Michigan Football, Team 138, 2017 Season.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Sam Web, per mgoblog, has announced Greg Frey hired as TEs and OTs coach and Jay Harbaugh is now the RBs coach.

I don't think titles seem to mean much other than those are the jobs that these two got hired/moved into.

Anyway, excellent news getting Frey back aboard. Hannibal should be happy about that.

[Hannibal]

So the OTs and TEs are a different coach than the C and Gs? That seems a little weird.

But yeah, getting Frey back is great news and he'll be perfectly positioned to take over the whole OL if and when Drevno moves on to wherever.

[hack]

Harbaugh's had it set up that way before. Seems odd. Also seems like our problems, regardless of age/class of lineman, were on the interior.

[Hannibal]

Harbaugh has weird coaching arrangements ("run game coordinator, etc).

[iam416]

The important thing is that all assistants get $5M per year and 70 virgins.

Slightly less important, the NCAA is going to approve a 10th assistant, so HARBAUGH!!!! can bring in one more person to fill out the staff. Unfortunately, I think the NCAA is also going to nix Plan A in his recruiting handbook and nix the Partridge/Gary type arrangements.

[hack]

Plan A is Florida; Plan B is Rome. Pretty good Plan B, IMO.

[Rocky Bleier]

So now Jay Harbaugh is the RB coach. WTF does he know about RBs? Is he eventually going to "coach" every position on the team? He's not one of our top recruiters, so I don't see his value. Appears as pure nepotism.

[Hannibal]

That raised my eyebrow too, but he did a good job with the tight ends in a couple of years, so I'm at least open to it.

[WingsFan]

The experience thing could be a little bit of an issue but let's not forget, Jay had no experience as a tight ends coach either before coming to Michigan and he did well in that role. He worked with the TEs a little as a quality control coach in Baltimore, but I'm sure he worked with multiple position groups on offense in that role.

Gregg Frey at Oline, It' a two fold hire. Good Oline coach, and assistant at Indiana and taught the blocking schemes for Kevin Wilson's offense who was just hired by OSU! Guess who just brought the Kevin Wilson offense to A2! And two yrs film vs Indiana not to mention his yrs on film as a coordinator elsewhere. Smart hire imo. We also have to wait and see who the 10th assistant is, they could bring in a former running back as a grad assistant, etc..

[edindetroit]

It's official Greg Frey is on board.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Moved this from the recruiting thread:

It's going to take a while. 2017 will still be a down year.

I still see 3 loses: @PSU, @ Wisconsin, osu.

This would be a good year for Harbaugh to set himself apart from the many just good CFB coaches .... and that list is pretty long. He can do that by winning some games the numbers say he can't and making sure he wins ALL the games he should win.

[Hannibal]

Florida will be a loss too. They are losing some early entries but they still had very few seniors this year on the team that kicked the shit out of Iowa in the bowl game.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Florida will be a loss too. They are losing some early entries but they still had very few seniors this year on the team that kicked the shit out of Iowa in the bowl game.

Here's what Bill Connely has to say about UF and what returning experience does for offense and defense:

FLORIDA: Projected offense increase of 2.7. Defense projected to drop by 2 ppg. The total increase of 0.7 would place the Gators at 15th (14.8 ppg above average) in the country, setting Michigan, 13th ranked team 2017 (in this analysis) up for a potentially very evenly matched opening bout, especially when considering the neutral field.

The ??? for this game is can M's offense be better than it was in 2016. They won't win this game unless it is ..... a lot better. Given the OL that's going to be tough.

[The Oracle]

Florida will not be a loss.

[WM Wolverine]

8-4 with a Holiday Bowl appearance... I'll change my mind after seeing them vs Florida, way too many question marks by young, inexperienced players getting much more PT.