January 1st, 2020 at 10:25 PM ^
Iowa of the Big Ten East
January 1st, 2020 at 10:54 PM ^
Long time reader, first time poster, and I have to ask how are people still defending the product on the field at this point. We aren't even competitive with the best teams in the country right now and that goes for both on the field and off. When Harbaugh was hired I expected more.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
not competitive off the field. what does that even mean? you want more arrests and fewer degrees or what?
January 1st, 2020 at 11:15 PM ^
So many hot takes here that it’s laughable. I’m going to be the first to admit our program looks really dumb right now and there’s a lot of blame to go around but the hot takes are getting ridiculous.
1. Playcalling. Everyone on this board is giving crap to Gattis and Harbaugh for abandoning the run against Alabama. It’s hard to run when you can practically stack the box because your QB can’t hit the broadside of a barn and overthrows WRs constantly. Hard to fault playcalling when your QB can’t make one on one throws and misses reads on wide open WRs. Sure you can fault them for calling low percentage throws, but half the time the play was 100% right but Shea would miss the WR. That’s not on playcalling but execution. Shea was strange that one drive he would be on target and lead a drive, but on the next his reads would be crap. If you’re Gattis, what the heck do you do? Run into stacked boxes? What can you do when you call plays where a WR gets one on one or wide open but your QB misses by a mile?
2. Patterson. Several things we have to consider about this situation. The scouting report before he got here was that he was athletic but had turnover problems. Some legit criticism can fall on Harbaugh and Gattis for not getting the best out of Patterson, but how do we know Shea hadn’t hit his ceiling and there wasn’t anything they could do? Shea wouldn’t be the first QB to not pan out for a program. How has Tate Martell looked for Miami? Brad Kaaya at Miami never reached his peak, Kenny Hill at Texas A&M regressed back when he was there some long time ago, and Jeff Fromm regressed. QBs can be such a crapshoot as Texas can also verify with their starter regressing.
Gotta wonder if Shea was overhyped from the get go like so many Michigan players lately.
January 1st, 2020 at 11:27 PM ^
JH being mocked all over the interwebs and being compared to the "Just OK" commercials. This constant abuse has got to hurt recruiting
So tired of all these embarrassments..JH has FAILED Michigan..let's just accept it. Find a different coach and move on from this debacle
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:05 AM ^
The comments on this thread are so dumb they're hard to read.
The only way UM gets better is by going full SEC.
Since the school won't do that, it doesn't matter who coaches.
You think you're gonna beat Bama, OSU, Clemson by having some better coaching?
Sheesh, people, open your eyes. The game, thanks to SEC-style cheating now spread into other conferences, has passed UM by. Until players get paid legally, it will remain that way.
January 2nd, 2020 at 12:13 AM ^
?
Reading your excuse-laden "opinion" reminds me of Rick and Morty episodes where Jerry is by himself in a given scene and the wind whispers "loser"
Right - no one could do better with our resources so we shouldn't even try to win, and should give bonuses to Harbaugh because hes just such a neat fella and a true michigan man. Hail!
January 2nd, 2020 at 2:12 AM ^
Too often in the HB era we see this same old story in Big Games where a highly competitive first half is followed by a 2nd half collapse. Especially vs. Ohio. The one exception I can think of was against PSU in Unhappy Valley this past season where that was reversed.
January 2nd, 2020 at 7:40 AM ^
We can complain about coaching and there are some reasons those complaints may be valid. However, let's not stray too far from the truth.
Michigan is not an elite program. Not in the current college football landscape. There is Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Oklahoma, maybe LSU. Those are the teams that have been chosen to be in the college football playoffs. There are the Power 5 and the Group of 5 conferences. These chosen few are the Elite 5 teams.
Initially, there were a few others that got in but as it is now, you can pick from those 5 to be the playoff teams for after the 2020 season and you will be at least 75% correct.
Michigan is not in that group regardless of who the coach is right now. Our ceiling is being in the 10 teams or so that make up the next group. Teams that typically have about 10-11 win teams that get into the New Years six bowls. We play in a division where 1 of the Elite 5 lives and that is an almost guaranteed loss. PSU like Michigan, is one of those tier 2 teams and a win isn't a sure thing. The B1G scheduling algorithm has decided that we play another tier 2 team in Wisconsin for several years straight so that is another. Good news here is that it appears we are on the cusp of a new period of dominance over little brother.
Why our ceiling is where it is, is not because of coaching. It is because of recruiting and what those elite teams have to sell that Michigan and everybody else doesn't have. The Elite 5 coaches tell the 5 star prospect that the best chance for the NFL is to be in the college football playoffs. Best chance to be in the playoffs is to be on an Elite 5 team. Expanding playoffs seems like a way to correct this advantage that the Elite 5 have but that doesn't seem to be happening for at least a few more years. So this is what college football is today.
Jim Harbaugh isn't going to be fired. And he shouldn't be. He brought us back from the abyss that we entered at the end of the Carr era and we delved into deeper and deeper during the next 2 coaching regimes. There is not another coach out there that could replace JH that is going to have us joining the Elite 5.
Our coach is doing just fine when one realizes the truth about college football as it stands right now. JH will keep us in the 2nd tier. Maybe all stars will align and we will beat those guys and end up in the playoffs someday. But I wouldn't count on it.
So, stop wasting your time clamoring for a new coach. Instead, use your time to go ahead and pick the CFP teams for next year. Save all of that wasted energy over the next year of pretending to wonder who it will be. My picks are OSU-Alabama in one semi-final and Clemson-Oklahoma in the other.