Jim Harbaugh is a desperate man, and desperate men make desperate decisions.
Tormented by championship demons, Harbaugh has made 13 coaching changes in less than 5 years and he isn’t any closer to winning a Championship today than when he arrived in Ann Arbor in December 2014, at which time he was welcomed by bands and banners and Championship dreams, but those Championship dreams have proven to be an illusion and Harbaugh is not only floundering, he is grasping at straws.
This season alone, Harbaugh will deploy 3 new coaches on a staff with just 10 assistant coaches, that’s 30% turnover in a single season. The changes include Offensive Coordinator (brought in from Alabama), Defensive Line Coach (from Arizona State), and Linebacker Coach (from Boston College), whilst another coach has transitioned from Michigan Offensive analyst to Quarterback Coach. Basically when you look at the position groups involved, Harbaugh is starting over.
Harbaugh is clearly unsatisfied with his coaching hires to date, given 130% turnover of assistant coaches since 2015. So he is going across the land in search of coaches who can help lead him to the promised land. But it’s worth noting, Harbaugh’s focus seems to be all over the lot. Whilst other coaches are getting ready for 2019 campaign, Harbaugh has been engaged in a kerfuffle regarding a dicey transfer issue.
Moreover, Harbaugh is the man who has made a mockery of coaching in the Big Ten by conducting satellite camps all over the US, including in the shadows of Bryant-Denny Stadium in Alabama; taunting other coaches such as Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss and taking an insulting swipe at former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer after Meyer stepped down from coaching (but, why didn’t Harbaugh challenge Meyer when Meyer could reply on the football field?).
Of course Harbaugh mugged for the camera while climbing trees and playing touch football with adolescents; orchestrated Million Dollar international junkets for his family under the guise of life experience for his players; and who can forget Harbaugh sleeping on the floor of a highly regarded recruit…but all for naught…still no Championships!!!
Still no friends!
I guess coaching in the Big Ten has proven to be more difficult than Harbaugh anticipated when he arrived in AA smugly thinking he would win a string of Big Ten Championships with $49 Million in his checking account…but not so fast! In fact, 6 other coaches have played in the Big Ten Championship Game since Harbaugh arrived on scene and yet all Harbaugh can do is spin the “coaching” wheel of fortune hoping to find a cadre of coaches who can deliver a championship.
So where is the NFL genius we were told Harbaugh would bring to the Big Ten?
Another “new offense”:
Harbaugh is installing his 3rdOffensive/Passing game Coordinator in 5 seasons, and that coordinator will implement yet another “new” offensive scheme.
With the 2019 college football season inching ever closer, each and every day we hear about Shea Patterson’s ascendance as a super quarterback (playing lights out they say) with an unimpeachable ability to lead Michigan’s “new” Offense which is being crafted by Josh Gattis, Michigan’s new Offensive Coordinator. The “new offense” is supposedly some nuanced “no huddle” scheme, predicated upon “speed in space” and other clever descriptors, but c’mon, no one has ever seen this offense in a football game.
It’s somewhat laughable to read media reports regarding Michigan’s glorious “new” Offense because at this point in time, it is sight unseen. So I have to ask the question: where are the stats to support the media assumption that Michigan will win a Big Ten Championship? The media may not cite the facts, but here are the facts I have: The facts clearly state Michigan’s Championship fortunes are nothing more than the most recent illusion about Michigan football, because in spite of all the coaching and personnel changes, Michigan hasn’t won an uncontested Big Ten title since 2003.
And if 2018 is an indicator of things to come, then it’s worth noting that Michigan’s Passing Offense finished 2018 as the 8thranked Passing Offense in the Big Ten (the bottom 50 percentile) when measured in Big Ten competition and that equates to #79 in the land or the bottom 40 percentile in NCAA. So where is the threat?
In 2019, Michigan will deploy a 4th year Quarterback who has never won a Championship of any kind in college football…an Offensive Coordinator who has never called a single play in college football…and a new Quarterback Coach who spent last season as an Offensive analyst.
Recipe for success?
I submit Michigan’s perpetual coaching carousel, and lack of continuity is a recipe for heartburn!
During the past 4 seasons under Harbaugh’s leadership, Michigan has never had a Quarterback lead the team for two consecutive seasons. And Harbaugh has never developed a Quarterback of his own. In fact, in the past 4 seasons alone, Harbaugh has deployed 5 different Quarterbacks including Jake Rudock (transfer from Iowa), Wilton Speight (recruited by Brady Hoke), Brandon Peters (recruited by Harbaugh), John O’Korn (transfer from Houston) and Shea Patterson (transfer from Ole Miss), and don’t look now, but Dylan McCaffrey is standing in the wings awaiting for Patterson to falter, and McCaffrey will likely replace Patterson at the first sign of miscues and/or missteps which assuredly will occur in a new offensive scheme.
So while Harbaugh spins the “Quarterback wheel of fortune”, there are still no Championships!
Where are the Championships?
I want to be respectful of Shea Patterson as a young student athlete, but the media has made him a celebrity so I am obligated to set the record straight.
Patterson doesn’t have championship credentials. Whilst the media is spewing hype about Patterson along with Josh Gattis, Michigan’s 3rd Offensive Coordinator in 5 seasons, the pundits have leaped to a “starry eyed” conclusion that Michigan is a favorite to win the Big Ten Title based upon an Offense that will reportedly deploy “speed in space”, an Offense similar to the scheme Patterson operated at Ole Miss.
Let’s take a look at Patterson’s record at Ole Miss, because to be brutally honest, Patterson had monumental problems at Ole Miss.
In fact, if history is a predictor of the future, then it’s worth noting, in 3 years of playing Power 5 football (2 years at Ole Miss and one year at Michigan), Shea Patterson has posted dubious stats and just one winning season. When we look at Patterson’s record vs Power 5 opponents, Patterson’s record is middling, just 10 wins & 7 losses (59% winning pct). And here is how it looks:
Patterson versus Power 5 opponents:
- 2016 (at Ole Miss): 1 win & 2 losses
- 2017 (at Ole Miss): 1 win & 4 losses
- 2018 (at Michigan): 8 wins & 3 losses
It’s notable that in 2017 while playing for Ole Miss in the SEC, Patterson played in 5 games vs Power 5 opponents and posted a single victory offset by 4 losses. And in those 4 losses, Patterson threw 4 TD’s offset by 8 Interceptions and when running with the football, Patterson got thrown for minus 36 yards in losses (-36).
It’s also notable that Patterson has only guided his teams to a single Bowl game in 3 seasons and when he finally got to a Bowl game last December, he suffered an undignified beatdown and lost to Florida 15-41, including just 1 TD offset by 2 Interceptions and 5 Sack’s for minus 30 Yards (-30). That was less than 8 months ago.
As you can see, there is a theme in Patterson’s resume: under pressure he pitches more Interceptions than TD’s and his indecisiveness leads to yardage losing Sack’s.
Let’s repeat, in 2019, Patterson will be the leader of Michigan’s new Offense whose mantra is “speed in space”, and that “new” Offense is being “stitched” together by Josh Gattis Michigan’s 3rd Offensive Coordinator in 5 years who, by the way, has never called a single play in college football. Meanwhile Ben McDaniels has become Michigan’s 3rd Quarterback Coach in 5 years, and most recently McDaniels was an Offensive analyst.
And let’s be clear, most fans and analyst have no understanding regarding the complexities or the degree of difficulty as it relates to an inexperienced Offensive Coordinator attempting to install a new Offensive system, which also includes the orientation of a new Quarterback Coach.
At the minimum, there is the issue of a new playbook, new plays, new playbook jargon, players being put into unfamiliar positions with unfamiliar expectations, and meanwhile the coaches are uncertain of which players can deliver in specific game conditions. In turn, it will take time for players to react instinctively instead of mechanically, and assuredly the players will be uncertain if they can trust a so called “new system” in crunch time. Here is what a Michigan Offensive Lineman had to say about the “new” system:
“…It’s kind of difficult being offensive linemen because it’s hard to get your fits right because you don’t really know if it’s going to be a run or a pass and sometimes you’re blocking and you think the run’s coming to you but then you see the ball the way down the sideline at the end of the play.” (unquote). That doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement!
Speed in Space sounds romantic in preseason practice, but it will all look different under the lights at game speed.
So, all the hype about Michigan dethroning Ohio State as Big Ten Champions in 2019 is 100% romantic speculation…because the leading indicators suggest Michigan’s championship aspirations for 2019 rely strictly upon catastrophic collapses of Ohio State and Michigan State who by all calculations are the teams most capable of winning the Big Ten East.
At the bottom line:
Wait until game time…
Wait until Michigan’s new “speed in space” offense lines up against some of the most highly regimented Power 5 Defenses in the land including @ Wisconsin, Sep 21…Iowa, Oct 5…@Penn State…Notre Dame, Oct 26…Ohio State, Nov 30…but the game that is perpetually circled upon the Spartans calendar is Nov 16 at which time the Spartans travel to Harbaughville.
For all of Harbaugh’s indecisiveness and perpetual tinkering of coaches and Quarterbacks, Mark Dantonio is a man of stability. Whilst Michigan’s new Offensive mantra is “speed in space”, on the other hand the Spartans Defensive mantra is continuity and consistency. Moreover, Dantonio is on a familiar path in 2019 with a record of 2-0 vs Harbaugh in Ann Arbor, and Harbaugh is abundantly aware of his problematic record versus Mark Dantonio at the “Big House” and you can rest assured that is another “Demon” that consumes Harbaugh’s psyche.
To complicate things even more for Harbaugh, the Spartans will bring their #1 Rushing Defense and #8 ranked Scoring Defense that yielded a meager 17 points per game last season to play in Ann Arbor, and it will be intriguing to watch Harbaugh’s “speed in space” scheme trying to find “open space” while the Spartans front 7 are causing mayhem along Michigan’s Offensive Line.
And with respect to Josh Gattis, whom I am sure is a good man, but let’s see how Gattis adjusts to calling plays in his first year as an Offensive play caller. Gattis may draw up “speed in space” on the white board in practice, and all the X’s & O’s may align perfectly, but it all looks different when the Offensive Line is getting blown up on game day.
This is the Big Ten, and it’s a Big Stage, and football is unkind to first year Offensive Coordinators deploying fancy “new” systems, and Josh Gattis may rue the day he left Alabama to seek celebrity in the Harbaugh circus.
Give me the Spartans and Ohio State as favorites to compete for the Big Ten East title.
