Mailbag: Nepotism Chances, Beilein Paranoia, Harbaugh Timing, RR Counterfactual

Illu]\/[inati

1976 Michigan Football Team

It's happening...

Circled are Jim Hackett, 53, and Jack Harbaugh, Bo assistant

I am not putting all the eggs in the ol' basket based on this. Maybe a few.

Chances of similar nepotism catastrophe?

Well, we've just witnessed the final episode of Brady Hoke in Michigan Stadium.  It's very easy for some to feel anger at the head coach, but the more appropriate target(s?) are those responsible for elevating Hoke to a position he was incapable of executing.  Beyond the anger, are the responsible parties still in a position of influence?  Not Brandon, of course, my concern is more directed toward Schembechler Hall.  Is there a risk of essentially repeating the same mistake of another Michigan Man, albeit a more competent version?

Mark

Uh… no? We have already plucked the last fruit off the Lloyd Carr tree, such as it is, and Michigan men available are:

• JIM HARBAUGH. Probably not a mistake.
• LES MILES. Questionable due to age and sketch, but even so not in Hoke's galaxy as in terms of qualifications, or lack thereof.
• NOBODY. There are no other Michigan-affiliated head coaches.

I guess Michigan could go way off the board and hire one of the near-rookie NFL coordinators who have ties, but you have to think that after the last search they would try to avoid the appearance of nepotism. I cannot say for sure, of course. Michigan could go with Harold Goodwin or Teryl Austin, because nobody knows anything about Jim Hackett.

I kind of doubt it, though. After the two obvious guys there isn't a midlevel head coach with an uninspiring record who you can just barely see as conceivable if you squint particularly hard.

Meanwhile the new president isn't a Michigan guy and seems kind of appalled by the current culture of the department; most of said department consists of Brandon-hired short-timers with no connection to Michigan. The guy dead-set on the nepotism hire has been flushed, and what are the chances Michigan hires two CEOs like… that… back to back?

Okay, okay: nonzero. But not high. If Hackett's anywhere near the meat of the bell curve the backup plan won't be hired because he knows six different places Encore Records has been.

[After THE JUMP: or where Le Dog went to]

Harbaugh timing

Hi Brian,

So I've been wondering about the pros/cons of hiring a coach early vs. waiting - wouldn't it be better to sacrifice this year's recruiting class in the event that getting Harbaugh after the NFL playoffs are over is a possibility (assuming SF makes it to the postseason)? I.e. how okay would you be with a late January hire in this scenario? Obviously if you can't get Harbaugh, you're going to want to make the hire asap, but if you're Hackett and Harbaugh won't give you a straight yes/no answer until he's done at SF, what do you do?

--Alex

The best scenario is probably for San Francisco to go 10-6 and miss the playoffs in a very competitive NFC. Harbaugh is available as soon as he can be, San Francisco is unlikely to change their mind about his departure, and there's no awkward waiting.

Even if that doesn't happen, I think you have to get a firm yes or no by the beginning of January. If SF is fine with him moving on hopefully they will be fine with announcing that before the season's over. They may well be, as if reports about how the locker room hates him are true that would be a relief. "Let's all get together for the next two months and win some stuff and then we never have to see each other again," that sort of thing.

In that scenario Harbaugh's ability to recruit is going to be highly limited or even nonexistent, which is fine by me since a few phone calls probably gets Michigan back up to 8-10 kids and then whoever's left over from the Hoke staff will be able to fill in the blanks reasonably well. That would virtually guarantee Roy Manning and maybe one other position coach is on the new staff; recruiting coordinator Chris Singletary would also be a lock. (Not that I think there's much threat he gets replaced—recruiting has been the one thing the Hoke regime has done undeniably well.)

Beilein paranoia

Brian,

As we go through names and debate whether Michigan would be able to poach someone like Dan Mullen from Mississippi State or Mike Gundy from Oklahoma State, I keep coming to the conclusion that, even during their down years, there are a handful of premiere jobs like Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, etc. that are a notch above the rest, and that given the opportunity to go from a mid-level Big XII or SEC program to one of these, many coaches would take it.

This has gotten me freaked out because it seems that there's an equivalent of a Mississippi State or Oklahoma State to Michigan move in basketball, and it's Michigan to UNC, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky or UCLA.  Indiana may be looking for a new coach soon, and maybe UNC too if the NCAA violations continue to linger.

So my drawn out question is, do we need to be at all worried about Beilein?  Would his age rule him out for making another jump?  Is my analogy misguided?  Am I just being super paranoid?  Please tell me I'm being super paranoid.

Scott

You're being super paranoid. The bad news is that Beilein is planning on retiring in the relatively near future. He's got four or five or six years left before he calls it a day. The good news is that this means he's not going anywhere. He doesn't have any interest in spending a couple of those years doing one of his slow burn builds, and a big-time program is going to be looking for a longer-term solution than Beilein offers.

Meanwhile I question whether Michigan can poach some of those mid-level football coaches. Mullen, probably. Mississippi State is still dead last in its division when it comes to resources and always will be; Mullen has to know that he should strike while the iron is hot, because you can be a really good coach and still stumble to a handful of 7-6 seasons at MSU.

Gundy and Patterson already know they can build national contenders where they are; their situations in or next to the Texas talent mine are far less unbalanced than that faced by Mullen. They also are likely to have job security far beyond that Michigan would offer, and these days the money differences aren't particularly large. Both would have to think long and hard about whether they were going to give up a good thing for an unknown.

Beilein is not in a spot like Dan Mullen. He's in a spot like Gary Patterson, and I think it would take several pounds of C4 to dislodge him from TCU.

Walk-ons still extant?

Brian,

I read the Daily piece on Alex Mitropolous-Rundus and it reminded me of a question that has gone in and out of my head the last four (largely grueling) seasons: Did Hoke abandon RichRod's student body walk-on tryouts? I haven't read or heard a word about a tryout of that sort since Hoke arrived.

I hope that's only a product of nobody having made any significant impact on the field since Jordan Kovacs. But the fact that a Kovacs or someone even vaguely like him may possibly exist in our enormous student body every few years is more than reason enough that Hoke should be forcing a few assistants to spend a couple hours to run a tryout one Saturday a year if he's too lazy to do it himself.

There is literally no downside. If he and the coaches around him can't see that, well... I suppose it would be just one more thing to add to their List O' Buffoonery. I'm reasonably certain Carr held no such tryouts, and I'm guessing Hoke immediately abandoned them per his and Brandon's "Purge All Remnants of the Rodriguez Era" edict. 

Thanks.
-Rob, NJ

There are always student-body walkons, and since the walk-on program under Hoke has produced two solid starters in the Glasgow brothers that doesn't seem like a valid criticism. Yeah, they were preferred walk-ons. I don't think that's a distinction worth making. They are still guys brought onto the team without the (initial) expenditure of a scholarship slot.

The elder Glasgow was flipped from OSU, so they did something to emphasize that Michigan was a better place for them—something that paid off. Michigan's also brought in Bo Dever and Jack Wangler, wide receivers who might have some use down the road. Dever's already seeing playing time in the slot as a kind of replacement Dileo. (Unfortunately he cannot catch balls that glance off his fingertips.) Michigan's done fine with walk-ons under Hoke.

It's the guys with scholarships who have underperformed.

I really shouldn't answer this.

Not meaning to make comment section explode, but where do you think Michigan football would be right now had Brandon retained RR for another year with caveat that he was forced to hire a decent DC, money being no issue?

Peter, Horsham, PA

Oh man. This counterfactual is really really counterfactual. Rodriguez's recruiting had really cratered by the end, but what if he adds Casteel and runs a 3-3-5 that works-ish the next year while not, say, putting Denard Robinson under center for the Iowa game?

First: how much luck are we giving RR? Hoke's 11-2 opening campaign was ridiculously lucky, from the double-covered bombs to Hemingway to the 75% fumble recovery rate. If we're giving RR Hoke's butt-horseshoe I think Michigan has a season about as good, with the defense not quite reaching those Mattison levels and the offense not trying to do nonsense things with Denard.

I'm not sure that saves RR when Denard goes down in the middle of the next season and the OL falls off thanks to his crappy recruiting. But it's close.