Team 137 by Jim Harbaugh. Football talk and Predictions.

[Jeff Buchanan]

New thread in case you missed the last regular season game for it yesterday. Did Michigan play a game on Saturday?

Plenty to discuss:

If Durkin, as rumored, does become HC at Maryland, and I think that is a very sleazy move on his part to take a HC position in the same conference and division as the one he has been a DC in for less than a year, but, whatever ......

Who is the next DC?

Will Mattison finally retire?

What other coaches on JH's staff right now might get poached at the college level or go back to the NFL?

What's the most pressing fix/need?: OL, DL, Skill Player's (RB, QB, Receivers), LBs ..... all 4?

What's the by unit outlook for 2016 season?

What's Team 137's Record going to be/will JH win the rivalry games he MUST win in 2016?

Lots of great discussion items all of them way better than the game I missed yesterday. Darn. Did M win?

[lineygoblue]

I'll lead off...

I think Durkin stays. I think Maryland probably has someone else at the top of their list. But if he should go to the Terrapins, I wouldn't call it sleazy. Disappointing, maybe.

Not sure who'd replace Durkin, but I'm sure Harbaugh would bring in a quality replacement.

I think as long as Mattison feels he can do the job, he'll be back. I think he's doing a good job. In fact, I don't think there is anyone on the coaching staff that deserves to lose their job. They all get passing grades, IMO.

I think one day we will lose Durkin. I'd also expect to lose Jed Fisch at some point. Later down the line, Jay Harbaugh could be snatched up by an NFL squad.

Most pressing need is to continue to develop the OL. Still not a dominant force, and they need to be dominant for Harbaugh's offense to work. We could use a game breaker or two on offense. Taysom Hill (rumor) would be a nice gift.

The by unit outlook is that I think the defense will be even better than this year, yesterday's score notwithstanding. Especially if Ojemudia gets another year. Help is arriving in the form of guys who could contribute right away.

What will their record be? Hard to say at this point. Both major opponents are road games, and its hard to see a sweep there. However, both opponents are going to be hit fairly hard by graduation, .. so .. who knows? I'd say that anything less than 10 wins would be an under achievement. I'd like to see them win the B1G title and go to the playoffs.

MUST win(s)? I'd say if we don't start beating MSU or OSU, then Michigan's days as a prominent football program are over. If even Harbaugh can't get them back, then its just plain over.

Long time until then. Things (expectations) will undoubtedly change.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'll lead off...

I think Durkin stays. ........

If he does he better hire someone of Steve Sharik's capabilities so that person can pry DJD's head out of his ass and take a look around modern football and the read option/inverted veer stuff that a good deal of teams are running successfully.

[froot loops]

Is it a surprise with Durkin? His sideline behavior was suspect, he wouldn't be a big loss.

[WM Wolverine]

Durkin was someone we expected not to stay for too long. Harbaugh has quite a few of those types that could end up back in the NFL if they wanted to. Durkin however will get paid a HC salary and that's far more than what he'll make as a defensive coordinator. I'd expect more attrition from the coaching staff but HARBAUGH! will have little trouble replacing them.

[Jeff Buchanan]

...........His sideline behavior was suspect, he wouldn't be a big loss.

I thought his demeanor was strange but I may be reading something into this after the fact just to suit my personal biases.

He certainly came with the cred to be good. I thought M's D was good but not vastly better than 2014. It seems the biggest improvement came from Mattison just concentrating on what he is pretty good at (coaching the DL and recruiting for it) along with getting some decent coaching of the DBs ..... the improvement there was huge.

What disappointed me was that when it was patently obvious that M's D was weak in defending the read option that some things were not done schematically to shore that up. Sharik's article on that seemed easy enough to understand and implement but I'm not a DC nor do I know anything about injuries or what the coaches thought the risks might be in making a scheme change.

I do know that basically, coaches don't like to make scheme changes preferring to stick with what they have given the capability of 18-22 year olds with only a few years behind them playing high level football to handle changes.

[lineygoblue]

I think Jeff is being a little too tough on the defense.

I think there was more than just improved DL play, via Mattison's closer tutelage.

I saw a defense that, as a team, tackled better. I also saw DB's that covered tighter, and knocked more passes away. We didn't see good passing QB's having their way with the DB's and safeties.

The biggest problem was the run defense, and I think most of that trails back to the injuries that took place. We lost Ojemudia, .. then Mone, and then Glasgow. Those are heavy losses for any team to take. Before those injuries, Michigan was getting a lot of pressure on opposing QB's, and stacking up a lot of TFL's and sacks.

I'm not sure how any DC would have overcome it, unless you have an unlimited supply of 5* talent. We're not there yet.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Liney ....... basically, all DJD needed to do was play a shade more risky D.

The scheme change would have had the LBs aligned with the gaps when the offense spreads their OL then bring a S up to swing into run (gets 8 guys in the box) or pass (drop).

All the Ss are athletic enough to do this (Peppers is athletic but this is a weakness of his). There may have been a speed issue but how many times did we see Wilson or Thomas run down a RB breaking out to save a TD with the D then forcing a FG.

What you saw happening yesterday aggressively penetrating DTs taking themselves out of the play and then LBs being overly aggressive to the edge, getting sucked outside and nothing but green grass between Barrett making that read keeping it or Elliott getting the ball and both taking it though the B gap; with four guys (that one extra S to the play or strong side), that doesn't happen with the regularity it happened v. both IU and osu.

Sorry, that shit of DJD's v. osu reminded me of Hokeorges doing stupid stuff on offense that made no sense based on what the D was showing in game and probably had shown in spades on film.

[Pasadena Blue]

DJD definitely deserves blame for not adjusting ... but I don't think any amount of adjusting was going to change the ultimate outcome when we have substandard LB core and Ohio comes to play.

[froot loops]

On the season they were susceptible to any play against flow. They were over aggressive in their pursuit and that worked against a lot teams. It didn't work against teams that ran the read option or anything with counter action.

[maxreturn]

DJD definitely deserves blame for not adjusting ... but I don't think any amount of adjusting was going to change the ultimate outcome when we have substandard LB core and Ohio comes to play.

Agreed about the LB's but to be fair, they looked worse than they probably are because they had a defensive line in front of them that were getting pushed back. Hard to be confident and aggressive when the defensive line can't even stand their ground.

[hack]

Is it a surprise with Durkin? His sideline behavior was suspect, he wouldn't be a big loss.

What did you notice there? I saw a shot of him in the second half in which he looked significantly lighter of mood than all of us were at that point, but that's just one moment in time, so who knows?

Certainly Durkin deserves the largest chunk of blame on the coaching staff, but I'd be alarmed if Harbaugh is so uninvolved in the defense as to not have wondered what Durkin was gonna do against a team perfectly suited to take advantage of the known weakness of this defense. I think we'd need more information to really sour on Durkin.

[Jeff Buchanan]

What did you notice there? I saw a shot of him in the second half in which he looked significantly lighter of mood than all of us were at that point, but that's just one moment in time, so who knows?

Certainly Durkin deserves the largest chunk of blame on the coaching staff, but I'd be alarmed if Harbaugh is so uninvolved in the defense as to not have wondered what Durkin was gonna do against a team perfectly suited to take advantage of the known weakness of this defense. I think we'd need more information to really sour on Durkin.

Agreed ..... more information would be nice before assailing Durkin's coaching.

I was at RR's last game, The Citrus in Orlando v. Mississippi State. It had a weird feeling to it. We arrived really early and had these club seats that we got at some kind of reduced price. They were really nice. Access to bar, food, stuff like that.

Anyway, I went down to the field level where I could see all the coordinators along with Rich Rod up close. They were all uniformly uninvolved with whatever the players were doing on the field to warm up. Assistants were out there. The rest of them were yucking it up with all their strap hangers (and RR had a ton of them). The OC, Calvin Magee, had more guys around him than I could count and a bunch of people hanging off the guard rail near where I had walked down to. He came over and shook all their hands ...... it was like M fans were the only ones who did not yet know that all these guys would be gone in a few days and most of them, I suspect, had jobs lined up already.

I'm thinking, if he actually leaves to go to Maryland, that's were Durkin's mind was too. IN watching him in previous games, he does have this funny smile all the time that is just has baseline facial expression so, that might add to the look of disinterest. But it was that disinterest I saw when osu was blowing up his defense. It pissed me off a little very much like I was pissed off when Mississippi State just rolled Michigan like they weren't even in the same universe of football ..... and M was every bit in Mississippi's league where talent was concerned but they sure didn't play like it ....... coaching.

[lineygoblue]

Re: Mississippi State ... how did you endure all those cowbells? Earplugs?

[Jeff Buchanan]

It was annoying but the Mississippi fans were fun loving and we had a good time with the one's we met pre and post game. Down to earth folk a lot of them among those we did meet having farming backgrounds.

Post game, they were amazed that they beat a team like M ...... classically unaware of how bad Michigan football was or that Rodriguez was about to get fired.