I was having this discussion with some friends today.
I've been watching Michigan football since 1982 or so.
During that time, we've won one national championship. We've also only played in one national championship game.
In that year, we had the only defensive player in the history of college football to win the Heisman trophy. A true unicorn, and now NFL Hall of Famer. We also had a defense loaded with NFL talent. We beat OSU 21-14. That OSU team was quarterbacked by the dual-headed monster of Stanley Jackson and Joe Germaine. If I'm not mistaken, their tailback was Pepe Pearson. (They did have a freshman WR, David Boston, who was pretty damn good, and their defense was tough). We beat them with a punt return TD and a pick-six.
During those 30+ seasons, many other schools (some blueblood, some not) have achieved far greater success on the national scene than we have. They include USC, Miami, Oklahoma, Nebraska, FSU, Florida, Alabama, OSU, and arguably even Clemson and LSU. We are about even with PSU and ND, both of whom have one title during that time. Other teams who have won national championships would include Auburn, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Georgia Tech, and Tennessee.
Having said that, we have fielded a lot of talent during that time. Not many schools have produced the NFL talent at QB that we have (Grbac, Griese, Brady, Navarre (backup for a few years, that counts), Henne). We have also had several prolific wide receivers (Howard, Alexander, Toomer, Streets, Terrell, Walker, Edwards, Avant, Arrington, etc.) And while our running backs haven't been great in the pros, guys like Jamie Morris, Ricky Powers, Ty Wheatley, Tim Biakabutuka, Chris Howard, Anthony Thomas, Chris Perry and Mike Hart were college stars.
In addition to 1997, we've had some nice bowl wins over the years - Nebraska (1986), USC (1988), Washington (1993), Auburn (2000), and Florida (2002, 2008, 2016). And some of the bowl losses have been excruciatingly close (Texas, FSU). We've also been embarrassed a few times (Tennessee 2001, USC 2004, USC 2007, Mississippi State 2011).
The point is, the program has been very good, but it has not been elite on a national level.
That being the case, what would we really have to lose if we decided, one day, that our offensive philosophy is now Oklahoma's, or OSU's this year. Come out aggressively, use your weapons, and try to score 50+ every game.
For 30 years - with some minor deviation during the Moeller years - our offensive philosophy has been establish the run, wear the other team down, win the field position battle, limit turnovers. Sure, we want to score, but we want to do it in a certain way (which usually leads to long drives and fewer points). Moeller actually had some innovative offenses, his problem was his lousy defenses (under the direction of one Lloyd Carr).
If the goal is national success - that hasn't worked. Empirically, I don't know how anyone could dispute that. Now, with Meyer at OSU, we can't really even win the Big Ten employing that philosophy. We can achieve what we did this year. And let's be clear - we had a great season. But to take that next step, I believe we need to have an aggressive, high scoring offense.
I had hoped Harbaugh could come in and, with better execution, run the same offense and achieve better results. And he has, to some degree. We're now winning 10 games a year, instead of 8-9 under Lloyd, because our defense is dominant and we're not losing games to teams like Illinois, Purdue, Northwestern (although this year's game was close), and Iowa.
Look what happened in basketball. One day, JB decided, "We're going to start really guarding people." He hired the right guy. How has that worked out? We won a school record 33 games last year, made the championship (be honest, no one saw that coming), and now we look even better this year. And now we're good on both sides of the ball. Sure, the offense isn't as great (in part due to personnel), but the overall team is as good as we've seen.
If we start scoring 45 a game in the Big Ten, and start giving up 21 a game instead of 10-15, who cares? I'll take that trade any day. I'd love to come into Wisconsin next year, and throw all over them. Let Taylor have his 100 yards, let them score 14-21, let's win 45-21 instead of playing our super conservative brand of football and hoping we can pull out a 21-17 squeaker.
The frustrating thing is, we have the tools for a great passing game. We now have a stable of QBs (Shea, McCaffrey, Milton) who all seem like future pros, or at the very worst really good college QBs. Danny Weurffel, for example, was not an NFL QB, but he won a national championship leading a prolific offense. We have great weapons in the passing game - DPJ, a fully healthy Black next year, Collins, Gentry, Eubanks, Evans out of the backfield, Martin in the slot. I don't ever want to see a slow developing screen to McKeon again.
With a good QB, guys like DPJ, Black, and Collins should all be pushing 1,000 receiving yards, not 500. And the pass opens up the run. Spurrier had running backs like Emmett Smith and Fred Taylor. USC had Reggie Bush and LenDale White. FSU had Amp Lee (who absolutely made us look silly) and Warrick Dunn. Oklahoma had Adrian Peterson. Alabama has Damien Harris. ND, under Kelly, has had good running backs (Riddick, Josh Adams, now Williams). It's not like you have to abandon the run if you employ an aggressive passing offense. It helps the run.
And finally, which system is going to appeal more to talented recruits? I was always amazed at how Moeller and then Carr were able to reel in great receiver and QB recruits. Harbaugh, being a former QB and having had success with guys like Alex Smith, Kaepernick, and Rudock (he's in the NFL), and probably Patterson, will continue to recruit that position pretty successfully, I think. But man, I have doubts about our ability to land top WR talent in the future if we don't start throwing the ball downfield more.
We have all the tools to have a dynamic offense next year. I really hope Jim sees that and adapts. If he doesn't, I'm not sure we'll reach the level of an elite program.
And don't get me wrong - I'll take 10-11 wins all day long. But I do think the program has the talent for a higher ceiling with some improvement on the offensive side of the ball.
I've been watching Michigan football since 1982 or so.
During that time, we've won one national championship. We've also only played in one national championship game.
In that year, we had the only defensive player in the history of college football to win the Heisman trophy. A true unicorn, and now NFL Hall of Famer. We also had a defense loaded with NFL talent. We beat OSU 21-14. That OSU team was quarterbacked by the dual-headed monster of Stanley Jackson and Joe Germaine. If I'm not mistaken, their tailback was Pepe Pearson. (They did have a freshman WR, David Boston, who was pretty damn good, and their defense was tough). We beat them with a punt return TD and a pick-six.
During those 30+ seasons, many other schools (some blueblood, some not) have achieved far greater success on the national scene than we have. They include USC, Miami, Oklahoma, Nebraska, FSU, Florida, Alabama, OSU, and arguably even Clemson and LSU. We are about even with PSU and ND, both of whom have one title during that time. Other teams who have won national championships would include Auburn, Washington, Colorado, Texas, Georgia Tech, and Tennessee.
Having said that, we have fielded a lot of talent during that time. Not many schools have produced the NFL talent at QB that we have (Grbac, Griese, Brady, Navarre (backup for a few years, that counts), Henne). We have also had several prolific wide receivers (Howard, Alexander, Toomer, Streets, Terrell, Walker, Edwards, Avant, Arrington, etc.) And while our running backs haven't been great in the pros, guys like Jamie Morris, Ricky Powers, Ty Wheatley, Tim Biakabutuka, Chris Howard, Anthony Thomas, Chris Perry and Mike Hart were college stars.
In addition to 1997, we've had some nice bowl wins over the years - Nebraska (1986), USC (1988), Washington (1993), Auburn (2000), and Florida (2002, 2008, 2016). And some of the bowl losses have been excruciatingly close (Texas, FSU). We've also been embarrassed a few times (Tennessee 2001, USC 2004, USC 2007, Mississippi State 2011).
The point is, the program has been very good, but it has not been elite on a national level.
That being the case, what would we really have to lose if we decided, one day, that our offensive philosophy is now Oklahoma's, or OSU's this year. Come out aggressively, use your weapons, and try to score 50+ every game.
For 30 years - with some minor deviation during the Moeller years - our offensive philosophy has been establish the run, wear the other team down, win the field position battle, limit turnovers. Sure, we want to score, but we want to do it in a certain way (which usually leads to long drives and fewer points). Moeller actually had some innovative offenses, his problem was his lousy defenses (under the direction of one Lloyd Carr).
If the goal is national success - that hasn't worked. Empirically, I don't know how anyone could dispute that. Now, with Meyer at OSU, we can't really even win the Big Ten employing that philosophy. We can achieve what we did this year. And let's be clear - we had a great season. But to take that next step, I believe we need to have an aggressive, high scoring offense.
I had hoped Harbaugh could come in and, with better execution, run the same offense and achieve better results. And he has, to some degree. We're now winning 10 games a year, instead of 8-9 under Lloyd, because our defense is dominant and we're not losing games to teams like Illinois, Purdue, Northwestern (although this year's game was close), and Iowa.
Look what happened in basketball. One day, JB decided, "We're going to start really guarding people." He hired the right guy. How has that worked out? We won a school record 33 games last year, made the championship (be honest, no one saw that coming), and now we look even better this year. And now we're good on both sides of the ball. Sure, the offense isn't as great (in part due to personnel), but the overall team is as good as we've seen.
If we start scoring 45 a game in the Big Ten, and start giving up 21 a game instead of 10-15, who cares? I'll take that trade any day. I'd love to come into Wisconsin next year, and throw all over them. Let Taylor have his 100 yards, let them score 14-21, let's win 45-21 instead of playing our super conservative brand of football and hoping we can pull out a 21-17 squeaker.
The frustrating thing is, we have the tools for a great passing game. We now have a stable of QBs (Shea, McCaffrey, Milton) who all seem like future pros, or at the very worst really good college QBs. Danny Weurffel, for example, was not an NFL QB, but he won a national championship leading a prolific offense. We have great weapons in the passing game - DPJ, a fully healthy Black next year, Collins, Gentry, Eubanks, Evans out of the backfield, Martin in the slot. I don't ever want to see a slow developing screen to McKeon again.
With a good QB, guys like DPJ, Black, and Collins should all be pushing 1,000 receiving yards, not 500. And the pass opens up the run. Spurrier had running backs like Emmett Smith and Fred Taylor. USC had Reggie Bush and LenDale White. FSU had Amp Lee (who absolutely made us look silly) and Warrick Dunn. Oklahoma had Adrian Peterson. Alabama has Damien Harris. ND, under Kelly, has had good running backs (Riddick, Josh Adams, now Williams). It's not like you have to abandon the run if you employ an aggressive passing offense. It helps the run.
And finally, which system is going to appeal more to talented recruits? I was always amazed at how Moeller and then Carr were able to reel in great receiver and QB recruits. Harbaugh, being a former QB and having had success with guys like Alex Smith, Kaepernick, and Rudock (he's in the NFL), and probably Patterson, will continue to recruit that position pretty successfully, I think. But man, I have doubts about our ability to land top WR talent in the future if we don't start throwing the ball downfield more.
We have all the tools to have a dynamic offense next year. I really hope Jim sees that and adapts. If he doesn't, I'm not sure we'll reach the level of an elite program.
And don't get me wrong - I'll take 10-11 wins all day long. But I do think the program has the talent for a higher ceiling with some improvement on the offensive side of the ball.
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