 is to round it. How much of my life have I wasted rounding football yardage numbers with two decimal places? Too much! Let's get the torches and pitchforks and march on cfbstats dot com!

where's that dude [Bryan Fuller]

Given that McCaffrey saw little playing time with Shea's injury, is it right to assume that he is fairly behind Shea in the coaches trusting him, or is this just the sign of a poor week of practice, or none of the above?

— William Johnson (@BillinMidville) September 11, 2019

McCaffrey got a couple chances. He threw a bad ball on an RPO that may have been also a bad read if Collins, wide open on a slant, was part of that read. And then on the third down after Patterson left with his oblique aggravation he had what looked like a blinding keep read that he did not keep on. It's possible that if he'd executed either of those plays he would have been given more rope. He didn't.

Are a lot of Michigan's offensive plays "too complicated", as in requiring too many players to do the exact right thing to achieve an outcome? Or is there more player freedom and improv built in? Successful offenses often seem more improv unless defense is weak.

— Matthew Wasco (@Gleason4plus5) September 11, 2019

No. Michigan's offense isn't much different for most of the players. The WRs run routes, the running backs are running most of the same plays, and the OL is blocking power and inside zone and a little outside zone like they almost always have. We haven't seen the full breadth of what Michigan's trying to do—I certainly hope—but the early Harbaugh offenses what with their weekly T-formation and "here's a weird trap I just installed" had to be tougher for the OL and TEs.

The two positions that probably do have more on their plate are slot receiver, which is now doing some running back stuff and executing a lot of different motions, and quarterback. I don't think Patterson did a good job with the new offense last weekend—and neither did McCaffrey. So… yeah.

What percentage of the people referenced to be wanting Urban Meyer to come to the UofM are imaginary? Also, can we tar and feather anybody who would make that suggestion? Or is that too 18th century???

— Dan Bellinger (@thedanbellinger) September 11, 2019

98%. There is some high school kid on ShowYourAss.com who said this. Or maybe middle school kid. They give those dudes phones now.

It is inappropriate to tar and feather middle schoolers; it is equally inappropriate to infer anything about actual adults based on what middle schoolers and one sorry-for-partying type named Mitch are saying on the internet. Anyone writing articles about what four people said on twitter should be immediately fired.

What’s your optimal non conference scheduling philosophy moving forward?

— Jim Shilander (@jimmyshi03) September 11, 2019

One cupcake at home for the opener. One marquee game that alternates home and away, ideally with the home game coming in years when MSU/OSU are on the road. One mid-to-low level P5or high level G5 home and away (Arkansas, Boise State, UCLA, Memphis, Colorado) unless you can get 2 for 1s or one-offs for some of them. Notre Dame two years off, two years on.

Service academies? Nope!

Why do qbs since Rudock seem to regress under Harbaugh?

— Shea Peppers (@SheaPeppers) September 11, 2019

I'm not sure this is a defensible statement yet. Wilton Speight did look worse as a junior but how much of that was him and how much of it was the chaos passing for an offensive line that purported to protect him is hard to tease out. I kind of think the latter was most of it, because Speight got knocked out by a previously impotent Purdue rush in game three and, uh, the rest of that season happened.

I'm frustrated with Patterson this year but I'm also not going to make a call about whether he's regressed after two games. Rudock was horrible for the first half of his lone year in Ann Arbor, and then he got drafted to play the greatest position in sports: backup QB.

Who do you think is the most underutilized player on the team (outside of Nico)?

— GoBlueintheSouth (@BlueintheGo) September 11, 2019

If you go by week one, Uche. If Michigan manages to work him in 75% of the time going forward, Tarik Black. But also still Nico.