Michigan Football, Team 138, 2017 Season.

[hack]

Geography, this, that, blah blah blah. I don't think anyone here expects to be in the national championship fight every year, or even most years. You don't play on the same field when you're bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight, and that goes for MSU as well. If you want to compete year-in/year-out like that you have to use every tool in the kit, and some that don't belong there as well. Michigan has never wanted to and will never do that. It's realistic to expect to field a top-ten program, that The Game decides the conference title most of the time, and Michigan gets a conference title 3-4 times a decade, and once or thrice over the course of Harbaugh's career gets to the championship game. If he wins one of those, that's a success.

Notwithstanding black swans. Things could blow up at OSU at any time. They probably won't, because karma does not exist, but there's the potential for that to happen in a way that there is not at Michigan. That would change the calculus.

[Wild Hoss]

Devil's in the details ..... see above.

In your opinion then, the OL talent is the entire problem?

[froot loops]

Geography, this, that, blah blah blah. I don't think anyone here expects to be in the national championship fight every year, or even most years. You don't play on the same field when you're bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight, and that goes for MSU as well. If you want to compete year-in/year-out like that you have to use every tool in the kit, and some that don't belong there as well. Michigan has never wanted to and will never do that. It's realistic to expect to field a top-ten program, that The Game decides the conference title most of the time, and Michigan gets a conference title 3-4 times a decade, and once or thrice over the course of Harbaugh's career gets to the championship game. If he wins one of those, that's a success.

Notwithstanding black swans. Things could blow up at OSU at any time. They probably won't, because karma does not exist, but there's the potential for that to happen in a way that there is not at Michigan. That would change the calculus.

I'm not sure how to take that first paragragh. You start by saying nobody here expects that unrealistic scenario but then you describe the realistic scenario that sounds an awful lot like perennially competing for the national championship. Winning 3 or 4 Big Ten titles in a decade and fielding a top 10 program every year is pretty close to that.

[hack]

If you assume Harbaugh coaches here for 15-20 years, and he gets to the playoff three times and wins once, that's not competing on that elite level. That's being a second-tier program that sneaks in there now and again. If I were expecting elite level, I'd be saying M plays OSU every year for the right to destroy somebody in the CCG, and gets to the playoff 4-6 times a decade. I'm not saying that. IMO as long as OSU is the only program in the conference willing to, kindly put, play in the gray areas, which seems to be a relatively realistic characterization of both recruiting and rules once their own campus, that conference title will be theirs 5-7 times a decade. M might get 3 under JH, you'd get one, PSU would get one. Unless PSU gets back to their past prime.

Just tossing out general numbers. Not married to them.

[AlabamAlum]

TL; DR: Luck, refs, and cheating OSU are keeping M down.

[hack]

The experiences of Jim Tressel and Chris Webber are pretty telling about the differences in approach between the two schools. Is what it is. As for the rest of it, well, blah blah blah. Easier to do what you're doing than to go take a look for yourself.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In your opinion then, the OL talent is the entire problem?

I think that it is generally accepted among reasonable observers that the offence is handicapped by poor OL ........ and QB play.

I don't think there is general agreement over the causes of those two problems.

In my view, the OL problems are a result of missed recruiting opportunities in 2015 (detailed above in my previous post) and some bad luck (Loss of OT Grant Newsome to injury in 2016).

I don't think there is enough data to assign coaching failure as causative. Plenty of M fans do.

On QB play ....... You can look back at the Hoke/Borges days for the start of this problem. There were 3 QBs taken in Hokes tenure as HC. Russle Bellomy, Shane Morris and Wilton Speight. Only Speight remains. He was a 3* prospect. That may have been as good as Hoke could get as after his first year in 2011, the program tanked.

Harbaugh saw the problems at the QB position as soon as he took over in 2015, got Jake Ruddock and turned him into an NFL caliber QB. Speight goes down after starting his 4th game in 2017 and wasn't playing well to begin with. Jon O'Korn, another transfer JH got, hasn't worked out so well. Brandon Peters and Dylan McCaffrey are also Harbaugh recruits. We really don't know much about either except Peters looked good in the 2017 Spring Game.

O'Korn is reported to be starting against Rutgers on Satruday. We'll probably see Peters in that game.

Bottom line for me ..... I don't think you can fault JH for the shitty QB play. He had nothing to start with, did OK patching in with Ruddock, not so good with O'Korn. We have yet to see his recruits, Peters and McCaffrey - both 4*, play live.

[AlabamAlum]

Hack,

I don't find any real virtue or message in how OSU fans react to Tressel vs how M fans react to Webber: you both cheat, you just get more upset when one of yours get caught. Unless of course the person who got caught was your football coach who got M put on three years of probation for 4 violations (and who had done the same things previously at WVa) and who wasn't fired for his sins. You are all more okay with that than when the poor black athlete (who was hungry) took extra meal money.

The fact that you hate black people with such ferocity is sad.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hack,

I don't find any real virtue or message in how OSU fans react to Tressel vs how M fans react to Webber: you both cheat, you just get more upset when one of yours get caught......

First, I'm not in the crowd that thinks osu cheats, operates in the grey area or anything like that to compete on the football field.

That having been said, Weber has not yet been let back in the building, osu venerates tressel. That's what Hack is getting at and it's reflective of the two different cultures in these two schools.

It might or it might not actually do that, Hack thinks it does but I really don't give a shit one way or the other. The culture thing to me has little impact on winning football games.

[froot loops]

Not to mention that Michigan has waded into using tools that they have historically shied away from to compete. Harbaugh! has pushed the envelope a bit, not cheating or anything like that but something to note.

[AlabamAlum]

First, I'm not in the crowd that thinks osu cheats, operates in the grey area or anything like that to compete on the football field.

That having been said, Weber has not yet been let back in the building, osu venerates tressel. That's what Hack is getting at and it's reflective of the two different cultures in these two schools.

It might or it might not actually do that, Hack thinks it does but I really don't give a shit one way or the other. The culture thing to me has little impact on winning football games.

Jeff,

I knew what he was getting at. I don't find OSU forgiving Tressel's sins and welcoming him back an indictment and I don't think Webber not being back means much - at least from from a compliance standpoint. That's what I was getting at. I was also kinda trolling him.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Not to mention that Michigan has waded into using tools that they have historically shied away from to compete. Harbaugh! has pushed the envelope a bit, not cheating or anything like that but something to note.

He has definitely pushed the envelope and most observers think it's in recruiting. His ventures into the south riled up plenty of SEC coaches who said it just wasn't right. Those guys went whining to the NCAA to keep him out and did so (at least for his camps).

This is another place I don't give a shit what he does to get the best recruits to come to M. If that means going into SEC territory, to Texas, to CA to get them, good for him. Good for M.

[AlabamAlum]

I don't care about his satellite camps - whether they are in Rome Georgia or Rome Italy. I don't think they're proven to be successful. The second they are, Saban will be doing them.

[paul daugherity]

I don't see how anyone can view UM's reaction to the Martin/Webber cheating scandal as being akin to anywhere else with a cheating scandal. Fisher was immediately fired right before the season began, all banners were immediately taken down, and the basketball team was put in hibernation for about 15 years. The university voluntarily self-punished beyond what the NCAA imposed. After it broke, the head coaches were hired based on how squeeky clean they were, not basketball acumen, and were given a long leash if they were squeeky clean (e.g. Tommy Amaker).

As a contrast, Kentucky had a major cheating scandal in basketball in the 80s, and then hired Pitino, and now have Calipari as head coach. Sanctions have been imposed at every school Calipari coached at, very soon after he left.

[AlabamAlum]

I don't care about his satellite camps - whether they are in Rome Georgia or Rome Italy. I don't think they're proven to be successful. The second they are, Saban will be doing them.

That said, didn't the NCAA ban them (again) this year?