Western Michigan @ Michigan, Saturday, Sept. 8th, Noon EDT, FS1/FSgo Video

[Detroit Dan]

[iam416]

I read the article, too. And as a quick reminder -- the ingenious pro-style offense we should look out for -- when HARBAUGH!!! gets his next Andrew Luck! -- went up to Eugene in the biggest game he coached in at Stanford, got out to a 21-3 lead and the proceeded to get their doors blown all the way off the rest of the game to the tune of 49-10.

But beyond that, I'm not sure what the point is as it relates to HARBAUGH!!!! If I know JB like I think I do, then the point is that HARBAUGH!!! knows that to win on the highest level he needs to coach a more complex passing attack that can dismantle mighty Alabama or the like. And that's exactly what he's doing, but it takes time to do that in college, so the results aren't necessarily going to come in, say, 3 years or even 4 years.

tl;dr Harbaugh is playing 7-dimensional chess.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Oh, so you do want to talk about the points made regarding the nomenclature of football offenses then. Great. Hack, you're dismissed since you don't.

I can't dismiss talent's comment on metrics. Sure, JH is responsible for performance as measured by available metrics. But I think that how that performance is achieved at the college level is relevant and in forums like these provides for a decent back and forth on the subject.

talent, you're right again on what position I'd take with regard to Harbaughffense: "the point is that HARBAUGH!!! knows that to win on the highest level he needs to coach a more complex passing attack that can dismantle mighty Alabama or the like. And that's exactly what he's doing, but it takes time to do that in college, so the results aren't necessarily going to come in, say, 3 years or even 4 years."

I'd add this: the salient point relating to M's performance is the impact of the two circumstances I think most observers agree on that have negatively affected M's football performance: (1) OL recruiting and development, (2) QBs.

I thought the article I linked to made it very clear that those two elements of football at the pro level have the biggest impact on success in the NFL. Receivers and, in this author's viewpoint, TEs also contribute. So, if Harbaugh intends to implement a run-centric offense that incorporates the concepts of 11 and 21 personnel formations similar to those used by successful NFL teams and including the WCO passing concepts, he has to recruit and develop offensive linemen and QBs. That he has been unable to do that..... yet...... tells most of the story of why he has yet to win the expected championships.

Could Harbaugh have done better in recruiting and developing OL and QBs? If he had done so would he have won at least a BT Championship? Certainly and probably and if we want to hold him accountable for that, I'm good with that. But, you have to view that accountability in light of the steps he's taken to address those two critical areas.

Fans who fail to do that and at the same time complain about M's on field performance without an understanding of Harbaughffense, it's goals, shortcomings and potential ought to be outed for their unwillingness to learn terms and put performance in perspective.

At the same time, I get what fans are angry about given M's performance in SB and the implications of the loss to ND. I'm glad to entertain and address those complaints here and elsewhere when I see them. But it is patently wrong to criticize players or coaches without understanding some of the stuff I've posted here and realizing these tend to be reasonable and mitigating factors in Harbaugh's case and as it relates to M's on-field performance. Some would call them excuses. Fine, but I think that sort of reasoning comes up short in the fairness department. JMO.

[Jeff Buchanan]

So there you have it, Harbaugh has sold his soul to the devil by going with the running game. He wins the games against the lesser teams, but loses to the better teams. A chip off of Bo Schembechler's block.

OK -- Somebody needs to talk me down here. Fast

OK, Dan, I'll try to do that.

The college game is more about match-ups than the pro-game and that's because player talent levels vary greatly at the college level, not so much in the pros. That means, to me anyway, that you can have a running game that can be successful at the college level that is unlikely to be at the NFL level. That's why programs install offenses with running QBs. So, no, I don't think Jim has sold his soul to the running game that is going to disappear in college football as a passing attack, by the nature and growth of college ball, is going to suddenly become predominant.

As the college game advances, as HS players entering CFB programs become stronger and more athletic and then are further developed by sophisticated training once they are in the program, I see incorporating a running QB featuring the read option a risky proposition. I think you are already seeing that in the injury to Adrian Martinez and what I observe is a shift from QBs in the Blue Blood programs to stouter versions of what you still might call a running QB, e.g., osu's Dwayne Haskins and Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa.

At the same time, the kinds of QBs Rich Rodriguez's offenses featured, e.g., Denard Robinson, aren't going to be seen in the consistently elite programs because of the inherent injury risk present in deploying them in offenses that fit their skill sets. I think you will still see them in Division 1 and those second and third tier DIV 1 programs using them will still provide challenges to the top programs. You won't see them in the NFL. The era of the Michael Vicks at the pro level is over.

One other thing. Harbaughffense with a decent QB, an ascending one, as JH labels Patterson, already has a pretty good running game when the QB can pass. I think that is absolutely critical for Harbaugh to have a successful passing attack for him to get of the schnide that includes criticism that his offense is stale, reflects a stubborn conviction to the offenses of the 70s and 80s - "3 yards and a cloud of dust" that Woody made famous and Bo emulated, is too complex, blah, blah, blah. That passing attack has to include all the aspects of the NFL, WCO passing concepts.

If you're paying attention, both Patterson and McCaffrey executed passing plays like that. So, the ingredients, I've called it the framework, for football success with Harbaughffense are there. The QB stable is improving and JH is directly responsible for that. Issues with the OL have been addressed with the firing of Tim Drevno and the hiring of Ed Warriner - it's going to take time, a lot of it, to fix that problem but I can see light at the end of the tunnel when critics only see darkness.

So, yeah, Dan, you can step of the ledge now.

[iam416]

Of course, "light at the end of the tunnel" in Year 4 isn't a particularly encouraging thing. That's been one long ass tunnel.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yep, and I've explained pretty thoroughly why. But M fans, and CFB fans in general, are notoriously impatient. The one thing I have worked the most diligently on in my personal life is patience. I'm getting a lot of practice doing that with Michigan football.

[iam416]

Heh. Indeed. Yeah, I just don't cut the HC much slack in Year 4 when it comes to poor positional units.

I think it's vital to your defense of HARBAUGH!!! that his offense show at least effective competence against a good defensive team this season. Or you will continue to exercise patience and talk of greener grass, lights at the end of tunnels, darkness before the dawn and other promised land methaphors for offensive success.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Sure, there's no telling if Harbaughffense, in it's current form, will do well in the remainder of the schedule. The obstacles to declaring, "see, it does work, are considerable."

I will say, after the first two weeks of CFB involving M's games through PSU, things look a bit better than they did in the pre-season based on Fancy Stats and immediately following the ND loss. Neb may not have Martinez at full strength, Fitzgerald may not have the typically troublesome teams he puts on the field, Hornibrook hasn't looked great (although so, what, they have Jonathan Taylor who does) and may have to be better than he has shown to win at the Big House v. an awfully good M secondary, Maryland looks pretty good in spite of Durkin's shit, MSU's secondary is weak and, finally, PSU without Saquan and Moorehead and only Franklin and McSorely - I'm liking the long term outlook for PSU with that and it's not good for them.

IMO, the most imminent test is NfW on the road. Harbaugh has under-performed on every road game he's coached at M. His road record is not terrible but M has struggled in unfriendly stadia. I think it is definite litmus test for Michigan football.

I don't mean to diss Nebraska. That too will be a decent test and particularly for our view-points about Harbaughffense versus any of the offenses in CFB that have a distinctly different flavor to them than Harbaugh's offense does. But right now, it doesn't feel like a loss. It's the BT opener, Frost's first road game and it's in the Big House where opponents might not get intimidated by the crowd but M's players seem to play a level up to that crowd.

[iam416]

If M's offense is good then they should have no more than 2 losses when they play Ohio State.

[drok]

If M's offense is good then they should have no more than 2 losses when they play Ohio State.

Define good.
But yeah, I think that's accurate.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Define good.
But yeah, I think that's accurate.

I can but you probably don't want me to do that. AMIRIGHT!

[WingsFan]

Michigan was 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games when favored by 20+ points. Western Michigan was 4-0 ATS as a 20+ pt underdog coming in. Michigan busted that trend 49-3.

[hack]

Jeff you don't have to write a novel or give yourself whiplash to develop an informed opinion. Nor do you need to stick your nose in the theory. Fact is that every gap one adds to the LOS is a potential missed assignment, so obviously there's a higher degree of difficulty vs the spread. We've had two consecutive coaches chase this and fail. We see competent versions of it in EL and Madison. Maybe a little less time in football's ivory tower, and instead, a comparison to those programs is a better use of your considerable reserves of time and energy to ponder Michigan football. One of them famously churns out good linemen from 3-star types. That can be done. In fact we have a guy on the staff now who has a track record of taking non-elite kids and putting together elite OLs. So that's a huge one here -- why aren't players developing to their fullest in so many cases?

IMO the other big things I wonder about re JH are a non-systemic approach to in-game risk taking -- note the patience displayed by Meyer in the '16 game as JH did risky things that gave OSU points -- and making things too complicated. He wouldn't be the first coach to find success in simplification, which he was given credit for doing for his QBs pre-Luck, and slowly adding to his tight little system until it's a messy approach. Lastly, Pepcat. What the fuck was he thinking with that shit?

[Hannibal]

Wisconsin runs lots more jet sweep actions to keep the defense honest. They'll give it to a guy on the jet sweep 10 times in a game if it is working (see: Melvin Gordon). That's also how Matt Canada got James Conner free for a bunch of yards as PItt. I think that kind of offense can work but the Harbaughffense feels very much like a Debord outfit now. You set a few series on fire so that you can set up one big play. It's a formula to score in the teens against the OSUs of the world. That's a conservative 1990s attitude and not how teams are winning now.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'll try to address the two posts above as briefly as possible. You all deserve that, seriously:

Wisconsin: They churn out OL that perform in their system because their system has been in place, essentially uninterrupted but for minor tweaks, for 20+ years. It started with Alvarez who still holds sway over every aspect of Wisconsin football. We know that Harbaugh addressed his OL problems during the off-season with the hiring of Ed Warriner. I hope he retires from his current job like Jerry Hanlon did after 20 years with Bo and Lloyd. I can go into a lot more detail on this but won't.

I'm not sure I understand what "keeping a defense honest" by running jet sweeps means in the context of the discussion of what Harbaughffense is. Frankly, and I think I've said this, Harbaugh's approach to offense is run-centric but depends greatly on WCO passing concepts to achieve run success. That is nothing like Mike DeBord ran at M that he gets dinged for and nothing like he has run anywhere that he has been an OC or a HC. I don't think DeBord employs anything suggesting he understands WCO passing concepts at IU or how these work into the kind of offense Harbaugh is running. Therefore, I think the characterization of Harbaughffense as DeBordian is incorrect.