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Re: Michigan

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 11:43 pm
by Eric
Spence wrote:I do think you underestimate how well Harbaugh has done. The cupboards weren't completely bare when he came, but they were close. The state of Michigan isn't exactly a hotbed of recruiting talent so a Michigan coach has to recruit mostly out of state. When you don't have a reputation developing players or being a national contender it is very hard to get players. Harbaugh has done that part well. I think he is a head case, but he has proven he can coach.


Hoke's defensive recruits won those 10 games last year. The offense was still a cluster____ that cost them two of their three losses. Once those players graduated, the second rank wasn't up to snuff. It was a mixture of Hoke's and Harbaugh's people, but they just crapped the bed. The receivers were mediocre, QB was horrible, offensive line was horrible. Secondary gave up too many big plays in big spots.

I'd give Harbaugh a solid C so far through 3 years. Not worth $7 million per year.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 11:45 pm
by Eric
It's not like Michigan had mid-major level talent to work with this year for Harbaugh. I've seen so many coaches do more with less. Dantonio is case-in-point. And you should check out MSU's recruiting this year, they are on the upswing versus what they normally get. And they mostly get the Ohio guys that Ohio State doesn't want and they scoop up the best players from Michigan.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:10 am
by Eric
I'd like to wave a magic "experience" wand and make Michigan get much better over the next 8 months, but tell me how playing Northwestern, Maryland, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, and Notre Dame is going to go when Michigan went 0-5 versus over-.500 teams. 8-4 would be a good season with that on deck. I mean Northwestern is a wild card on a year-to-year basis, but they're going to be good again and Maryland's recruiting has been great. Would have easily been a bowl team if their QB didn't go down so early. They'll be back.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:52 am
by Spence
I think Michigan is mostly just a QB away from being good. That is the one thing that Michigan always had when they were good and a big hole ever since.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:56 pm
by Eric
Spence wrote:I think Michigan is mostly just a QB away from being good. That is the one thing that Michigan always had when they were good and a big hole ever since.


I want to believe that too, but the pass protection is garbage. The receivers never get open. The running backs are fine, but they are not a special group. Michigan's problems are masked over when they play bad teams because they can force the run down the throat of undersized defenses, so when they play a Rutgers can they score 35 points and everybody is happy. But they have no passing game because the coaching is terrible and the scheme is terrible for college football. I've kept saying it, you're literally handicapping yourself by running this offense that forces you to convert multiple 3rd and mediums per drive just to get the to end zone. Michigan, on the rare occasions that they do score, usually do so without the benefit of a 30-40 yard big play downfield. Which is what teams like Ohio State and Oklahoma do constantly. Which is why they can score 30+ points against good defenses. It's not rocket science, but touchdowns count for less when it's done "the wrong way", or something.

And it's not hard to see why the attitude isn't there. It's the same reason Texas Tech will never go all the way, in reverse. It's not healthy when you have one side of the ball doing all the work all of the time only to see their efforts wasted due to ineptitude. It's partially why the defense gives up when things start going south because they know that the offense doesn't stand a chance, which puts more pressure on the offense, which causes them to fail.

This stuff is systemic and it's not going away over the next 8 months. My advice is to pay Kevin Sumlin $2 million to run the offense with Shea Patterson, but I think we know that will never happen. It'll be the Drevno / Pep Hamilton show Part 2. Michigan will be 7-5 next season, mark my words. Hey, I was right about 8-4 when all of the homers were calling me a party pooper when they kept saying that this young team would surprise everybody while I was a voice in the wilderness screaming about our offensive B.S.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:04 pm
by Eric
I would love to know what is inside the heads of these recruits. If I'm going to Michigan, it's the same reason I'd go to Georgia Tech or Duke or Northwestern or Vanderbilt. I wouldn't go there to play football, I'd go there for a free ride at a great school. If I'm choosing my school based on football, I'd much rather to go to Michigan State, Ohio State, Georgia, etc. And I'd love to hop on the Nebraska or UCLA bandwagon right about now. This team and the coaching staff is a joke.

Re: Michigan

Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:09 pm
by Eric
Even if you want to run this offense, you can look at a team like Stanford that still has athletes in the slot and good pass-catching tight ends that can stretch the defense down the field vertically. And they can get the running backs (who are fast athletes) involved in the passing game. Stanford runs a vanilla pro-style FULLBACKS!!! kind of offense yet they are still capable of big plays on play action. Think of guys like Owusu or Rector or Hooper. Michigan has people with similar skill level, but they throw in this 15-yards-forward-sidelilne-to-sideling vertical box and when they do go deep it's on fly routes on the sidelines where they have to make a back shoulder catch and with our terrible quarterbacks these passes often sail out of bounds.

Garbage! :oops: