Michigan Football, Team 140, 2019 Season

[THE_WIZARD_]

Bigger bust....HARBAUGH!!! or FROSTY!!!?

Well early on FROSTY!!! yet. He's probably getting as much out of the talent he currently has probably. Disappointed that the special teams suck balls...and penalties/turnovers are abhorrent. UNL has become UCF except we have to play in a real conference.

HARBAUGH!!! is not getting out of his talent what he should. Period. He's also a very questionable game day coach. Very puzzling. I thought he was going to be a very good HC for M. He's been pretty average to this point. I'm afraid FROSTY!!! might end up the same way. Expectations way too high for both. Right now just have Wisky and the Nutz play next week for the title and get it over with. Best two teams in the B1G and it's not even close. How the FUCK was UNL picked to win the West?

Media = Idiots

[Hannibal]

I think that at about this time in 2010 and 2014, he was saying largely the same thing. And it seems to be a common opinion that Harbaugh won't get fired. In general though, I think that people underestimate the effect that sitting in acidic bile and marinating in it for a couple of months while watching the team come apart will have.

[iam416]

They actually have to come apart. If they can beat Iowa, and that's not a particularly big ask, then they end up at 5-1 going to their final 6. Granted, it's possible you could then see a 2013 reprise, but even that stretch has at least 4 very winnable games.

If they lose to Iowa then the wheels are off. Then the season may end up worse than even a hardened pessimist could have predicted.

[hack]

Without question a certain percentage of the fanbase will take a four-touchdown win over Rutgers as evidence that things are looking better. If they can manage such a thing. But I do think that the loudness of program alums not counting Braylon Edwards will really matter. As for Brian, he's sometimes very data/observation-driven and wears his heart on his sleeve, but he could also explode and walk away. Who knows? His approach doesn't seem conducive to blogging for years on end in an environment of failure and expectation. He may go actually use his degree or something.

[hack]

Bigger bust....HARBAUGH!!! or FROSTY!!!?

Well early on FROSTY!!! yet. He's probably getting as much out of the talent he currently has probably. Disappointed that the special teams suck balls...and penalties/turnovers are abhorrent. UNL has become UCF except we have to play in a real conference.

HARBAUGH!!! is not getting out of his talent what he should. Period. He's also a very questionable game day coach. Very puzzling. I thought he was going to be a very good HC for M. He's been pretty average to this point. I'm afraid FROSTY!!! might end up the same way. Expectations way too high for both. Right now just have Wisky and the Nutz play next week for the title and get it over with. Best two teams in the B1G and it's not even close. How the FUCK was UNL picked to win the West?

Media = Idiots

Emotion-driven on gameday. Not consistently one of those coaches who writes out scenarios for fourth down or trick plays and follows that script. Nor is he a guy to put red lines on things, like ``no passing out of the endzone in the first half in Columbus". In '16, Meyer didn't even compete on offense in the first half, because Michigan kept pinning him inside the ten. Run/run/run/punt the whole half. The one time OSU pinned Michigan inside the ten in that first half, Speight delivered a pick-six. We'd never remember The Spot or the four 50-50 flags on third down that all went against UM if Harbaugh had a disciplined approach to risk decisions in the moment.

[Tom W]

Even if this whole season slides in to the abyss, the "Michigan Way" isn't to kick one of its icons out on the street. Plus, he's making them money and, at least to this point, has taken the program to a better place than it was when he came in.

I can see a dignified if not completely voluntary retirement or departure for personal or medical reasons, however.

[Hannibal]

They actually have to come apart..

Let's clarify this -- they have already come apart. We have been 0-6 against the spread in our last 6 games, having failed to cover by more than 14 points in each game. We have lost our last three games to P5 opponents by an average of 23 points, and that number does not even come close to portraying how lopsided the games have been. The wheels are already definitively off the wagon. It doesn't show up in the W-L column yet because our first two opponents were Army and MTSU. But make no mistake, it will take no change in trajectory for this team to end up 5-7 or even 4-8. It will take a massive turnaround for them to end up 7-5.

[hack]

Even if this whole season slides in to the abyss, the "Michigan Way" isn't to kick one of its icons out on the street. Plus, he's making them money and, at least to this point, has taken the program to a better place than it was when he came in.

I can see a dignified if not completely voluntary retirement or departure for personal or medical reasons, however.

Agreed. He'll suddenly regain a thirst for the NFL, or something like that, to cover up for it. And, fine. It hasn't worked. It's unclear why, but I don't regret it. It was clearly a slam dunk hire at the time. He's failed, but shouldn't have his nose rubbed in it. Let's just move on.

[hack]

Brian's leadoff on the blog, after you get past the expressions of existentialism, is an excellent quick history of staff churn. Very steady on the defensive side of the ball, with Brown leading a steady group of position coaches (who get good results I'd argue save for DL). Total opposite on the offensive side, where Harbaugh himself spends most of his time. And Brian points to the recruiting disaster a few years ago leading to a new recruiting coordinator. You can call Don Brown an iffy DC, or a guy who gives away games, but it's clear that the only area where there's sufficient continuity and results is the defense. Everything else, on the field and off, is full of staff churn and chaos.

[Hannibal]

Call me an apologist for Brown but I can't really get mad at the guy. The defense has tanked mostly in coincidence with the rest of the team. I still think that he has enough of a track record pre-Michigan and then in his first 35 games at Michigan for us to know what he is. I just don't buy that somebody discovered the secret sauce all of a sudden in November, 2018 and since then it's Kryptonite.

[Hannibal]

Got a link to that column? It's not showing up for me.

[hack]

If talking to me, I mean the podcast.

I more-or-less agree about Brown. In a world in which the offense does its job, the wisdom of ``solve problems with aggression" is a discussion you can have. And you can try to work on more fortitude, because you've seen defenses that just can't hold for 60 minutes knowing that the offense is never going to help, but a few that actually can, and that mindset is needed here. But at this point, Brown isn't the problem.

[froot loops]

Its not so much a secret sauce, it goes for anyone who is blitz heavy. You recruit the big 4 and 5 star players so you don't have to blitz so much. In a perfect world your defensive coach should be able to run base. Every time you blitz you are exposing yourself.

[hack]

It's not like he was blitz-heavy last year. It was the question of man-to-man vs zone, and that they played zone most of the second half against OSU, but execution was an issue since they'd hardly practiced it. They hadn't done much practice of the common, bog-standard defense you deploy against that offense, because his base is man and pressure. He's not interested in keeping it all in front of you, preventing the big gains, and calling for pressure judiciously. Which goes back to, again, a ridiculous approach to risk management that includes the risks of blitzing too much, but isn't fully completely that. He just has his own approach that isn't quite balanced, and maybe comes with a more promising payoff at a smaller school where you have to scheme your way into it because you can't recruit those DL.

[Hannibal]

I'll bet that Brown, undermanned as he was at UConn and BC, never gave up 350 rushing yards in a game at either of those two stops.