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Harbaugh' hasn't been as dynamic as I had feared when they hired him.
I'm not sure if the average fan should be able to identify who the next coach should be, It is hard to replicate success elsewhere as a football coach. If the average fan knows of the coach, you might have already seen his prime.
This is a great point. I answered Tom's question in the other thread (although, I think I should have done it here).
But to paraphrase: We have an athletic director that makes over a million dollars a year to make those decisions. I want an offense first guy. Kevin Wilson comes to mind.
Just listened to mgo's podcast. A couple of things stood out: The D in general got lambasted by the peanut gallery and that's because most fans aren't capable of breaking down a play and just see a failure to contain KWIII as repeated game long massive fuck-up by players or coaches who put the players in bad situations.
Seth observed that McDonald was clearly concerned about KWIII bouncing outside after contact so put 6 defenders on the LOS. Walker never did bounce outside consistently. He did twice by Seth's count and one was for 60 yards because of an over-aggressive play by Jenkins. In this case instead of staying in his gap, he tried to make a hero play on Walker in the back field and missed the tackle. As a DL (in this case he was playing weak side LB but lined up on the LOS), if you don't make that play a good runner like KWIII is gone ...... and he was. Just one example of how good scheme get's had by one mistake. Regrettably, the 6 man front turned out to be a high risk/high reward scheme that got exploited by MSU. Had the in-game coaching been good enough to highlight what MSU was doing with their OL play and adjust to it, the scheme might have prevailed in containing Walker.
You'd think that having a 6 man front would limit gaps that Walker could run through. I mentioned this earlier today but MSU schemed around that by pulling OTs and OGs towards one space, enticing the DTs to move aggressively to it, then Walker would cut back with no lead blocker and run through the space vacated on the LOS untouched because no LBs were there and Ss missed the hard to tackle Walker in the first place once he gets a head of steam up.
OK fine, there's an explanation on a couple of key plays that look fixable. There are plenty of others when you break the video down. The reason I posted this in this thread is because the test here - and it will come against PSU and OSU - did the coaches and players learn from this and can they apply what they learned to win those two games? Can pre-game and in-game coaching succeed in preventing this kind of exploitation and errors?
While I remain on the fence about firing Harbaugh because I don't trust Warde to be competent enough to get through a successful coaching search, if M coaches and players repeat these kinds of mistakes I remarked about above or any others that if you're keeping track, you'll understand them, and get had by the 4 teams remining on the schedule and in particular PSU and OSU, that indicates to me the ceiling has been reached by the coaching staff Harbaugh has assembled and it's time for him and his staff to go. I have no doubt both PSU and OSU will have scouted M's tendencies here, I'll be on the fire Harbaugh band wagon if M loses any of the last 4 games that can and should be winnable.
Harbaugh has to win out. The players have to respond and get that done. I can see a roadmap at the X's and O's level on both offense and defense to do that. Requires the coaching staff to coach up the players and the players to execute. Starts tomorrow.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.
I didn't get that defense against MSU. It was not a sound defense designed to take away big plays. Walker's 4th TD was something you might see in high school. I was giving credit to MacDonald all year for taking out the bad Don Brown tendencies but in that game they crept back in.
I don't want Harbaugh fired right now. But I want Warde Manuel to remember this MSU loss when it comes time to tally up the tab for Harbaugh at season's end. I think that the MSU game, along with the remaining 4 games, should weigh heavily as to whether Harbaugh keeps his job. They already renegotiated his contract so that parting with him would be easier. If he stomps on his own pee pee again, against PSU and OSU, then I think he should be gone.
OSU has had 3 coaches in the last 20 years that have won right away. Tressell, Meyer and Day.
PSU has had 2. O'Brien and Franklin
MSU has had 2. Dantonio and Tucker
Wisconsin has had 1. Paul Chryst.
Purdue, Indiana and Minnesota have hired coaches that have immediately improved their teams. Brohm, Allen and Fleck, respectively. Even Northwestern has taken a middling coach in Fitzgerald, and last season got a trip to Indy.
If a thorough search is performed, Michigan can find a coach who can come in and teach sound, fundamental football, and get this team performing to its potential. Its been done at other places that are harder to win at.
I was giving credit to MacDonald all year for taking out the bad Don Brown tendencies but in that game they crept back in.
If you mean his saying, "solve problems with aggression" you'd be correct. It was this aspect of how M played v. MSU that got exploited. I have to believe this was an in-game adjustment by MSU. The 6-1-5 scheme had not been used to my knowledge by McDonald in previous games, certainly not as a base set. What galls me is that from the press box, the defensive staff who sits up there (not McDonald) has to have seen what MSU was doing after his first big run from scrimmage and send this down to McDonald who then could have adjusted to it. I don't think that happened as KWIII continued to get chunk plays.
If a thorough search is performed, Michigan
"if" is the problem for me with Warde. I don't think he's capable of prioritizing the search. He's become one of the obstacles to winning championships by abiding by and probably emphasizing compromising priorities to winning. I think that's been M's problem since Schembechler was out of the picture.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.
In the few big plays given up that weren't hurry up, it was usually a safety or outside linebacker (or both) getting too far inside then Walker bounced outside to a ton of daylight.
FPI: Michigan stays at #5 nationally and #2 in the BT behind OSU. M sports a projected win total of 9.9 - 2.3 (shading to 10-2) with a 12% chance of winning out and a 18% chance of winning the Division. OSU has a projected win total of 11.0 - 1.5 with a 40% chance of winning out and 75% chance of winning the Division.
Obviously these number project a toss-up for M in HV and a loss to OSU. You can look at PSU's FPI at the link below but the bottom line is what I just said.
FPI is a decent predictor of future outcomes - not perfect - decent. I think that what is germane here is that in Harbaugh's 7th season, the 2021 season is the best M's FPI has been in November since 2016.
Like I've been clear about: I'm on the fence getting behind Harbaugh or simply throwing my hands up in disgust. PSU is the straw that will break the camels back for me as will OSU if his team gets past PSU and Maryland. JH and Gattis have got to come up with something on offense that will keep teams from stuffing M's inside zone power (split zone) runs. It's become a problem in the RZ.
Observers say the problem with it is there is no real constraint to the zone runs. These typically involve an RPO. The post snap read for the QB is the opponent's 5-Tech (C-Gap) and how he reacts to the TE. The wrong move by the 5-tech elicits a pull and pass to the TE. The right move prompts a hand off to the RB who then runs to the open gap. If this is happening, I'm not seeing it on the UFR and neither are the guys who review available video and write them. It has to be in the playbook. McCarthy may be trying it; McNamara? Don't think so. He's making pre-snap reads exclusively according to people that know more about QB reads than I do. It's apparently not enough.
View the 2024 Big Ten conference College Football power index on ESPN. The FPI is the best predictor of a team's performance for the season.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.
Like I've been clear about: I'm on the fence getting behind Harbaugh or simply throwing my hands up in disgust. PSU is the straw that will break the camels back for me as will OSU if his team gets past PSU and Maryland. JH and Gattis have got to come up with something on offense that will keep teams from stuffing M's inside zone power (split zone) runs. It's become a problem in the RZ.
I'm there too, Jeff. Let the season play itself out, and then add up the tally sheet afterward. I think there may be a slight chance of catching PSU/OSU a bit on the down side, but we'll see. Something has to change, because the 'same old thing' isn't working. But, let the season play itself out, then evaluate later. I have a gut feeling, but I've already shared that.
The Big Ten admitted to Harbaugh this week that "officiating errors" were made in the MSU game, including the overturned strip/fumble/TD by Hutchinson.
Easy fix. Award Michigan the 6 points for the mistake, and declare Michigan the winner of the game.
Nahhh... that would be too fair.
Just another instance to add to the long list of "officiating mistakes" committed by Big Ten officials when Michigan is involved. Nothing will be done, of course.
It would be nice if game results could be reversed when officiating errors critical to the games outcome occur. IMO, that wasn't the reason M lost.
I have a better idea. Pro-refs.
I have another idea too. The B10 Commissioner needs to get a pair and tell FOX that the conference is going to limit commercial breaks and TV time-outs. I can't belief that the contract with FOX is open ended to the extent that allows what happened on Saturday night happen - a torrent of commercial breaks and TV time outs that extended the end of the game beyond 4h. What's being allowed to happen is ridiculous and probably violates the provisions in the contract. At the very least, when the contracts come for renewal (?2025), limit the commercial breaks to 2 per quarter. I think it is 4/Q, 3 minutes each now and that's getting abused some how.
Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.
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