Mailbag: All The Coach Dissatisfaction You Can Muster

[DATELINE: THE BURNED OUT HULK THAT USED TO BE ANN ARBOR.]

CONNECTION SHAKY. MASS PANIC AND RIOTS. WHOLE FOODS RAIDED. SINGLE ENDIVE LEAF ALL THAT REMAINS. ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT BUNKERED IN WHAT IS LITERALLY FORT SCHEMBECHLER NOW. TAKING POTSHOTS AT PASSERS-BY THEY CLAIM ARE ZOMBIES. SOME ARE. SOME.

SEND DVDS OF 1997 SEASON. ALSO WATER.

IF… IF I DON'T MAKE IT TELL CHARLES WOODSON I LOVE HIM.

I kid you not, GIS for "looting" and this guy in an off-brand Michigan jersey shows up

Brian,

Let me know when I should start panicking. I am ready at your command.

Peter

Okay this is where I'm at. I've got a go bag ready. Passports, about 10k in cash, various fake mustaches and sunglasses. I'm up do date on all my vaccines. Are you up to date on your vaccines? I can be in Laos in 15 hours, never to be seen again. Rumors of the white tiger of the jungle will flourish. I will become known only in song and legend.

BUT: note that I am not already in Laos. I am sticking around to see what this season has in store, because weird things happen against Notre Dame and—and bear with me here—this game actually felt much less bad than some hammerings from last year. There are some obvious problems at cornerback and Gardner has to play better but when things went wrong it was mostly one thing going wrong, not eight. So it might get fixed. There is no reason to demand a coaching change right now. Let the season play out and see what happens. If Michigan does catch fire in the crappy Big Ten this game will be a footnote.

Meanwhile, there's no reason to assume a coaching change is coming unless you're literally 75% of my inbox…

A true Michigan Man keeps his promises about the Austro-Hungarian Empire circa July 1914.

Brian,

You may recall that I said I would never write to you about Michigan football again after the BW3 Bowl and my comparison of Michigan football to the Austro-Hungarian Empire circa July 1914.  Since the last part is still true, I won’t make this long.  But your entry today about coaching prospects caused me to think about my second school (the Syracuse Orange).

Here are a LOT of assumptions, but (a) assuming the tire fire rages, (b) Hoke is fired, (c) none of the few big names worth watching (i.e., Miles, the Harbros) is/are available, and (d) Syracuse goes 8-5 or better again this year with a mid to late-December victory, what about a guy like Scott Schafer?  He’s in his mid-40s.  He runs an attacking style defense.  He’s from the Midwest.  He favors an up-tempo offense.  He has to coach against Clemson, FSU, Louisville (and ND this year).  He picked up the pieces after Doug Marrone ran off to the NFL with half of his coaching staff last year.

Might he be someone to watch?  I know the experience as Rich Rod’s DC did not work out.  But given his success running the defense at SU (particularly following GROB), that seems like it was more an issue of Rodriguez trying to make him run a defense he didn’t want to run.  He left with grace and took the blame that may not have been 100% his.

Just a thought – I’m grasping at straws . . .

Dan G

UM ‘85

Syr. Law ‘88

I don't think Shafer has a track record to get excited about. He did improve the Syracuse defense upon his arrival but he hit a ceiling pretty quick. FEI rankings for his defenses at 'Cuse:

2009: 70th
2010: 38th
2011: 39th
2012: 39th
2013: 65th (as head coach)

In FEI there are a lot of schedule adjustments so 39th isn't nearly as good as it is in straight yardage rankings. Meanwhile he'd have two years of head coaching experience, the first a 7-6 season, and the second an 8-5 one. I liked Shafer and know for a fact he got a raw deal from Rodriguez's defensive assistants, and then Rodriguez himself. But even if you don't hold that against him his resume is thin.

He is a guy to track, since he is a poachable head coach not in the MAC. That he's worth tracking is a good summation of the available talent this year.

[After The JUMP: I REGRET TO INFORM YOU YOU WILL NOT STOP DRINKING.]

I regret to inform you that you will not stop drinking.

I have to stop drinking. But it did help me come up with this half-baked gem of an idea.

There is no way this is possible, but I am going to choose to believe this to make myself feel better. Maybe Dave Brandon is gouging prices and focusing solely on the athletic department's bottom line for a reason. Money fixes things at times, and who is to say he is planning on firing Brady Hoke at the end of the year and luring someone back to Michigan. Maybe Harbaugh, maybe Les Miles. Sure they have great gigs right now, but if Dave Brandon called you and offered you some insane amount of money to come to Michigan, wouldn't you take it? 10-15 Million dollars a year? The crazy thing, I think Dave Brandon is just dumb enough to do it.

Alex

P.S. Aaron Wellman sucks too. Bring back Mike Barwis!

If that was the case, Brady Hoke would not have the contract he does right now, because he would not have earned it. He would be paid somewhere in the middle of Big Ten coaches instead of right at the top, thus giving Brandon even more financial muscle to put his meat on the table when the time comes.

The Occam's Razor explanation of the revenue drive is that Brandon has been CEO of a publicly traded company where nothing much matters other than the numbers you present quarterly.

PS: dude has a TV show he ain't never comin' back to any college.

DESPERATE IDEAS FOR DESPERATE TIMES [Bryan Fuller]

You don't interim unless you have to interim.

Brian - why haven't I heard any talk of promoting Greg Mattison to HC?  Worst case scenario we get blown out by MSU and all the noise forces Brandon's hand.  I could see a scenario where interim HC turns into a full time position next year.  He's got the fire in his eyes that Hoke never had, and it seems to me he's a better choice than any other available candidates.  It would also help shore up the progress we've made without cleaning house and starting a new 2-3 year rebuilding cycle. 

I'm dreading the coaching carousel that ND went through before they hired Kelly.  He's close to retirement for sure, but it might be a nice icing on top of a successful career, before he hands over the reins to someone like Nussmeier. 

Plausible?
Keith 2004

Uh. Keith. My man. I don't want to be harsh, but cumong man. Voluntarily interim-ing yourself is nuts. You lose a coach, you paper him over with a GA, you torpedo your recruiting for the next three months*, and you rob yourself of the opportunity to not fire a guy in case there is a major turnaround.

The benefits are…? I guess you get started on a coaching search earlier but you can do that in private now. That's what coaching search firms exist for.

*[Even if you do change coaches having an interim situation is worse than the sudden firing. Most guys stick even after a change, because they're comfortable with the program and school.]

TEMPO BLAME

Hey Brian,
I'm wondering how much of the tempo blame we should assign to Hoke vs. Nussmeier. Obviously Hoke is the man in charge, but it's been said before that he allows his coordinators autonomy in play-calling and the like. It seems this would be especially true for offense, where he lacks personal experience.

If it's Nussmeier's decision to not press the tempo, is this perhaps because this is the players' first year in the system? When he pressed the tempo at Washington and Alabama, was he doing it with players in their first year?

Thanks,
beenplumb

Sheer confusion is a likely explanation for tempo issues, both on the part of Michigan's players and their coaches. A lot of the things that went wrong in this game can be filed under Dumb Stuff. Hell, two bubble screens got blown up because the outside receiver blocked the wrong guy. Michigan is still trying to figure out what to do in a new scheme and the OC is trying to figure out what he can call that will actually work.

It's not a very smart team right now for some legitimate reasons. When Michigan did speed them up they got an easy QB sneak conversion… and had a false start on the very next play. So, yeah.

A big chunk of this is on Hoke, though, for holding on to the increasingly outdated huddle. A team that lives at tempo and assumes a call from the sideline as they get aligned for the next play often has time to change the call twice before they snap it. More and more teams are ditching it; do not expect Michigan to join them this year.

BOX SCORE BLAME

You're making a lot of the box score looking pretty good, but I think it's misleading. In the first half the yardage was round 250 to 160 Notre Dame including 3 flawless drives. The fact that they had 18 yards in the 4th quarter while killing time says nice stuff about M's ability to stop the run when everyone knows it's coming, but not much more.

Hey man I'm just saying it's better than getting bombed for 600 yards like Oregon did that one time and better than getting –48 rushing yards like Michigan did last year against MSU. By defensive drive:

1. First down and out.
2. 80 yard TD drive
3. 56 yard TD drive
4. Three and out.
5. 61 yard TD drive.
6. Three and out.
7. 0 yard FG drive.
8. Three and out.
9. Three and out. (That you should probably not consider.)

That's bad. It could have looked a lot better if Michigan had spread those yards out across more drives. And the problems seemed very localizable: Hollowell and Countess. They might not play those guys much when Peppers and Taylor get back.

The Fred Jackson question.

What exactly does Fred Jackson bring to the table? I only became a Michigan fan in 2006 when my (now) father-in-law gave me a few John Bacon books, particularly Bo's Lasting Lessons. I mention this because I didn't get to witness Mike Hart's development over his time at Michigan. Since then, it doesn't seem like a single RB has improved while at Michigan, whereas those that left (Cox, Rawls) have improved drastically. Between their inability to get the tough yards and horrendous blitz pickups, could the RBs be as much to blame for poor performance the past few years as the O-Line? And if so, why is Fred Jackson still employed?

Thanks,
Matya

The thing about Mike Hart is that he didn't really develop. Michigan found itself in desperate straights when David Underwood kept falling over when someone breathed on him and turned to Hart on the second game of his freshman season. Hart ripped off 120-some yards against SDSU in a fashion we would soon recognize as Hart-like, and was the same guy for the rest of his career.

Hart was kind of a running back genius, fully formed and eking the maximum production out of his somewhat limited physical capabilities from day one. Nobody got caught from behind more than Mike Hart.

Running back recruits since:

• Mister Simpson was a camp commit who never panned out and transferred.
• Kelvin Grady was a five star who was massively overrated. Got some short yardage carries, was passed over.
• Brandon Minor was pretty good when healthy as a straight-ahead rageback.
• Avery Horn was way overmatched and transferred after one year.
• Sam McGuffie got concussed three times as a freshman, transferred to Rice, and had a decent career as a slot receiver.
• Mike Cox, another camp commit, never saw any playing time despite his obvious physical gifts, transferred to UMass for his senior year, got drafted in the seventh round by the Giants, and had 43 carries as a rookie.
• Mike Shaw saw some time, mostly bounced things to the sideline no matter what, and faded away.
• Teric Jones never played.
• Vincent Smith was a terrific blocker and feisty third down back and throwback screen merchant.
• Fitzgerald Toussaint looked like a future star as a sophomore, got injured, was poor damn Toussaint as a junior, and then was flabbergastingly incompetent at pass blocking as a senior.
• Austin White didn't make it to his first game.
• Stephen Hopkins got moved to fullback and left.
• Thomas Rawls didn't do much at Michigan, is currently at CMU, where he's their starter.
• Justice Hayes, Derrick Green, De'Veon Smith, Wyatt Shallman, and Drake Johnson are currently on the roster.

That track record sucks. Minor was all right, Smith was a warrior and a useful piece (but given that he was from Pahokee almost certainly not a guy Jackson had much role in acquiring), and Toussaint had a negative career trajectory until he just about made an NFL roster. Everyone else was a bust except the guy who left for UMass and got drafted.

With Mike Hart and Ty Wheatley out there the chance that retiring Jackson hurts recruiting is slim; I don't think either could have a ten year(!) window nearly as bad as that.

Speaking of the current guys.

So a friend and I (both big U-M football fans) have grown disillusioned with Green as starting RB and we're not sold on Smith as the feature back. We were impressed with the few touches Hayes got.

We're wondering if there is any chance Hayes will get a serious crack at being the feature back this season? This seems like it should be increasingly likely considering the performance of Smith and Green against a real opponent last weekend, and the reality that the Drake Johnson hype appears to have been one big smoke screen from Fort Schembechler. Thoughts?

Thanks,
Jon Zemke

Hayes's two carries were a ten yard draw on third and twenty and a ten yard draw with 22 seconds left in the first half. On both of those ND was set up to allow the gain and Hayes gained what they were set up to allow. I don't think he made a huge case for himself.

I was frustrated with both backs. Each sabotaged drives by cutting away from massive holes. Some of that is attributable to scheme changes and youth and may get hammered out, but running back is a position where you usually have the instincts or not. Even if there's development to be had there, Jackson may not be the guy to provide it. And I did like Hayes's ability to pick through the gaps zone blocking provides during the spring game.

But for whatever reason he has never been in serious consideration for a primary job. I'd think he's at least worthy of a look if the main guys are going to give you the kind of production they did against ND.

Define optimistic.

I'm trying to be optimistic, but can we just admit that Brady Hoke is our very own Charlie Weiss?

No. Weis was way more unlikeable and had even less track record.

WHA HAPPEN

Brian,

In your podcast, you mentioned that you’d like to see a “Life on the Margins” about the Mich/ND game. Me too, as I didn’t feel particularly down on the play of any individual position group other than the DBs and Devin Gardner (but only slightly down). This was backed up by the box score, which I thought was totally bizarre. So I posted the following on Football Outsider’s OFI article:

I'd like some analysis of the ND/MICH box score. It's totally baffling. 4 turnovers will ordinarily prevent you from winning a game, but - as noted above - Michigan outgained ND in terms of total yardage and controlled TOP. Michigan had 18 first downs to ND's 20.

But even stranger, ND's stats are... pretty bad too. Michigan couldn't run the ball, but Notre Dame ran the ball even more poorly. Everett Golson looked great... until you realize that he averaged 6.6 YPA - only .7 YPA more than Gardner, who perceptibly looked completely terrible. And while the story of the game FELT like Notre Dame converting each and every third down, they were only a respectable 7/15.

Penalties weren't uneven either. Michigan had 5 penalties for 50 yards of loss, but Notre Dame also had 3 for 20. And there wasn't any special team yardage differential - kickoff returning yardage between the teams was identical, and Notre Dame only gained 26 total yards off all of their punt returns combined.

From the box score, this looks like a hard-fought ugly and close game. On the scoreboard, this looks like a laugher. What's the difference?

Brian Fremeau was kind enough to respond, and I think his post is very insightful:

Turnovers didn't play much of a part in the outcome. Michigan had four second half turnovers, but the Irish didn't score after either of the first two and only added a field goal to go up 31-0 after the third one. The game was basically already won before the turnovers started.

In non-garbage time, Michigan's average starting field position was its own 20-yard line, and they had zero drives start closer than 75 yards from the end zone. Notre Dame's average starting field position was its own 39-yard line in non-garbage time, and 7/9 non-garbage possessions started on a field shorter than 75 yards. In total, Notre Dame started its non-garbage possessions 254 yards closer to the end zone.

I think this point deserves more attention. I know it’s not sexy, but our field position game does suck and has sucked for a while. Hagerup is inconsistent and we rarely capitalize on returns. I appreciate any thoughts you may have, and feel free to discuss this on the blog with no attribution necessary if you feel it’s interesting/worthy of mention.

-A A Cascini

It is true that ND was impeccable on special teams and Michigan was… not. That is a major factor, though a big chunk of those non-garbage possession yards I assume are from those turnovers.