UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Mike]

I’m starting to think it’s a football-specific problem.

Basketball has been good to very good for a decade and just had a smooth transition to a new head coach. Hockey went to the Frozen Four in Mel’s first year, had a couple meh seasons, then a good team this year with recruiting going gangbusters. Women’s bball just had their best year ever. Baseball was in the WS final and was one win away from the national championship 2 years ago. Gymnastics just won a national championship.

The difference is the culture of the football program is rotten from the inside out. They have their heads so far up their ass that they still throw out “Those who stay....”. As if nobody has been paying attention for the last 17 years. I’ve said it before but if bears repeating: There’s never been a sports team that thinks they are better than they actually are to the extent Michigan football does. The cognitive dissonance is cult-like. They are completely dillusional about what they actually are. I don’t think that will get through the thick skulls at Schembechler Hall until there’s 30-40,000 empty seats in the Big House on game day. Maybe then they’ll get it.

[WM Wolverine]

The qb wisperer can't recruit or develop qb's... or corners... or DT's.

[hack]

I think it's a board/president/culture issue. Michigan is a place where people talk far more about the Michigan way of doing things and far less about what they think they could learn from others. It's not a problem limited to football, but it does show up pretty acutely in football. At some point you hope they realize that they are going to need to bring in some outsiders and learn to trust them, because the talent needed to turn things around won't be found amongst the group of people who are connected and trusted.

I still debate whether basketball is just the result of dumb luck or whether there's something about the sport or the way coaching searches are different. Certainly this time around we got extremely lucky that someone with the skills needed -- and actually a whole lot more -- happened to be also a trusted and connected person in Ann Arbor.

[paul daugherity]

I think that the last 2 basketball hires were dumb luck. Juwan was a gamble, because he had no head coach track record, and they got lucky he has been very good. Mel was an easy (and correct) hire for hockey. It would have been a major screw up to not hire him.

But yes, there is some collective head up their asses in the football wing, and some insistence on doing it the Michigan way. No realization that the landscape has changed dramatically since that was initiated, and no admission that it is not working. I’m not sure what, if anything, will knock them out of their collective dissonance.

Meanwhile, those on the outside who see a terrible, dysfunctional product, will continue to slowly but surely tune out.

[hack]

Hard to know. IMO Martin was smart when he hired Beilein. He took Michigan's criteria and found a guy with no connections to the program who was a great cultural fit and a smart basketball mind and leader. Mostly he was left alone for that coaching search by all the surplus cooks in the kitchen that ruin football. Juwan was totally dumb luck. For all we know Warde's first choice was friggin' Ed Cooley. And Juwan has exceeded what were already high expectations.

But I don't know that there's anything the school can do to stop killing its own football program. They'd need some seriously dumb luck, and to approach the whole thing with a smidge of humility.

[iam416]

Harbaugh was a HR hire. He was Mel Pearson obvious.

M’s problem is it’s institutional inability to respond to data. They make the Queen Mary look like it corners like a Ferrari.

I haven’t a clue what’s driving the retention of HARBAUGH!!! especially given their very quick jettisoning if RICHGOD and BPJ, and relatively quick removal of Hoke.

[Cody_Russell]

Harbaugh was the most home run/ promising hire that I’ve ever seen for one of my sports teams.
Definitely hasn’t lived up to the expectations. There was a time when I thought Harbaugh WAS living up to it. It all collapsed in that 4 game stretch to end the 2016 season... or that stupid O’Korn rain game vs Sparty in 2017.

Juwan? It was a mixed hire. Uncertainty. He has clearly exceeded expectations. Couldn’t have dreamed of a better start for Juwan when he was first hired.

[lineygoblue]

The most alarming thing to me about the football program is the lack of urgency in getting back to being B1G Title competitive.

There seems to be no cause for alarm on State Street. Its all, "lets give Jim more time".

What for? What did his team do in 2020 to give any indication that better days are ahead?

And Covid isn't an excuse. Indiana had a great year with Covid in the picture. So did Northwestern. Iowa had a fine year.

When Michigan football gets tired of its suckbutt status, they'll do something about it.

[iam416]

COVID probably bought JH another year. They were not good last year. They would have been 5-7ish. He was spared that outcome as well season-ending embarrassments. COVID saved him.

Or rather, COVID gave the glacial administration the excuse it needed not to fire him. But, it shouldn’t have. They were horrific. In year 6.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Mostly he was left alone for that coaching search by all the surplus cooks in the kitchen that ruin football.

This is a major player in M football's decent to ineptitude. Hannibal was spot on when he argued on multiple occasions that Harbaugh should have been let go well before last season. I think there's a good chance that the "cooks in the kitchen" were consulted in decisions regarding JH's fate after numerous failures, various opinions were offered, mostly to give him more time and Ward was able to avoid accountability for keeping him, arguing, "well, that's what those I consulted wanted."

The results of that lack of accountability are obvious and mediocrity, a result of who Jim Harbaugh actually is, a mediocre HC, will continue for the foreseeable future. The football program has carved out a notable rep of failing to be the Leaders and Best among an otherwise pretty successful group of collegiate sports teams.

[iam416]

It’s times like this that, yes, I still miss WM Wolverine.

[Hannibal]

I wasn't aware that he was gone.

[iam416]

Functionally vis-a-vis this thread, he’s gone.

[Hannibal]

Considering how bad our coach is, recruiting could actually be worse. We might have a Top 20 outfit in 2022.

Retention has been awful though.

[iam416]

Development and retention