Team 137 by Jim Harbaugh. Football talk and Predictions.

[Hannibal]

9-3 again next year. Losses to rivals plus one other Big Ten team that we shouldn't lose to.

[Hannibal]

If Harbaugh does not change his approach on the offensive side of the ball then it is going to put a hard ceiling on the team just the way that it did for Lloyd Carr. 1980s football doesn't work anymore. That's not how the game is played. You can't smash up the middle all day long for 2 yards per carry, break one or two long runs or pass plays, and expect to beat a great team 20-17. The defense was more of a culprit against OSU than the offense but even if the defense shows up and holds them to 24 points, we still lose that game. You can't expect your defense to hold a team like OSU to less than 20 points. Even Alabama and MSU have had to win some big shootouts in recent years. The defense was adequate in two of our losses and the running game was especially bad in all three of our losses. One thing that was consistent in all three of our losses was that we did not have a single tailback run of over 8 yards in any of them. The only 10+ yard run in those three games was a 27-yarder by Houma against MSU. Three games with a grand total of one run (by anyone) above 8 yards is truly appalling. Blaming it 100% on tailback vision is an oversimplification. That problem is fixable but it's only a portion of it.

You've got to have a running game that works consistently and can gash a solid run defense. Too much has been made of the supposed lack of vision that the backs have. But it's pretty hard to see a hole when it's just a crack that is going to close anyways in a half second. All year long I saw running backs have nowhere to go but to plow forward into a pile of bodies. The offensive linemen weren't getting cleanly beaten. There was just a pile two yards downfield with no space. I think back to the stuffed fourth down play against Utah where Deveon Smith took a ton of blame for not taking the play outside. But if you watch the replay, there is clearly a small hole right where the play is supposed to go that closes up when he gets there. Harbaugh's Manball scheme was supposed to confuse defenses by giving them extra gaps to fill. That worked like complete shit. Outside of Oregon State every defense that we faced shut down our base running plays easily. Except for arguably BYU, who was so physically overmatched that they couldn't tackle Smith. Harbaugh was good at calling plays to punish defenses for this about three or four times a game, but that is not a formula for success anymore. Well blocked running plays in Harbaugh's 2TE + a fullback scheme go for 6 yards when in Oregon, OSU, or Baylor's scheme they go for 60 yards. This will always be a problem. We will need brute force execution and brute force NFL talent to score 31 points against a team like OSU or MSU. We'll have that type of team once every four or five years, and that's about how often I expect to beat OSU. Can anyone imagine us doing to OSU or Dantonio-coached MSU in their house what they just did to us in our house? I guarantee you it will absolutely never happen with Harbaugh's current approach.

College football is still about running the football and stopping the run. And if you look at the top 20 rushing offenses in either ypc or ypg they are almost entirely teams that run option, spread, or both. Texas Tech runs the Air Raid offense and they averaged 200 ypg and 5.6 ypc!! Just to give you some perspective, Lloyd Carr's best offense, his 2000 team, averaged 4.8 ypc. That was with Anthony Thomas and an offensive line loaded with NFL draft picks. It's a completely different era. Manball has been adapted in some places but even successful Manball running teams like Alabama look much different than us. Stanford is the Manball gold standard and they aren't even ranked in the Top 20 in either ypc or ypg rushing this year. OSU, with all of their struggles on offense, ranks statistically better than any Michigan offense of the past five years, and last year they scored 59 points in the conference championship game with essentially their third string QB playing in his first start.

[Prime2]

Drew "Hanni" Sharp's glass is 1/2 full this fine morning.

[iam416]

Prime:

I sent you the avatar. Upload and display at your convenience!

[Prime2]

Hope you are happy now Talent.

The $500 I saved enabled me to dump the FF and snag a 2015 458 Italia, Bianco Avus makes me look thinner anyway.

Ho, Ho, Ho bitches!

[iam416]

Prime:

I meant the tagline to be first person...YOU were right about UFM. YOU told us so. Remember? Heh.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

FWIW... http://collegespun.com/big-ten/maryl...aryland-report

[Ghengis Jon]

OP, that's a horrid, horrid avatar you're using. Ugh.

Thanks for taking one for the team.

[Da Geezer]

I'm thinking, if he actually leaves to go to Maryland, that's were Durkin's mind was too.

DJD had no answer to OSU. Why would Maryland even want him?

[hack]

He pitched 3 shutouts and improved on what was already a reasonably good/not bad unit. We're all disappointed with him here, but that doesn't mean that he's not up to the job there. He may or may not have had his eyes on a more distant prize, and maybe that speaks to some sort of ethical something, but we aren't likely to really know for sure.

[Prime2]

Prime:

I meant the tagline to be first person...YOU were right about UFM. YOU told us so. Remember? Heh.

First person me?

as in "OP was right about Urban Meyer. OP told us so."

Or, Type your exact verbiage in quotes if otherwise.

Best $500 bucks I never spent.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If Harbaugh does not change his approach on the offensive side of the ball then it is going to put a hard ceiling on the team just the way that it did for Lloyd Carr.........

I had to think on this for a while before I posted.

First, let me say this: Despite your familiar curmudgeonly posts and your consistently Debie Downer, negative takes on M football, a lot of it is spot on. I respect your views.

If I understand correctly, your fundamental premise is that Harbaugh is running a 1980s style offense at M that “doesn’t work anymore.” You state, “That's not how the game is played. You can't smash up the middle all day long for 2 yards per carry, break one or two long runs or pass plays, and expect to beat a great team 20-17…..”

You go on to indict Harbaugh’s offensive style by stating, “Well blocked running plays in Harbaugh's 2TE + a fullback scheme go for 6 yards when in Oregon, OSU, or Baylor's scheme they (ed. Typically read option/spread offense) go for 60 yards. This will always be a problem. We will need brute force execution and brute force NFL talent to score 31 points against a team like OSU or MSU. We'll have that type of team once every four or five years, and that's about how often I expect to beat OSU. Can anyone imagine us doing to OSU or Dantonio-coached MSU in their house what they just did to us in our house? I guarantee you it will absolutely never happen with Harbaugh's current approach.”

Really? I think you are off base in the way you characterize Harbaugh's offense that most closely resembles a WCO rather than "manball." Lets get a baseline of what that is:

Though the West Coast offense can be complicated, the basic tenets of the scheme involve a quarterback using quick short passes within 15 or 20 yards from the line of scrimmage for a higher completion rate. In theory, it also allows a receiver, running back, or tight end to come up with big chunks of yards after the catch, and sucks in a defense before unleashing a deeper play down field.


The WCO doesn’t really exist anymore the Way Bill Walsh and his 49’ers ran it during his HC tenure there but the basic philosophy as it is described above is still very much alive in the NFL game with tweaks in it that primarily involve, “knowing what players you have (QB, RB, WRs), what they can do against a specific opponent or player and knowing what the best play is for any given situation on the field.” (Paraphrased from a comment made by Pete Carol when asked if he considers the Seahawks as running a WCO. He said yes but qualified it as above).

Fundamentally, the WCO moves the ball using the passing game as an integral part of the running game (e.g., the long handoff to the WR in the flat). It's not about using the run to set up the pass. It's about integrating both the pass and run game into a cohesive offense based on the skill set of your players, match-ups and circumstances on any particular play.

I can name many things that Harbaugh does with M’s WCO that pretty much fit exactly into the characterization of it above. Here are three:

Harbaugh realizes his RBs aren’t great. He tries Peppers in the Wildcat and Tailback positions. Peppers is successful and adds another dimension to the offense (not the run offense as that's not at all how he was featured).

Early in the season Rudock was uncomfortable with what JH wanted him to do. He kept working with him and when it was obvious that opponents were going to key on M’s run game and force Rudock to throw Rudock rose to the occasion by executing the myriad throws they worked on together that were nothing more than extension of the run game. Best exemplified v. PSU.

Harbaugh fashioned a screen game that Rudock, Butt and Smith executed well. Chesson developed into a big long ball threat once the two of them (Jake and Jehu) got on the same page. Has been a major plus for the offense all year, getting better each game.

I’d ask, who says that college football is predominantly “about running the football and stopping the run.” And all the top teams “are almost entirely teams that run option, spread, or both.” You won’t find any proponents of what you are pushing here as gospel in the NFL. In the college ranks? Sure but Harbaugh isn't about following.

I believe it is obvious, and something you seem to want to ignore, football played in the context of Harbaugh’s WCO doesn’t have to run any of those schemes to be effective. The NFL runs the ball very little. There is very little option football there, if any, and it certainly is not the base offense of any NFL team. They pass way more than they run. Are these NFL offenses viable? Ask Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Why can’t Harbaugh be successful with an NFL brand of offense that resembles a WCO but reflects Harbaugh’s fundamental view that the best offense is produced by “knowing what players you have (QB, RB, WRS), what they can do against a specific opponent or player and knowing what the best play is for any given situation on the field.”

I think the path that Harbaugh had Rudock on is a clear indicator that he cares as much about throwing the ball, moving the chains and scoring TDs than he cares about running the football and stopping the run. The point is, score TDs. How does O’Korn and maybe Taysom Hill fit into that kind of WCO? Harbaugh will get there. He has a plan. If he wanted to shift to the kind of offense you seem to think he should in order to compete with those top 20 teams running the read option, spread offense, I think he would target and get his next Cam Newton. He's not.

The bottom line for me is that Harbaugh is not a cookie cutter coach. Neither is he a sheep. He’s not going to look at the offenses you are advocating he look at and adapt them. He’s going to fashion a Michigan offense that is his own. Your characterization of his offense as manball – as I think you and I would agree is just pounding your backs into a stone wall defense to try to prove you are bigger and tougher than the opponent - is wrong. I’d offer that Harbauffese is going to look a lot more like a current version of the NFL WCO than it is going to look like any of the read option, spread offenses that seem to be in vogue today and the ones you seem to be enamored with. It’s also not going to look like Stanford’s, USC’s or Alabama’s, even MSU’s, all four of which I’d characterize as NOT read-option, spread offenses.

What bothers me most about your post is that you don’t give the slightest acknowledgement that there may be a different way to run an offense, that differs significantly from the two polar opposites you have portrayed as being played in CFB today, the black and the white. I think there are other ways to go.

When the great armies of 17th and 18th century Europe would rush each other headlong into battle, horse mounted Calvary, Dragoons, out maneuvered these rather stationary forces and sliced up the flanks of opponents. When the French and the Germans staked out territory in WWI and held it by digging in and conducting trench warfare, mechanized (tank) warfare was born. Repeating that stupidity by building the very stationary Maginot Line in the 1930's the French found themselves flanked by the high speed mechanized German Army who drove though the unfortified Belgian low lands forcing an evacuation of British and French troops at Dunkirk and ultimately leading to the fall of France to the Germans.

The point here is that Harbaugh is an innovator and what might be in vogue today, in your limited frame of reference, it would seem, will not work or may be easily outflanked or out maneuvered by an innovative mostly brilliant coach, like Jim Harbaugh.

[hack]

I could use a rundown of who leaves and whose back. I'm a bit confused there. I.E. am very pleasantly surprised to hear we have Chesson another year. I thought he was out after this year. Even moreso with R Glasgow. I thought he was done too. DL is going to be fuggin insane next year.

[lineygoblue]

Jim Hackett is stepping down as AD.

Not a major surprise, because he's said he didn't want the job permanently.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2015/12/01/sources-jim-hackett-leaving-michigan-as-ad-soon/76627680/

[WingsFan]

His job is (well) done.