I will repeat the premise so that rest of my point is not overshadowed and I will pre-emptively respond to the obligatory straw-man argument (yes, I would rather have Harbaugh as coach by a thousand times): Jim Harbaugh is vastly superior to Brady Hoke in almost every possible way.
However, I once again feel the intense frustration of watching games with play calling decisions and substitution patterns that defy logic. For me, that was the single hardest part of the Hoke era to digest. It made watching Michigan games a maddening experience.
With the hiring of Harbaugh, I thought we were finally beyond that. Win or lose, I would at least not have to pull my hair out watching coaching decisions that every arm-chair amateur coach could see the folly of from a million miles away. It was a tremendous sense of relief.
But here we are again, watching 9 straight passing plays just as soon as the offensive line finally starting getting a consistent push, fade routes to a 5-10 wide receiver with shaky hands thrown by a quarterback with limited touch in poor weather conditions, play formations that so obviously tip our hand, endless half back dives into the teeth of the Spartan defense instead of running any jet sweeps or counters that test the pedestrian defensive ends of MSU, running Evans only between the tackles rather than make an effort to get him into space, calling a half back draw on a critical 3rd and 4, not having our tallest receivers on the field for the hail mary, etc., etc., etc. …
I truly never thought this day would come with a Harbaugh coached team. I am just shocked.
Is he over-thinking things? Is he pressing? Is someone else making these decisions?
There is no history of any Harbaugh-coached team having such a pattern of ill-conceived decisions that defy logic so blatantly.
However, I once again feel the intense frustration of watching games with play calling decisions and substitution patterns that defy logic. For me, that was the single hardest part of the Hoke era to digest. It made watching Michigan games a maddening experience.
With the hiring of Harbaugh, I thought we were finally beyond that. Win or lose, I would at least not have to pull my hair out watching coaching decisions that every arm-chair amateur coach could see the folly of from a million miles away. It was a tremendous sense of relief.
But here we are again, watching 9 straight passing plays just as soon as the offensive line finally starting getting a consistent push, fade routes to a 5-10 wide receiver with shaky hands thrown by a quarterback with limited touch in poor weather conditions, play formations that so obviously tip our hand, endless half back dives into the teeth of the Spartan defense instead of running any jet sweeps or counters that test the pedestrian defensive ends of MSU, running Evans only between the tackles rather than make an effort to get him into space, calling a half back draw on a critical 3rd and 4, not having our tallest receivers on the field for the hail mary, etc., etc., etc. …
I truly never thought this day would come with a Harbaugh coached team. I am just shocked.
Is he over-thinking things? Is he pressing? Is someone else making these decisions?
There is no history of any Harbaugh-coached team having such a pattern of ill-conceived decisions that defy logic so blatantly.
