IS JIM HARBAUGH LEAVING?
The obvious answer is I don't know.
SHOULD JIM HARBAUGH LEAVE?
Jim Harbaugh came to Michigan to right the ship and return the program to national prominence. Rich Rodriguez went 15-22 at Michigan. Brady Hoke went 31-20, which isn't terrible overall, but things were going downhill. But that's a 46-42 record over seven years. Jim Harbaugh is 61-24 with a Big Ten championship and a College Football Playoff appearance. Has he won a national championship? No. But that's the only feat he hasn't accomplished, other than some personal goals he might have (winning 100 games, becoming the winningest coach in Michigan history, etc.). Ultimately, seven years is a pretty long tenure for any coach by modern standards, and especially if you consider he was at both Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers for four years each.
Harbaugh's career is essentially the envy of any coach ever. He's won in the NFL and gone to the Super Bowl. He's won in college and coached a team to the playoffs. He's taken broken and abused programs and turned them into perennial double-digit winning programs.
But if you want to win at the highest level, that's the NFL.
Hit the jump for more.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH MICHIGAN?
Nothing's really wrong with Michigan. After all, it was one of the top four programs in the country for the 2021 season. They pack the stadium, recruit very well, have excellent facilities, etc. But there are a few hurdles at Michigan:
- Michigan exists in the north. Football talent is centered in the south (SEC country) and the west coast (California). It's become harder and harder to recruit to the north as the population has moved south and taken football talent with it. You can get players from Texas, Florida, Georgia, etc., but the kids you get are generally the guys who aren't the most desired by Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Texas, etc. Basically, Michigan has only been able to land the south's leftovers, with occasional exceptions like Devin Bush, Jr.
- Michigan doesn't cheat on a high enough level. I'm not going to sit here and claim that Michigan doesn't cheat. I'm not going to throw out any names, but I'm sure that various players have been given $500 handshakes and the like at Michigan. I'm also confident that the cheating at Michigan has not approached what goes on at Texas, USC, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, etc. Now that cheating is legal in the form of Name, Image, and Likeness, Michigan needs to open up the floodgates. There's a lot of money available from Michigan alumni, and there's a huge fanbase willing to buy merchandise. There have been rumors that Michigan donors are readying a very good NIL program, but it hasn't happened yet. And until it does, Michigan is going to be playing from behind.
- The transfer portal is a problem. I generally don't like the transfer portal for a few reasons, but I'll save that full discussion for a different day. The primary problem for Michigan, though, is that Michigan does not accept just any Joe Schmoe from other schools. Their academic standards are too high. So while Michigan players are totally free do ditch Ann Arbor in favor of places with more playing time, Michigan can only squeeze through a small number of players. Their best bet is to take grad transfers - such as Jake Rudock, Mike Danna, and Wayne Lyons - but they're off limits for most other players. Michigan can land a 4-star player out of high school, but they have a hard time landing 5- or 4-star level transfers. Guys who are stars - or superstars - at other schools probably aren't going to pick Michigan, because they lose credits when they transfer, they don't have the grades, or they just don't want to worry about the academic side of playing at Michigan. At the very least, Michigan needs to loosen its transfer restrictions and award more credits for players transferring in.
WHERE WOULD JIM HARBAUGH GO?
The two prime locations appear to be the Chicago Bears and the Las Vegas Raiders. Harbaugh was drafted by the Bears, and they're about to fire head coach Matt Nagy. Nagy is 34-30 with the Bears, but he started off hot and has been declining ever since. Ever since the first season when they showed some promise (12-4), they've looked lost and confused while going 8-8, 8-8, and now 6-10 so far in 2021.
The other option is the Las Vegas Raiders, where Harbaugh started his NFL coaching career as an assistant. They have a chance to make the playoffs, and perhaps Rich Basaccia can keep his job if he can get in the playoffs and maybe win a game or two. The Raiders are in a better situation right now, and that would be my first choice if I were picking between the two.
WHO WOULD REPLACE JIM HARBAUGH?
A few names that have been bandied about and some quick thoughts:
- Josh Gattis (Michigan offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach): Gattis has been at Michigan for three years, and he ushered in a new offense. He also showed the ability to be flexible by changing up the run game and running some next level RPOs.
- Mike Hart (Michigan assistant head coach/running backs coach): He's a former Michigan player, but he's never been a coordinator. This would be a giant gamble.
- Bill O'Brien (Alabama offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach): This name was thrown out by Adam Rittenberg. The former Patriots assistant and Texans head coach did a decent job at Penn State in 2012-2013, going 8-4 and 7-5 in the wake of the Joe Paterno scandal. Right now he's at the Nick Saban School of Coaching Rehab and could win a national championship in a few days. He does not seem like a long-term fix and feels like a guy who would jump at the NFL at the first opportunity.
- Matt Rhule (Carolina Panthers head coach): Rhule played at Penn State and had a bunch of assistant jobs before taking over Temple and turning it around, going 2-10, 6-6, 10-4, and 10-3, which is pretty dang good for Temple. He then went to Baylor and rehabbed that program in the wake of Art Briles, going 1-11, 7-6, and then 11-3. He went 5-11 with the Panthers in 2020 and is 5-11 once again with one game remaining. He could be on the chopping block, although that would be a rough way to go, considering the face of the Panthers (Christian McCaffrey) has been hurt for almost the entirety of his two years there.
I very much want Harbaugh to stay at Michigan and have defended him even when he was going 2-4 in 2020 and losing to Ohio State every year. But I realize that Jim Harbaugh might have different plans.
See comments on earlier post on former Michigan coaches. I just think Michigan has to give him a level playing field. Hypothetical and hard to judge, but if you gave Harbaugh and Saban comparable talent and they play 10 games Harbaugh wins 6. Worst case he wins 4. Saban is a great coach but he struggled in NFL and he has had an advantage over every team he has played for the past 6 or so years.
ReplyDeleteI sure do wish Michigan had those interior D Line players Alabama has.
DeleteThere is no level playing field unless they open up a University of Michigan at Ft. Lauderdale campus.
DeleteI don't want to watch Josh Gattis do an on the job training at head coach.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think I could bet $100.00 that the improvements this year in the offense are from Matt Weiss and Mike Hart, and has nothing to do with Josh Gattis.
If he leaves, Michigan better find a coach that is ready right now to keep the team at this playoff level.
Agreed. plus if he leaves it likely means Michigan is not ready to step up on NIL and/or transfers.
Delete"if he [Harbaugh] leaves it likely means Michigan is not ready to step up on NIL and/or transfers"
DeleteAnd if this is the case, then Michigan will fall further behind the curve, and most likely will never be in the elite group again. They may be a perfectly respectable 9-3 type team, but they'll never get near the playoffs, and will almost certainly never win a championship again.
On the job training worked out fine at OC.
DeleteBiggest takeaway: no one knows
ReplyDeleteRaiders fans are 100% positive they can have Harbaugh if they want him. I'm doubtful
I was not a proponent of either NIL or the portal (or the one-free transfer Harbaugh campaigned for, and got). I'm all about free markets and such, but this was never for the student athlete. Programs, coaches and such will take in millions, while a few players get a couple thousand
But now that it's part of the game, UM must go all in. Take in transfers and get the bags of cash ready. Compete or falter
I don't think Harbaugh is going anywhere yet. Beating OSU opens up the possibility but I do believe he loves Michigan and doesn't want to upset the family with another major move. The NFL isn't going anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI think the obstacles to win a national championship at Michigan are significant. Geography and money are are real problems and the NIL has only widened the gap. I never understood why anyone thinks it wouldn't. Guessing the share that thought this were dominated by people who have never lived outside the state FWIW.
The good news is that the fanbase is big, prestige is still high (thanks to Harbaugh), and quality of education is still excellent for those who care (or perhaps for those whose parents and family influence decisions based on academics). We're not 'screwed' we're just where we always have been: in the top 10-15 but just outside the very top elite tier of the most advantageous and successful programs.
Where I disagree is that the transfer portal is bad for Michigan. I still think the net impact on the program is positive. So yeah we lost a Giles Jackson but we gained Baldwin. We lose Vilari but we gain Bowman. Lose Solomon but get Whitley.
Every week Thunder goes through many of the transfers out there and the resounding takeaway is -- we don't miss them. Even the ones we thought stung (e.g., Aubrey Solomon and Zach Carpenter) have turned out to not be as bad once those guys played at the new school. There's certainly some exceptions here or there (e.g., St. Juste) who would help, but the impact of the "wish we still had them" guys is small. They are usually replaced and their departures frees up scholarships for fringe recruits which sometimes turns into Ojabo, Uche, or Bell. All of that is
easily offset by guys like Rudock and Danna who have come in and been a tremendous impact.
Places like Michigan and Alabama will always send out more talent via transfer than they bring in (true before portal, true after) but the net impact continues to be positive because Michigan is still going to be a destination school for a lot of kids. While we do probably have a disadvantage in undergrad transfer credits, the bigger deal for getting a transfer is with the grad kids who can help right away.
What I'd really like to see is us get real aggressive calling MAC standouts and other smaller conference kids and try to poach them away with talk of NIL and NFL.
Lank,
ReplyDeleteLove your opinions. But this one is one I do not agree with. Alabama had a starting CB i believe they picked up on the transfer portal. They just picked up a 5 star from LSU Eli Ricks. Michigan can never get these guys because of the credits not transferring. I agree the people who transfer out are not a problem. But I will take Eli Ricks and the next Kenneth Walker all day. Even if it is just for depth, the transfer portal is a net negative for Michigan currently.
@klctlc
DeleteThere are 85 scholarships so you never really "lose" anything, you just replace a guy who didn't work out or wasn't needed with a scholarship going to someone else.
Often times that just means a bigger recruiting class, which absolutely has value. I'll give an example.
After 2017 we lost Moe Ways and Ian Bunting to transfer to the Pac12. They aren't bad players, they contributed, but they also aren't starters. They are depth guys - like most of our transfers. If they had stayed maybe they help the 2018 team in some marginal way. But they also take up a scholarship each which means a smaller recruiting class in 2018.
That's coming off the end of the class with the lowest ranked guys and most of those guys don't work out, but some do. Guess who was the bottom of the 2018 offensive class: Ronnie Bell and Hassan Haskins.
That's the tradeoff right there. If Ways and Bunting stay we probably don't get Bell or Haskins.
Every major program (Alabama, OSU, whoever you want to name) loses lots of talent that could serve as depth, but it helps them more than it hurts because they recruit at a high level. The scholarships are still at 85, so as long as you are losing "depth" and not impact players you benefit.
OSU can cry about transfers because they lost Jameson Williams and lose a dozen guys with lots of recruiting stars every year. But even in that case, it's because their WR room is loaded. WR was never a weak spot for them. Meanwhile they got Justin Fields and Jonah Jackson and others coming in, to great benefit.
OSU, Alabama, Michigan -- we all get better because of transfers. This redistribution of talent to fit roster needs is a net gain across college football. But the biggest winners are the teams at the top of the pile. It's part of why elite teams are consolidating assets and getting stronger than ever with more transfers than ever.
Anyway, we do get undergrad transfers sometimes (Ty Isaac, John O'Korn) so it's not just limited to grad transfers coming in. Of course Ricks or Walker, or To'o To'o would be nice to get but that doesn't mean Michigan was going to get them. Bama wins lots of recruiting battles. We lose plenty of the grad transfers we want.
It's a negative to limit the pool of transfers, I'm not arguing otherwise, I'm just saying that Michigan still benefits from the transfer portal overall. It's something that helps power programs including Michigan.
Another example - Zach Charbonnet. That's a quality back and UCLA has benefitted from getting him. But it didn't hurt Michigan at all to lose him - ZC was a backup to HH and Corum here, and we had another 5-star to give the ball to on top of that.
DeleteCould ZC have helped with "depth" in 2021? Sure. He did that in 2020. Maybe he would have saved HH a few carries against PSU when 2 of our top 3 backs were hurt. We could have had a 4-headed RB monster instead of a 3-headed one.
Having a player is better than not having a player but that's a false choice. The scholarship wasn't just set on fire. Instead we used it on Ikechukwu Iwunnah who might be nothing or might be a starting NT.
We don't know yet, but you take your shots on recruits and some will pan out into great players. Chances of Iwunnah being a better college player than Charbonnet are very small. But Michigan wasn't going to benefit from having ZC as "depth" and they might from having Iwunnah. At this point in time, it's a trade worth making.
And if you want to quibble with Iwunnah you can just pick Baldwin instead. Michigan had several "depth" transfers in this year. They are getting, just like they are giving.
@ Lank 6:15 p.m.
DeleteYour examples of Ways/Bunting don't really match up. Yes, Michigan got Bell/Haskins, but it took two or three years for them to develop.
Other teams are losing the equivalent of Ways/Bunting, but they're bringing in Jameson Williams, Justin Fields, Kenneth Walker III, etc., guys who are contributing in year one. Losing Moe Ways and getting James Williams is a boon. Losing Moe Ways to get a freshman Ronnie Bell is...eh, roughly an equal trade, at least at first.
Alabama gets high end 5 star recruits that Michigan doesn't.
DeleteAlabama gets high end undergrad transfers that Michigan doesn't.
Alabama gets high end grad transfers that Michigan doesn't.
Only in one of those instances do we pretend like a changing something in admissions would flip reality. In the others we recognize it is what it is in the current CFB landscape.
Michigan's rules aren't why Jameson Williams didn't come to Michigan anymore than they are why Bryce Young, Julian Fleming, or Nolan Smith didn't come to Michigan.
While I agree that Michigan would trade Ronnie Bell for Jameson Williams - that's not how it works. It's a fantasy. Like pretending that if you workout more you'll date the same women as Brad Pitt. It's going to take more than that!
There are reasons we got Jake Rudock and John OKorn and not Joe Burrow and Justin Fields. It has zero to do with admissions.
I can say this with confidence because it's very obvious that we rarely get the cream of the crop in recruiting and in grad transfers. The idea that we would in undergrad transfers would go against all available evidence and the trend evident for the vast majority of players coming in.
DeleteAnd all of that is ignoring that Michigan gets guys when it wants them -- Ty Isaac and John O'Korn being recent examples. So the idea that Kenneth Walker or Jameson Williams couldn't come to Michigan had they wanted to isn't even backed up by any facts.
Oluwatimi is cream of the crop IMO but I know Thunder disagrees.
DeleteSo much confidence it takes three posts ...
DeleteNobody is saying Michigan would get all (or even a lot of) the big portal prospects. We just need to widen the net. Consider, more than half our commits are 4/5stars. That's nowhere near Alabama, but it is ahead of most the B1G. And that's what we need out of the portal: just enough to stay ahead of PennSt and sparty, and make up for the experience gap Wisconsin & even Iowa can occasionally leverage against us
That's not true.
DeleteMaybe you can handle 3 words better than 3 posts.
Are Michigan's rules reasons why Xavier Worthy, Jeffery M'ba, and others aren't at Michigan? Yes.
DeleteAdmissions get in the way.
Michigan gets plenty of high 4-star recruits at the very least, not to mention occasional 5-stars (Peppers, Gary, Hill, Hinton, etc.).
No. Mba CONSIDRED Michigan but CHOSE Auburn. This after his primary connection (Morgan) left, it looked like the depth chart (Hinton/Smith) meant he wasn't going to start here (at least when he announced), and NIL money popped up as a bigger issue. Anyway -- Michigan offered him! He made a decision to go elsewhere.
DeleteOtherwise you're conflating two different things. Michigan's high academic standards for incoming recruits out of high school and Michigan's ability to accept transfer credits from other colleges. The latter is the topic du jour because Michigan fans need something to whine about. The former is part of the program and has been since before Bo Schembechler.
When Harbaugh was at Stanford he specifically made a case about embracing higher academic standards and being authentic about scholar athletes. Meanwhile Michigan fans were criticizing their former head coach for recruiting Demar Derosey and Not Getting It wrt culture. Now suddenly Harbaugh is driven to loosen things up and the nerds in the ivory tower are holding him back? Hogwash.
Michigan gets plenty of high 4-star recruits. They get top 10 recruiting classes consistently. Admissions doesn't hold them back from that. Michigan outrecruits MSU despite whatever elevated bar they have to deal with via admissions. It doesn't matter there.
Nor are academics the reason why Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, and LSU out-recruit Michigan.
We see programs like Texas A&M and UNC surging in recruiting because of NIL money, while Michigan (ostensibly a rich school with more "resources" and alumni) treads water.
NIL is a big deal. Transfer credits are not.
Worthy was admitted to Michigan and enrolled, per the student directory. There was some kind of issue that popped up in the Spring and he left. There were rumors and speculation that it was admissions but Worthy specifically said grades were not the issue. Again this is spring, well before fall of his freshman year.
DeleteHe could have gone to Michigan. He chose to go to Texas. Maybe it's just a coincidence that NCAA formally announced NIL a few weeks later...
*shrugs*
DeleteI guess you know more than Sam Webb. Good for you.
What's not true?
DeleteWorthy never moved in or set foot in a UM classroom as a student. He was in the student directory, but that doesn't confirm enrollment. The program even released a video of move in, without XW
https://twitter.com/UMichFootball/status/1350593679245922306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1350593679245922306%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.freep.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fcollege%2Funiversity-michigan%2Fwolverines%2F2021%2F01%2F18%2Fmichigan-football-recruiting-xavier-worthy-early-enrollment%2F4208214001%2F
I'm curious as to what you'll make up next Lank
I don't claim to know more than Webb. Do you have a link to what he said on this? I'll believe Sam but not going to take random twitter rumors as fact. People also speculated Worthy was close with Milton and Jackson.
DeleteWorthy was wobbly throughout including late visits to Alabama. There was tons of coaching and player turnover in the offseason. Rumors were all over the place. He said it wasn't about grades. That's what I know.
Webb has said so numerous times on his podcast. I'm not going to go back and post any links to the TMI podcasts. I'd venture a pretty strong guess that he's written about it, too, but I don't read 247 articles very often.
DeleteMgoSeth - who is close with Sam and hears what he says obviously, much more than I do - indicated today that Worthy left because Texas was aggressively recruiting him away while he was at Michigan.
Delete"My biggest concern is the opportunity for tampering, because it’s not like the NCAA is going to regulate that better than they (don’t) do anything else...The alarming thing about Xavier Worthy going to Texas wasn’t just losing a star freshman before he played, but how blatantly Sarkisian was communicating with him, and they just got away with it. "
If admissions was the problem it wouldn't have been tampering. If Worthy wasn't already at Michigan it would just be recruiting.
At a very minimum it's safe to say there was a lot going on and we can't 'just' blame admissions for Worthy. And even if we did, again, he was a freshman entering from HS trying to early enroll, not someone trying to get credits transferred from another school which is the easy people are bringing up now.
Different argument. Not arguing that losing transfers tends to benefit M. However, supply and demand is real. M has very few transfers they can look at, while MSU, WI, AL, etc.. have basically no restrictions. So when M wants to add a player there first decision is credits/grades. Then they can look at talent. Other schools don't have the same issues. so mi is competing for a limited number of athletes that qualify against every school in the NCAA. Now with NIL that is going to get exacerbated because you now how to think some lower tier schools may have alumni who go crazy on NIL.
ReplyDeleteIn the long run it is a benefit if M could have added a stud CB and a stud DL last year. They would have been much better. Not sure what the issue was with the JC Dl this year but he was interested in Michigan and then he was not. My guess is credit transfer issues. Yeah maybe the lowest rated recruit turns out to be Hassan Haskins or Ronnie Bell or maybe he turns out to Phillip Paea. Not being able to complement your current team with "proven" talent when everybody else does is a disadvantage.
Right. M loses experienced players, and gains ... 3star Freshmen
DeleteWhile I agree most the guys we lose don't do better elsewhere, it's also kind of the point. We're recruiting a lot of guys who don't perform, and replacing them with guys we can only hope to perform
Contrast that with the Bama example above - or even sparty - and we see opportunities we miss out on
But...we ARE able to do that. And we have. The transfer portal is bringing in plenty of talent to Michigan. Grad and undergrad.
DeleteYes, sure, it's a competitive disadvantage if other schools can draw from a bigger pool (supply) of potential transfers. I just think it's overstated. Because, again, Michigan has done it (e.g., Isaac, Bladwin, Danna). No one can say we lost anyone we would have had otherwise or that that kid wasn't going to Alabama or Florida or OSU anyway.
It was always the case that Michigan had more stringent academic requirements. That's nothing new in recruiting and it most directly affects high school kids. This was overstated too (because they absolutely took marginal scholars) but it has been a legit disadvantage forever. It's also an advantage with other kids that the academics are so strong.
Bottomline is that they still manage to get top 10 classes so crying foul about this seems misguided to me. They can't touch SOME kids but they are still going to get to 85 with plenty of good options regardless.
Would it be better for the football program if academic requirements were loosened and they could dip from a bigger pool? Sure. I have no problem with being easier to deal with transfer credits. I dealt with this at UofM myself actually. It was annoying, even when the deck was stacked in my favor via already established paths... Can't imagine trying to go from a Junior College.
My point is that this is a teeny tiny issue. It's the equivalent saying Michigan isn't allowed to get recruits out of the state of Mississipi. Sure, there's players there and some might be a big help, but there's a good chance those kids weren't coming to Michigan anyway. Even if they did want to but were stopped by academics, their scholarship gets used by someone else instead. It's not really a problem worth complaining about IMO. If Michigan "fixes this" I'm very skeptical you're going to see some flood of talent coming in. I think that's a fantasy.
The truth is that Michigan is going to be at a disadvantage because of geography and demographics. The disadvantage of academics standards (which go way beyond undergrad transfer issues) pale in comparison.
It might help if I saw an example of a guy that Michigan would have had butfor transfer credits. It probably never gets that far and maybe that's the case, but just listing off guys that transferred as undergrads is no more useful than listing off 5-star recruits.
DeleteRicks wasn't coming to Michigan. He is an LSU kid and then looked at Bama, Georgia, and OSU. Texas fans wondered why he wasn't offered by them too. Simple answer - he wasn't going there.
Walker wasn't coming to Michigan either. This is the school where ZC transferred out of. We're stacked at RB and he wanted an opportunity.
We win 1 out of 20 recruiting battles with Alabama. Any kid that transfers there was probably going there anyway.
And then, even when we get a 5-star undergrad transfer like Isaac, it doesn't necessarily make any difference, even if he's a solid player.
I think we're grasping at stuff here because we want to pretend like there's a solution to the fundamental problem of bad weather, tough academics, mediocre NIL, and inferior proximity to talent. This is Michigan. We do thing the right way, which means the hard way. It is what it is. We are probably never going to consistently get top 3 recruiting classes. We'll have to "settle" for top 10 and try and win with that.
"Name a guy we could have had if not for our academic standards" is an unfair portion of the argument, for obvious reasons.
DeleteIt is unfair. But less so than assuming we would have got IMPACT PLAYER X if admissions hadn't held them at the gates.
DeleteIs it really the bottom line if it's followed up by nine paragraphs?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I don't think the portal is a silver bullet to success. Nor is NIL. Nor are academic standards. No, it's a totality of circumstances
As you mention, geographically we are already faced with a large obstacle. Why accept any more? I think Harbaugh recognizes this, and is working with the university on clearing some of these challenges, which - together - help improve the competitiveness of his program
Poor JE had to read a comment on a blog from a frequent poster he doesn't like. Sorry about the gun to your head. Anyway, true heroism displayed to butt in to cry about it in the face of such adversity. It'll probably work this time.
DeleteUh oh, stuck a nerve
DeleteCan't make a point, so the "other personality" emerges
Just us here buddy, troll to troll. We can be honest that your acceptance is irrelevant. Thanks for responding yet again for the millionth time even though you pretend you don't want to. xoxo
DeleteGet help
DeleteI wonder how many would blame Jeffery Johnson on admissions if he hadn't graduated already.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't really a relevant thought.
DeleteWe don't get guys we want, regardless of admissions. The connection to admissions for undergrad transfers is speculative at best.
Delete