Michigan Football, Team 140, 2019 Season

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yeah, I've seen the talk. Nobody seems to want Pep in the NFL and he's not Drevno meaning Harbaugh is not going to show him the door like I think he did Drevno.

I've said from the start or at the end of the season, the offense needs to change and I don't care if Pep stays or goes. He's not the problem. Harbaugh is.

[hack]

Drevno had served under Harbaugh for much longer than Pep has, so strictly from a time-served perspective there's no reason Pep's owed more loyalty. He's perhaps owed less. But if Pep's around, as long as Harbaugh has a plan to keep Pep from doing to Gattis what Drevno did to Frey, well, fine. Whatever.

[drok]

Difference between Pep and Drev could be as simple as they were able to find Drev a job, but have been unsuccessful with Pep.

[hack]

Drevno didn't leave until late February last year. So there's still plenty of time.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Below is an unusually good mgoboard discussion about M's offense under Harbaugh. The central focus is on the oft criticized mechanism for game day play calling. Once again, and as usual, you have to scroll through the shit to get to the gems but they are there.

In reading this thread, I came up with a couple of things seem to fit what my eyeball saw:

• Harbaugh has a singular philosophy about the game of football that permeates M's offense: he wants to play a body blow kind of game that wears on the opponent's defense so that the team can win the game in the 4th quarter. The passing game is a part of that but it plays a limited role overall. The defense is a bigger part of it and Harbaugh relies on and plays to it almost to a fault.
• I cut and pasted these posts because they explain the committee approach to play calling, how it works and that it is a fairly common - it seems however that how the game plan is developed pre-game is a function of the structure of the in game play-calling, by committee scheme. The net result is a team that knows how to possess the ball and play to the defense but one that doesn't know how to run tempo and score points when it needs to because there's not enough time to practice it:

Magnus

January 22nd, 2019 at 11:52 AM ^

As an OC (or any member of that group), you have to think of plays/concepts ahead of time. It's not unusual to have two or three people involved, but I do know some coaches who don't like to be a part of that type of system. Some people want full control, even if it means they're taken out of the equation.

When I say you need to think ahead, play 1 of a drive needs to be setting up play 3 or play 4. So if I'm the run game coordinator calling, say, inside zone on 1st-and-10 out of trips to the field, then Coach Y as the passing game coordinator needs to be looking at what he can run on 3rd-and-7 out of the same formation. You can obviously come back to it the next drive, but that's how those things need to work.

Conversely, if you're the passing game coordinator and you want to set up a play action pass off of a certain formation/motion/personnel grouping, then you need to say to the run game coordinator, "Hey, next drive, let's set up our Divide off play action by running power to the left" or something like that.

Obviously, that means your passing game coordinator needs to understand the game plan for the run, and your run game coordinator needs to understand what he's setting up in the passing game. And if the head coach has the final say in that process, then he needs to know it, too. So there's a lot of coordination (key word!) involved, and you can see how it might get bogged down.

stephenrjking

January 22nd, 2019 at 1:37 PM ^

................The issue isn't that they take a while when they have time, of course. When you're sitting on a two-score lead early in the fourth quarter bleeding clock is a positive. I don't care if they normally have this process; the problem seems to be that something in the way they've chosen to prepare precludes repping any other process for running plays other than the 2-minute drill.

There's no hurry-up with nine minutes to go. There is a 2-minute drill, and entirely different process that likely has a very limited playbook, and then there is the process that lines up with 15 to 10 seconds left on the clock.

There needs to be a better process for that. The idea concept, in my thinking, is to streamline the process such that you can have players lining up 15 seconds after the ready-for-play, and then just slow that process down when you don't need to go fast. But I don't get paid millions of dollars to coach.

• One thing I definitely noticed in 2018 was an inability to adjust to a point scoring tempo offense from a body blow, possession offense when the opponent was leading. ND, osu and UF are examples. The latter two losses, really good examples of this. Harbaugh kept running the possession game when it was clear the tempo, score points offense was needed. Why? Nobody knows for sure but see the points above ..... it makes some sense. For example, in the osu game the score was close at the half even though Haskins was tearing M's defense apart. Harbaugh expected Brown to adjust; why shouldn't he come out in the first series of the third and return to the possession game to keep the ball out of Haskin's hands? When osu opened a two score lead shortly thereafter, M needed to go up-tempo, throw the ball and close the gap. M didn't and we can't know for sure why but there are posts in the linked thread that suggest a combination of two things: M doesn't practice a lot of up-tempo scheme and the game day play calling scheme isn't well suited to do that.

The hiring of Josh Gattis, suggests that this is the role he will play. Develop an up-tempo game, teach the players how to run it, practice running it during game week and take charge of running it when it's needed. IOW, M, under Harbaugh, is not going to suddenly become an up-tempo, air-raid offense with Gattis running the show 100% of the time nor should it. Harbaugh's football philosophy will continue to permeate M's offensive identity. What we may see, and what I hope to see, is the ability of M's offense to flex to a pass dominant, move the chains offense and score and away from a possession, body blows game at times during a game. It does not need to be only when M is behind. It needs to be run at times to keep the defense on it's heels and prevent predictability.

https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/michiga...logy-different

[froot loops]

The most important thing to know is if you have a guy calling plays solo, he has to be up in the booth. On the sidelines you can't see what you need to see, so your spotters have to give you plays that they can run. Some of the most important moments of any game is the 5 minutes your coaches meet up after the 1st half to talk about what they have seen and what adjustments to make, then your OC/line coach can talk to the lineman to see what sort of adjustments to make to the blocking schemes. The lineman can tell you what running plays will work and the QB will tell you what passing plays are there.

[WM Wolverine]

Lloyd Carr was very much of the same mindset of Harbaugh in that he wanted to win the game on the ground, control the clock and 'instill his will.' However he realized there were often times M needed to score points quickly and needed to abandon a ground game that just wasn't going to work that day. Lloyd's offenses were awfully good till his talent (particularly OL and RB, minus Jake Long and Mike Hart) started to drop off in the second half of his career.

In the NFL what Magnus describes is apparently par for the course in terms of a passing game 'coordinator' giving suggestions for passing plays while a running game coordinator is giving suggestions on plays to run, not sure if this has made it to the college game but I do know Harbaugh has done so his entire M career. One thing we've never seen from Harbaugh is using the short pass as essentially a run play, it's just not in his playbook yet it's incredibly effective when your running game isn't working. We've all too often either seen running from 2nd and longs or pass plays that are based off a PA pass that take an OL giving you good protection to make successful. [b]Against the better defensive lines, M hasn't been able to 'instill their will' or protect the QB to give him the time required to make the medium to deep pass plays that are prevalent in his offense...

Hopefully we can see a significant evolution of Harbaugh's passing offense thanks to Gattis' input. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Harbaugh's offensive rushing system, he' just using it in many downs/distances where he needs to be throwing the damn ball; particularly 2nd and long (7-10 yards to go.) I'd also say he's tipping his hand every single time he brings in a fullback (2x / 2 back personnel) and there are 9 or even 10 in the box. Even if everyone makes their blocks, you're only going to gain 3-4 yards, in modern football offenses aren't having any trouble picking up first downs in 1x personnel (1 back), in fact it's proven to be a better personnel for running the ball over 2x...

The passing game is where Harbaugh's offense needs a major evolution to what modern NFL/college offenses are doing. Shea, Rudock, and even Speight put up decent numbers when given an opportunity to throw (extrapolate their numbers to give them more attempts) AND given time by their offensive lines. OL in '17 was tragically bad, especially in pass protection and has been an issue during Harbaugh's entire tenure. Harbaugh's offensive philosophy requires his OL to give their QB's far more time to throw than I see from the offenses M is defending. I'd again take issue with Harbaugh's offensive philosophy of running the ball or throwing a medium to deep passing routes with minimal creativity in the short, quick passing game.

Harbaugh's system doesn't need a complete overhaul but it does need new creative ideas and to do things other successful offenses are doing at the NFL and college level.

[WingsFan]

Sam said Pep is probably staying last week. That would mean he will making more money than the OC? Pep might not be the problem or not the total problem, but making top 5 money (highest OC) means he should have been better at both calling plays, his position group, recruiting and also not being so predictable on the offense. Hopefully he cant take the demotion and walk away or one of the NFL teams still looking for a head coach and have to wait till after the Super Bowl will take Pep as either a OC or as a QB coach, but likely it won't happen since Michigan is now paying him 1.2 million to be a position coach only. SMH

[WM Wolverine]

Pep was suggesting passing plays from Harbaughs playbook and Harbaugh decided on which play. Harbaugh has been the OC his entire tenure and imo that's changed with the Gattis hire, regardless of how much anyone gets paid...

One thing I didn't like but expected given Gattis being essentially a first year OC; Gattis said he'd be using much of Harbaughs playbook.

The critical distinctions are Gattis will be calling the plays and Gattis will be able to add anything he wants to Harbaughs playbook...

The entire offensive staff will be developing the offensive gamelan together each week, Gattis, both Harbaughs, Pep, Warinner, etc.

I've been hoping to read or hear alot more come out of Gattis mouth but outside of a couple interviews not that much has been said.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm skeptical. My take is that the M football coaches being interviewed are saying what the fans want to hear. However, I'm interested for now. I'll probably renew my tickets but that seems to be placing a whole lot of faith in the notion that a 30 some year old guy with no experience as an offensive coordinator - a one man show type OC, that is - is going to suddenly change an M offense from a mediocre one in terms of any number of measurable you might chose to apply into an elite one that can score more points on a play by play basis than day's osu, Saban's Alabama, Sweeney's Clemson or any number of other teams that score a lot of points and move the chains on the regular.

[WM Wolverine]

I'm skeptical of Gattis for that very reason, lack of experience as an OC. You always prefer someone with a track record of being very successful and I have no clue how much influence/impact he had at Bama as a Co-OC. His talk about 'speed in space' is exactly what M needs to do, develop a quick/short passing game and be able to play uptempo when the situation dictates.

[WM Wolverine]

Reuben Jones DE is in the transfer portal. Paye, Hutchinson, Vilain wasn't going to leave him much of a chance as a starter but he could've been useful as a reserve.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is a really good article that I took a couple of things from:

day's osu offense ass-railed M's defense because of two reasons: (1) day out though Dr. Blitz. i.e., Don Brown blitzes a lot and this dictates coverages v. the pass, esp. by the CBs. (2) Because of the sorts of things DB does with his coverages, day was able to exploit that by getting the kinds of mis-matches .... e.g., Brandon Watson or Devin Gill v. any one of the three speedy H backs or x receivers that day could throw at them on various crossing routes or fades. Meanwhile, Brown's best coverage guys - Hill and Long - are out of the picture covering the boundaries and the Ss are backing them up.

Clemson did the same thing to Alabama.

Brown's scheme to date, as successful as it has been versus run first offenses, isn't very good against past first offenses working to get the kinds of player mis-matches in space that makes the QB's job easy. He's going to have to adapt to get his best defensive coverage guys on the offensive players that are the biggest threats. That is, defend the players, not the formations. This assessment has nothing to do with whether a team's base formation uses spread concepts (1X) or power (2X). It's about putting your best cover guys on the opponent's best pass receiving threats and avoiding bad match-ups.

We already know, Harbaugh is a run first offense kind of guy. Defenses that can stop M's run game then flex to defending players, not formations on passing downs, are going to eat M's offense alive..... or at least not allow it to score as many points as the opponent can using approaches like day and Sweeney appear to be using on their offenses (get passing mis-matches, move the chains, score a lot of points, run only when necessary). I think Harbaugh sees these emerging realities at the college football level and it is one of the reasons he brought Gattis in on offense. Brown, OTH, will adapt to the new pass first game reality. He's not going to let guys like day get the upper hand on him ...... I hope.

https://www.footballstudyhall.com/20...hing-belichick

[WM Wolverine]

https://247sports.com/college/michigan/Article/Nate-Woody-Michigan-coach-Jim-Harbaugh-128413004/

Nate Woody Georgia Tech/App St. DC to M's staff.

[hack]

You know you hear this stuff about guys going through the portal and then you never hear of them again. Has Najee Harris been seen on the other side?