MSU @ Michigan 10/7/17, 7:30 ET. ABC/ESPN/ESPNGo

[Rocky Bleier]

Michigan played with much greater intensity versus Florida than MSU. I don't know what it is about green and white that makes them so docile. The coaches, too. They had two freaking weeks to prepare, and, as usual, they shit the bed.

[Kstat]

Way more talent on the defensive side of the ball. Way better recruiting. Way better coaching which leads to better recruiting.

[maxreturn]

Yes, wins over PSU, Wisconsin and OSU would salvage the season. But after seeing this offense this season, what can you point to that says that they can score enough or perform well enough to win those games or make it likely that they'll win?

As for skewering Harbaugh, he is what his record and what the team's performance is. The offense is bad and in particular the OL has not gotten better in his time as head coach. At some point the buck has to stop there. Maybe I'm overreacting to last night, but that was a bad loss.

Agreed. The sobering reality is that Harbaugh is in his third year and he is not as advertised. Based on what we have seen so far this season, I have no confidence that we will beat either PSU or OSU. No talent at QB, little at the RB position, a pathetic offensive line and receivers that cannot be counted on. I understand the sentiment of others that it's too early to bail on him but this kind of performance by the offense week after week after week is wearing thin.

[maxreturn]

I thought that we would probably win this one. No shock that we didn't. I conspicuously predicted this game as a loss at the end of last year (I incorrectly changed that prediction after all of the MSU attrition in the off season -- Needless to say, I have learned my lesson). As has been the case since the middle of the George Perles era, MSU (and especially their head coach) clearly wanted this one more. They always do. Our idiot coaches go into this game every fucking year expecting that MSU will look like they did against Bowling Green. The only exception to the rule has been years when the MSU players have quit on their soon-to-be-fired coach (e.g. 2002, 1994, 2006). It is a vomit-inducing trend that has reached stratospheric levels with Dantonio as the MSU coach and will not abate until they make another crap hire. They will beat us next year too. If you are pissed off about 1-5 against OSU+MSU, then imagine how pissed off you are going to be at 1-7. We might as well be Minnesota in the Brown Jug game.



Harbaugh saw the issues after last year, but he clearly fucked up in addressing them. Badly. The coaching staff on offense is a clown show right now. Since most of the guys on offense have a track record somewhere else, I'm guessing it's a byproduct of the fucked up coaching assignments that everybody has. The OL has two coaches. There is an OC, a "running game coordinator", a "passing game coordinator", and no dedicated WR coach. The one exception to the "track record" statement is the RB coach who shares the same last name as the coach. He had two great years as our TE coach, but he is looking like Fred Jackson as an RB coach. That move looks about as smart as when Brady Hoke put the LB coach in charge of the DBs. Why Harbaugh would do something like that is a mystery to me. But since he is the coach at Michigan, maybe it shouldn't be a mystery. He is just following the tradition of making shitty nepotism hires.

One thing is becoming abundantly clear. Harbaugh is not a great college offensive mind. He's not even a good one. What he did in the pros is irrelevant here. His scheme sucks for college. Raise your hand if you thought that the #1 receiving recruit in the country would have five touches on offense through five games. Five! And it's obvious what an incredible athlete he is, so he wasn't overrated in that department. Everyone remember the Pepcat last year? That was a package designed by somebody who thought what worked in 2006 would work in 2016. Debord-like. Awful. Harbaugh is a cult of personality version of Lloyd Carr. But Carr got to face off against John Cooper and John L. Smith a bunch of times, which inflated his record. Now you are seeing what life would have been like without that.

I fully expect at least one offensive coach to be gone at the end of this year. I don't expect it to result in significant improvement. At least nothing of the "wow where did that come from?" variety. The Harbaughffense is what it is. It takes too long to pick up and it is way too easy for a DC to scheme against. It is a sucky approach to the modern college game that is going to put pressure on the defense to be national championship caliber at least 4 out of every 5 years. The exception years will be those perfect storm years where we have a bunch of fifth year seniors plus a few superathletes who are national award candidates like Chris Perry, Braylon Edwards, or Jabrill Peppers.

Harbaugh certainly isn't going anywhere. It's not like we would find anyone better. This is the end game. We're at our ceiling. We're Penn State during the late Paterno years. We're a rich man's Iowa. We are irrelevant on a national level. Permanently so.

Sad but true.

[hack]

Wearing thin. Forget strategy; it isn't a well-coached team on offense at all. The opposite.

[Cody_Russell]

6-4 last 10 games, easily could go 4-4 the rest of this year. Psu, wisconsin, osu and bowl loss.\

Not even sure they can win at IU next week.
How does this M pass offense move the ball vs a good IU secondary...

[Kstat]

Not even sure they can win at IU next week.
How does this M pass offense move the ball vs a good IU secondary...

Or they could just keep handing the ball off, which is what they should have done vs MSU...

[hack]

Absolutely must stop giving other teams opportunity.

[Jeff Buchanan]

From my perspective and repeating several post on this subject (offensive play-calling and staff) that I've read elsewhere, the consistent lack of production on the offensive side of the ball during the Harbaugh tenure probably has something to do with the chemistry, for lack of a better word, between the coaches.

We're just guessing on this one but offensive efficiency is ghastly as it defined in Connely's five Factors and several other measure of FBS offenses. There is no sugar coating this as BAD and BAD has been present for 3 seasons. For a high profile program like M, this is really difficult to understand. It becomes more difficult give JH's track record.

Here, Hannibal offers this description:

(Harbaugh's) coaching staff on offense is a clown show right now. Since most of the guys on offense have a track record somewhere else, I'm guessing it's a byproduct of the fucked up coaching assignments that everybody has. The OL has two coaches. There is an OC, a "running game coordinator", a "passing game coordinator", and no dedicated WR coach. The one exception to the "track record" statement is the RB coach who shares the same last name as the coach. He had two great years as our TE coach, but he is looking like Fred Jackson as an RB coach. That move looks about as smart as when Brady Hoke put the LB coach in charge of the DBs. Why Harbaugh would do something like that is a mystery to me.

I also agree with the general sentiment that what JH wants to do on offense - run a typical NFL type power O - may simply be too difficult at the college level for that offense to consistently take a team to championships, make that team elite; I only say this in a relative sense, i.e., relative to the kinds of offenses elite/consistently winning teams are running - examples abound.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this but all you have to do is look around at how successful HCs are deploying their offenses. Harbaugh's approach is certainly in a minority and, if we are correctly identifying the relationship here, running simpler offenses, the kinds HS kids are growing up in right now, are going to more easily produce efficient offenses at the FBS level.

Hell, The Nick adapted when he realized he had a real prize in Hurts and while Alabama is still a power-O, it's a hybrid of what is traditionally understood as power-O. I'd speculate that the best thing Harbaugh could do in the off-season is bring in an OC with experience and success in being able to bridge the gap between what JH wants to do and what he probably should be doing at the college level.

[Rocky Bleier]

I'd love to know why Tyrone Wheatley left. Was it a difference in offensive philosophy? Jay Harbaugh is as effective a coach as Jay Paterno. As I said earlier, Harbaugh needs to do what that glib dickhead James Franklin did - find himself a guy to run a more creative offense like Joe Moorhead. McCaffrey could be the McSorley, but we'll have to find a lesser version of Barkley. Alas, Speight returns next season. We can't get kids from Ohio anymore, and Pennsylvania surely has a fence around it, too. Recruiting is going to be more challenging as championships elude Harbaugh at Michigan. The afterglow of the Florida game seem like it was years ago.

[Hannibal]

If Harbaugh is committed to manball, then he at least needs to go out and find somebody who knows how to make it work in college. Or not, because who really knows how much of a difference it will make?

This shit's exhausting.

[Rocky Bleier]

My question is whether he's still committed to this team and this season. He seems resigned, as I am, to this being a crap season. Saban would have been pissed last night and letting his anger show. The Harbaugh-to-the-Colts drumbeat will be getting louder as this season continues to disintegrate.

[maxreturn]

From my perspective and repeating several post on this subject (offensive play-calling and staff) that I've read elsewhere, the consistent lack of production on the offensive side of the ball during the Harbaugh tenure probably has something to do with the chemistry, for lack of a better word, between the coaches.

We're just guessing on this one but offensive efficiency is ghastly as it defined in Connely's five Factors and several other measure of FBS offenses. There is no sugar coating this as BAD and BAD has been present for 3 seasons. For a high profile program like M, this is really difficult to understand. It becomes more difficult give JH's track record.

Here, Hannibal offers this description:

(Harbaugh's) coaching staff on offense is a clown show right now. Since most of the guys on offense have a track record somewhere else, I'm guessing it's a byproduct of the fucked up coaching assignments that everybody has. The OL has two coaches. There is an OC, a "running game coordinator", a "passing game coordinator", and no dedicated WR coach. The one exception to the "track record" statement is the RB coach who shares the same last name as the coach. He had two great years as our TE coach, but he is looking like Fred Jackson as an RB coach. That move looks about as smart as when Brady Hoke put the LB coach in charge of the DBs. Why Harbaugh would do something like that is a mystery to me.

I also agree with the general sentiment that what JH wants to do on offense - run a typical NFL type power O - may simply be too difficult at the college level for that offense to consistently take a team to championships, make that team elite; I only say this in a relative sense, i.e., relative to the kinds of offenses elite/consistently winning teams are running - examples abound.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this but all you have to do is look around at how successful HCs are deploying their offenses. Harbaugh's approach is certainly in a minority and, if we are correctly identifying the relationship here, running simpler offenses, the kinds HS kids are growing up in right now, are going to more easily produce efficient offenses at the FBS level.

Hell, The Nick adapted when he realized he had a real prize in Hurts and while Alabama is still a power-O, it's a hybrid of what is traditionally understood as power-O. I'd speculate that the best thing Harbaugh could do in the off-season is bring in an OC with experience and success in being able to bridge the gap between what JH wants to do and what he probably should be doing at the college level.

Correct. It's mystifying to me how he had the presence of mind to go out and get arguably one of the best defensive minds in the business but he absolutely dropped the ball when it came to seeking out someone with the best offensive mind in the business.

[whodean]

I just have to say it... There has never been a more stupid case of providing "bulletin board material" than Mike Hart's Little Brother comments, nor more mileage gained than something like it what Dantonio has done with it for 10 years. This has made every MSU player into absolute ultra motivated demons. They are possessed.

And It shows on the field. They play on the edge and yes make over aggressive mistakes from time to time, but they just want this game more than the more talented UM players do.

[whodean]

Bad execution; flags; regression. Not signs of a well-coached team.

Not to mention offensive play calling. Is O'Korn allowed to change plays? Last week I saw a lot of running plays into a stacked box. This week I saw a lot of passing plays when the box was NOT stacked.