Bye week! Mailbag time!

I know we all thought there would be low to no transition costs because of style, but how much of the offensive struggles do you put down to transition costs within the staff (first time play caller, new OC etc)?

— Takao Yamada (@TakaoYamadaDeY) November 6, 2019

There were style transition costs, but these were mostly self-inflicted. Michigan's transition costs were larger than expected largely because they 1) went away from last year's running game for no apparent reason and 2) installed a bunch of stuff they barely or never used and then threw that away. Everyone's still waiting for that orbit motion to generate a QB pull with a pitch phase, except they ditched it.

I do think the first time play-caller stuff had an impact. Gattis moved from the box to the sideline after a couple games, which is evidence enough, but also: Michigan ran a ton of arc read stuff early in the season and almost never ran split zone, the play the arc read fakes. Speed in space was just a rumor until Penn State. It wasn't until Notre Dame that Michigan actually got sufficient RPS wins to come out significantly positive.

Also a transition cost: it feels like Gattis, who wasn't around Patterson last year, spent half the year finding out what didn't work well with him.

[After THE JUMP: slurry, but in a good way]

How much of the program shortcomings are due to the instability of the offensive coaching staff under Harbaugh? Is that instability also the main culprit for the 2019 struggles? Is the outlook better going forward into 2020+?

— Clint Derringer (@clint_derringer) November 6, 2019

About two-thirds of them. There are some personnel issues that seem unrelated to anything that can be coached up—Patterson leaving pockets. There was also the spate of fumbles that were well out of Harbaugh's historical range; that was just bad luck.

But, yes, Michigan is still finding what it wants to do midseason after panicking when their offseason plans turn out to be bad. This is seemingly every season.

Contrast that with the D. Michigan's had the same DC for four years. Chris Partridge and Mike Zordich have been around that whole time. Greg Mattison had been there the whole time until his departure last offseason. There have been a couple spots that have rotated frequently but for the duration of Brown's tenure you've had a 3-4 man core that has provided a steady hand.

When you maintain this you can shift much more easily. Michigan's defense is a lot different than it was last year, but it's all the same playbook; Michigan is now emphasizing different parts of it. They were practicing these plays last year, with the same terminology. That gives them a leg up when they evolve the D. That D currently sits 3rd in SP+ despite having a lot of personnel turnover and a lot of philosophical shift. They can do that because of the continuity with their coaching.

Meanwhile on offense: Ben McDaniels and Josh Gattis are in year one. Ed Warinner and Sherrone Moore are in year two. The only guy who's been around is Jay Harbaugh, who's a good recruiter but appears to have no strategic input. That's not a situation in which you smoothly evolve your offense because you have a core of guys who know what's worked and what hasn't worked in the past.

I do think the outlook is better going forward, largely because the limitations of turning over your offensive staff over and over again have to be clear. Also one of the main problems was Tim Drevno wandering around the offenses like Mr. Bean, knocking quality tackle recruits into neighboring states while looking for his glasses. The prospect of having Ed Warinner around for the long term is great for 5 of your 11 starters.

What player next year do you think will make the Cam McGrone level leap in terms of impact from one year to the next? My money is on Sainistril

— Kyle Shaw (@1TotallyKyle) November 6, 2019

The obvious candidate is Dax Hill, a five star who's playing well in limited snaps and is a holy lock to succeed Josh Metellus as a starting safety. The main problem with that theory is that when a safety plays well you don't see him nearly as much as you see Cam McGrone. True impact safeties are pretty rare, and it's asking a lot of Hill to be one even if he is the athletic prototype.

The second bust-out candidate on D is Michael Barrett. Barrett looked very good in the spring game and has carried that over to special teams play. He's the odds-on favorite at viper next year.

Offense is much harder to project. They get back every skill position player aside from Tru Wilson and whichever WRs enter the draft, so it'll be hard for anyone to bust out. On the OL you're looking at a number of different candidates for what's probably three jobs; the answer is thus "whoever is the best of those guys." Ryan Hayes and Nolan Rumler are the best bets to be excellent out of nowhere, or close to it in Hayes's case.

Why do we schedule athletic competitions with Appalachian State?

— UMTailgate (@umtailgate) November 6, 2019

I don't know? Surely there was another bodybag team Michigan could have scheduled that would not have caused two extended tangents about The Horror. I was expecting Warde Manuel would be much better at Dave Brandon at being a likeable human being. Check. I was hoping his athletic department would feel meaningfully different than Dave Brandon's, and I don't think that's the case.

You think Joe Milton really has a shot to be THE GUY next year and beyond? McCaffrey is superbly talented but with the portal and the ceiling I’m pulling for Milton. Curious to hear some thoughts. ALSO is there a shot Tarik Black returns for his senior year after this year?

— Eric (@bon_the_builder) November 6, 2019

Milton has a shot. He was always going to be a project you needed to check up on after two or three years in the program, and it seems like he's made good progress. However, it seems pretty clear what the depth chart pecking order looks like right now and it would be an upset if that changed next year.

I do think Michigan should have a real competition, and if Milton is at all plausible they should get him some early meaningful playing time if that's what it takes to keep him around. I do not want to go into next year with just McCaffrey, McNamara, and a currently unknown and possibly nonexistent 2020 QB commit.

On the WRs: the good thing about Michigan's inability to get their receiver troika the ball is that it increases the chance Michigan gets some of them back. Black is the most likely to come back of the three, because he's had less opportunity to demonstrate NFL skills.

I bet Collins is gone. It's impossible to hide that talent even if Michigan is trying. Peoples-Jones talks a ton about being a doctor and maybe hasn't quite proven himself in NFL eyes; solid chance he comes back. Black I think needs to come back because he won't be on NFL radars with his current level of production.

Made Polish dill pickle soup last week. But I borrowed things from a few different recipes, so I dont have a recipe, my bad.

Question: why dont they make the whole offense out of "chuck it to Collins"

— THE BRAK HOLE (@YinkaDoubleDare) November 6, 2019

I don't know.

Part Michigan's OSU problem seems to be a talent disadvantage. Will beating them require an unorthodox game plan, or will doing what Michigan has been doing, and just executing really well, give us enough of a shot?

— Ian Reynolds (@Ian_Reynolds_) November 6, 2019

I think we forget that Michigan felt like the better team for about 85% of the JT spot game and felt better at 21 of 22 spots in the O'Korn game. It's not going to take a miracle to beat Ohio State—though this year ain't looking good. It's going to require a modicum of luck and a gameplan W Michigan's had about half the time. Getting to parity is a tall order; actually winning some of these games is not nearly as impossible as Michigan's made it seem.

I've got a chili cookoff fundraiser coming up for my kid's PreK, do you think I can get away with buying large quantities of Wendy's chili and dumping it into a crock pot?

— Wade Goodell (@WadeGoodell) November 6, 2019

No. I mean, maybe. I don't know what kind of standards your kid's PreK has, but if this is a cookoff, sir, your own dignity demands real chili. Wendy's chili is not chili. It is ground beef soup. It's pretty good ground beef soup, I'll grant you, but it is not chili. Chili involves the ritual assassination of collagen molecules one by one over long periods of time until you have a pile of delicious meat gelatin. Ground beef cannot do this no matter how long you cook it.

Actual chili is stupid easy anyway. Also it may be the case for you that sometimes you walk into a grocery store and someone points as gun at you and says "this nine-pound pork shoulder is 1.50 a pound" and then you end up with nine pounds of pork shoulder. This happens to me at Busch's about every three months. Nearly free-pork shoulder disposal is an increasingly serious problem.

A chili recipe is almost beside the point but here's what I do:

• create a CHILI SLURRY, capitalized for its importance, out of good-quality dried chilis—I get mine from this place in Colorado—by steeping them in hot water for 15-20 minutes and then giving them the stick blender until it's a uniform consistency. Use a bunch of ancho/mulato chilis for a solid base without heat and then ramp it up with hotter ones as per your preference.
• cut the shoulder into long slices against the grain and brown it in an enameled dutch oven, drain most of the fat after you're done
• chop up a couple onions and throw them in, scraping so that the brown stuff ends up on the onions instead of the pot
• return pork to dutch oven, dump in a bunch of canned diced tomatoes and kidney beans (if you want) and the slurry
• cook it until the pork is falling apart, 6-ish hours
• salt to taste, maybe add some fish sauce or Worcestershire if it lacks a certain something
• hell yeah

Note that this is a great platform for heat because the rest of the chili tends to knock it off your tongue.

Beans are fine in chili. Don't even start. Don't be a prescriptivist.