UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[THE_WIZARD_]

shaddup

[lineygoblue]

Aw, .. don't be mean. And I'm sure Scott Frost will have the Huskers playing championship football any time now...

[THE_WIZARD_]

What...are we dropping to FCS?

[lineygoblue]

Yes... and beware of Grand Valley State.

[THE_WIZARD_]

STFU

[drok]

Here is an interesting Twitter thread on Michigan recruiting, the draft and Ohio State:

https://twitter.com/_RichWinters/status/1254445082297749507?s=19

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the twitter post ...... correct me if I'm wrong but M would be designated as a huge under-performer in terms of wins and losses based on the large number of draft picks they've had in the Harbaugh years, right?

Well, and this isn't excusing Harbaugh at all, it's pointing the finger right where it should be pointed, the offense has been shit every Harbaugh season except where it appeared Jake Ruddock and the offense and the coaches were all on the same sheet of music. After Ruddock left, it sucked for all kinds of reasons that have been discussed over and over here and everywhere else.

Don Brown has had a couple of good years after he came aboard but since then, he's been spotty at best. Talent and scheme on the front and back end of his defenses have both been ruthlessly exploited but it appears he doesn't adapt.

Overall, JH has been a huge disappointment as a CFB coach. I'm pretty much done with my admiration of and hopes for him. After years of trying to argue he was doing these unique and complex things in the run game it's been nothing but 5 seasons of pitiful.

He's hurt M football recruiting to the extent that he will never recruit to the level necessary to compete for championships. Most of that is related to the shit he puts on the field every season and the potential of the skill players he's failed to develop and advantage M's football game to. HS recruits obviously see that. If and when he leaves, it will take 5 or more years to un-fuck that if it can be un-fucked at all. The guy is not a good CFB coach. The truth is that during his HC tenure, he has failed to advance the fortunes of M football like all of us had every reason to believe he would do 5 seasons ago. Think about that. 5 seasons! He can't retire soon enough for me.

[drok]

That's the optimistic Jeff we know and love.

[lineygoblue]

Overall, JH has been a huge disappointment as a CFB coach. I'm pretty much done with my admiration of and hopes for him. After years of trying to argue he was doing these unique and complex things in the run game it's been nothing but 5 seasons of pitiful.

He's hurt M football recruiting to the extent that he will never recruit to the level necessary to compete for championships. Most of that is related to the shit he puts on the field every season and the potential of the skill players he's failed to develop and advantage M's football game to. HS recruits obviously see that. If and when he leaves, it will take 5 or more years to un-fuck that if it can be un-fucked at all. The guy is not a good CFB coach. The truth is that during his HC tenure, he has failed to advance the fortunes of M football like all of us had every reason to believe he would do 5 seasons ago. Think about that. 5 seasons! He can't retire soon enough for me.

Pretty much my feelings as well.

Particularly disturbing is that the results seem to be just fine with the Manuel/Harbaugh partnership. Michigan does not compete for championships anymore. They are satisfied with participation trophies, and embarrassing bowl losses. They don't seem to even be upset over the situation. As bad as Bo was in bowl games, at least he growled and grumbled about it. Sometimes he even refused to talk to the press about it. Harbaugh just seems to stay on that space-cloud he's on, and Manuel waves at him, and gives him a thumbs-up, as he drifts by.

That's why I'm not angry about it anymore. If they're satisfied, why should we be upset? If Harbaugh is meeting the program's expectations, then who are we to complain?

[hack]

Something is off about the program and about Harbaugh, and at a time when OSU is having its best run ever. It's a shitty situation. Microchanges like swapping out Don Brown for a serious recruiter would help. I'll be interested in Brady Hoke as DL coach until Harbaugh brings in somebody who can create that '16 DL that Hoke created. Hoke obviously isn't too proud to come back in a diminished capacity.

But I don't know that that fixes the big issues at play here. The team has the stink of losing on it and plays like it. So many little scraps of information out there about his leadership being, somehow, off. Harbaugh could address hard Xs/Os/recruiting issues and might still fall short by quite a bit.

[Hannibal]

Given the results on the field, Harbaugh's recruiting is probably pretty good. HIs '16 and '17 classes brought in some great talent -- enough to win a lot more than they should have. How much of that talent either left the program or simply underachieved is astounding. The '17 class will go down as one of the most disappointing Michigan recruiting classes of all time. The '18 class was an unmitigated disaster and we are going to see those results on the field (or lack thereof) over the next couple of years. The '19 and '20 classes were OK considering that Harbaugh's track record at Michigan fucking sucks. I think that the '19 class is probably the last hurrah. It's the last one with some legit building blocks and the last one capable of upsetting OSU at home if we didn't have such a shitty coach. 2020 was decently ranked because it had a lot of "good" players but no difference makers at all. None of those guys will ever win a championship as anything but role players. 2021 is trending in a horrible direction -- especially on defense -- and it looks like we are going to do piss poor in state in a year where we desperately need to dominate.

One thing that does not get shown in the rankings though is heart, which OSU has in spades and Michigan completely lacks. I keep coming back to this example -- JK Dobbins versus Shea Patterson. Who won The Game in 2018? Who won the B1G in 2018? Which one of those two guys viewed 2018 as a "disappointment" and rededicated himself to becoming a great player in the off season? Which guy hit the golf course? I rest my case. The Michigan program has no hunger and weak leadership. Let's all get on our knees and pray that Ryan Day lets the program slowly decay into some level of complacency because that is the only way that we are beating OSU before 2030.

Our next coach will inherit decent talent that is mentally soft. If the next guy is a "my way or the highway" type like RIchRod, then I could see him running off a lot of guys.

[Hannibal]

Brown was an upgrade over Durkin for the most part, but is there any other coaching change where we can say that the guy that we have now is better than the guy that Harbaugh brought in? Case in point -- Wheatley was a way better recruiter as the RB coach than the guy that we have now. We had much better QB development under Fisch. S&C looked way better the first three years. Since the first guy was fired, our guys are constantly looking slow and unathletic -- it reminds me of the Hoke and Carr years. Whenever we lost games in 2015-2017, I honestly never got the idea that it was because we were completely outclassed in the athleticism department, but that is how it has looked the last couple of years.

I guess that I like Ed Warriner OK, but the OSU folks have said for a while that he sucks at recruiting.

[iam416]

Random comments.

1. Ohio State's 2019 class will give M a window, but it'll close fast. But even that class should still produce 5-7 good (or better) players.

2. Dobbins really did put in some work. He was pretty meh in 2018. Weber was clearly the better back. He was fantastic in 2019.

3. HARBAUGH!!!!'s most talented team, IMO, as built by Hoke. The 2016 team, esepcially the 2016 defense, could play.

4. I don't understand M's defensive recruiting. At all.

5. HARBAUGH!!!!'s QB development is just not what it needs to be. It would have been unfathomable to say this in 2015, but I'd take Ryan Day purely as a QB coach all day over HARBAUGH!!! And we're not even talking recruiting and program management. That's a killer, IMO.

6. Building on #5, I've said it before, but when OSU went with Day and real QBs, M was in trouble. I don't see that changing long-term. I do think M will have a really good chance to beat them in 2021, but after that?....

[hack]

It will be genuinely interesting to see how long this lasts. Harbaugh may have changed, but he doesn't seem like he's changed enough to want to hang on to a job in which he's consistently failing, in the way that Hoke would have been. I'm not sure it can go on like this, but I'm also not at all sure Michigan can hire someone better. Harbaugh is not a bad coach and he's good at enough of it to overcome his shortfalls, more or less, 51 weeks of the year. I'm reduced to hoping that the year off football we might possibly be looking at, or the major disruption to the annual rythym of it, is an opportunity to reset for him.

[iam416]

If his contract is not renewed soon then I think M and/or HARBAUGH!!! are going to sunset this thing. You don't usually let coaches hang out there with contracts that expire in the relatively near term (when the kids he's recruiting today would be frosh). Especially when HARBAUGH!!! to the NFL is already a thing schools use against him.

If M doesn't renew this summer then I'd say he's more likely done in 2021 than not.