Michigan Football - 2024 Season.

[Mike]

You can make as many excuses as you like for an inability to recruit at an elite level (it's most definitively NOT academic standards, btw). But, either way, there's a definite ceiling and HARBAUGH!!!! hit it this season.

Reluctantly agree with this. It's probably why I'm ambivalent about Harbaugh possibly leaving. I don't think he will but if he does, meh, whatever. The "up" years will be 10-2, beat MSU, and then hopefully win a NY6 bowl here and there. Basically, a carbon copy of MSU's 2021 season. We'll have a 2021 once a decade or so under Harbaugh. I hope everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, I know I sure did.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Past performance does not predict future results - well, most of the time anyway but especially now.

The CFB landscape has changed so dramatically with the combination of the portal and NIL, I think it will take a couple of seasons to see how this affects CFB team's rosters. IMO, contrary to talent's views on this, UM admissions are hard. While it's true that adjustments happen for football players at M just like everywhere else, transfers are really hard and for now, that's turning out to be a gold mine for shoring up roster deficiencies. It being hard to transfer from one school to M just limits the potential for any M football coach to optimize that aspect of roster building. NIL in many other forms has been on going for decades. Some don't view NIL as the game changer it's being made out to be. I'm not sure yet. The portal does though.

I do think talent is correct regarding Harbaugh's well established recruiting record .... but he's only one of the coaching staff that is involved in it and position coaches, their relationships with recruits and the HS they are coming from may play a bigger role, at M anyway, than Harbaugh does. One thing Harbaugh probably is good at, especially since the 2000 team's disaster, is attracting position coaches that are not only good at that job but can recruit. Gattis is primarily responsible for M's excellent receivers room and Mike Hart seems like a winner with RBs (talent recognition, recruiting that talent and developing it).

I can't know this for sure but I'd guess Harbaugh is good at organizing and advocating for the recruiting infrastructure that's needed to correctly identify talent and bring it to the team.

[iam416]

M has landed some big-time transfers including one from Virginia. Arguably the two best QBs of the HARBAUGH!!! regime were transfers. So, it'c certainly possible.

I'd guess Harbaugh is good at organizing and advocating for the recruiting infrastructure that's needed to correctly identify talent and bring it to the team.

If he's waiting until YEAR FUCKING 8 to do this then he's an even worse recruiting coach than I thought. Talent identification and recruiting infrastructure is foundational shit and there is no way on earth M would hamstring him on that. IF he's just getting around to this now, then...lol...

I can't imagine that's the case, though.

[Mike]

He's a good but not great recruiter and the same can probably be said for his overall coaching ability. I'm not convinced that there is an institutional barrier preventing him from bringing in better players. The problem is that the elite teams attract the elite players like never before. I'd like to think they can capitalize on the 2021 Big Ten championship and playoff berth but we've seen how that has worked for the non SEC-OSU-Clemson teams that serve as clay pigeons for the CFP's shotgun programs. They drift back to their normal level while a new team has their moment in the sun before having their landing craft blown to smithereens before they even set foot on the beach that is the College Football Playoff. Is what it is. Beat Sparty, PSU and try to win a goddamn bowl game more than once a decade.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If he's waiting until YEAR FUCKING 8 to do this then he's an even worse recruiting coach than I thought.

Sure, that's pretty lame but I think, for what it's worth and I'm sure you'll LOL at this, JH has had 10 or more wins in 4/7 seasons during his tenure with M (2015, 16, 18, 21). So, maybe he thought the recruiting infrastructure was functional. I suspect that the 2017 and 20 seasons, along with the losses to osu that eliminated good M teams from B10 championships, caused him to look at that structure and who was failing to optimize it. He fired his OC after the 2019 season and DC after the '20 season and replaced them with what has turned out to be pretty good coaches. How good they are at recruiting via the normal channels as well as NIL and the portal remains to be seen - Gattis has shown he has skills though in his two, going on 3, seasons with M.

Certainly the gold standard we're measuring M and Harbaugh by is the success of the elites in CFB among which is osu. That's a hard standard to measure up to when it comes to roster talent and we've beat the importance of that to winning championships to death. You can bet Harbaugh is pissed about that. Once a team like osu arrives at the top rungs on the ladder though, it's difficult to displace them climbing up form the fifth, sixth or lower rungs. That's where M resides at the moment. That could change with a couple more repeats of the 2021 season and optimization of recruiting winning consistently and delivering players to the NFL helps to achieve.

[Mike]

As a final point about recruiting, it isn't even so much the overall talent level as it is getting the magic QB. The list is too exhaustive to name here but 2016 is a perfect example for Michigan. You had a truly loaded roster with 11 NFL draft picks but Wilton Speight at QB. Swap him out for the guys that OSU, Oklahoma, Clemson, and Alabama continually trot out and that team would have been a national championship contender. Certainly would have beaten a relatively down OSU team in Columbus, won the Big Ten, and made the CFP. Elite programs aren't led by Ruddock, Speight, O'Korn, Peters, Patterson, Milton, etc. That's a pretty long list of "meh"... or worse. McCarthy certainly looks promising but we pretty much say that about the backup QB every offseason.

[Tom W]

McNamara would have had that 2016 team in the CFB final.

[iam416]

I won't carry on too much more about this. I'll just say that the things I'm saying were said, in spades, a year ago at this time -- and in harsher terms. I understand that past is not prologue and all that shit, but 2021 certainly wouldn't wipe away the previous 6 years. I tend to agree with Mike's take on where your program is more than thinking this represents some sort of definitive turning point. I think M will have some good teams and some meh teams. HARBAUGH!!!! will have some teams that definitely CAN beat Ohio State if things go his way and some teams that will have no chance. I really don't see them ever being truly elite. And trust me, there's going to be a team like Georgia in the CFP every year. That's not some sort of exception. That's the rule. And I just don't see HARBAUGH!!!! ever able to put together a roster that competes under those circumstances. Now, perhaps NIL will change that. But, I doubt it.

[iam416]

McCarthy can be very good. McNamara is meh in my book. He's JTB w/o the legs. He's a game manager+.

[hack]

“It’s nice to have Mary Sue Coleman back” — Washtenaw County liquor store owner

LOL, I was thinking about that one. I remember that game. Me and MSC were equally articulate that day, it's just that she had a mic and I was most of the way up the north endzone, so nobody remembers my equally brilliant performance.

[hack]

If he goes, he goes. I don't know enough about why 17-20 sucked and how JH specifically was a catalyst for that as well as for the turnaround. Not convinced his troubles are behind him, and don't trust him not to waste McCarthy's skills. If we are indeed in that situtation, well, I dunno about Gattis, but I'd almost be tempted to say let's roll with Hart, as unjustified as that may be. The coach at Michigan needs a fair bit of intangible *something* to overcome the institutional constraints Michigan puts on its program. Sure do have to do that deep dive on Campbell, and knock on Fickell's door just in case.

[Cody_Russell]

Combination of:
1.Harbaugh fumbling the QB situation.
Speight, O’Korn, Peters, Patterson, Milton, and McCarthy.
Patterson was aight, but nothing special. Didn’t live up to the hype.
2. Good teams figured out Don Brown’s defense.
Crossing routes. Etc.
3. Harbaugh wasn’t himself.
How many times have we heard about Harbaugh reinventing himself in 2021? I buy it.
I think the ending of the 2016 season broke Harbaugh for a few years.

The 2020 season was dumb. I can’t even say that was a legit year to be doing anything in the norm.

McNamara would have had that 2016 team in the CFB final.

Easily!

[Mike]

McNamara is probably the best leader and competitor that Harbaugh has had at QB and was a big reason for Michigan's success this year. With regard purely to talent and skill, he's much in the mode of his predecessors. Agree about 2016 though.

[hack]

Initially I didn't like the notion of McNamara making the difference in '16, but maybe he never throws that awful pick-6. Still, that was a terrible call by Harbaugh. Meyer put on a clinic in patience in that game. Was never going to give Michigan that kind of opportunity even if it meant playing Ferentz for a half.

[froot loops]

If the hypothetical notion that they would hire from within and go with Mike Hart over Gattis is valid, that should be troubling Michigan fans more than academic hurdles.