I don’t know what happened to the @Cal Varnsen feature "Sunday morning coffee with the Varnsens", but I’ll offer my own take here… a lot to unpack from yesterday.
Obviously, there’s a lot not to like. As former New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi was often fond of saying, "it’s not what you want.” @ChrisBalas has been here a long time… he doesn’t throw the word "unacceptable" around very often, and it has made several appearances over the last few games.
As has been well documented -- here and elsewhere -- the body language yesterday was atrocious. It was most notable to me on Coan's long touchdown run. The guys chasing him didn’t appear to care that he was running past them for a touchdown. Gus Johnson talked about Coan's "breakaway speed," which I suppose was a joke. Even that wasn’t a bigger joke than their entire stadium singing "Build me up Buttercup" at our expense.
There is so much to criticize… personnel, scheme, preparation. From a personnel standpoint, there has been no bigger fan on this board (or anywhere else) of Ben Mason than myself. That said, if Zack Charbonnet -- who was clearly banged up -- was well enough to play at all, why isn’t he getting the ball on 2nd & Goal from the 7? Ben Mason is a one-trick pony on offense. And he’s really good at that trick. Second and goal from the seven is not his spot.
Furthermore, most prepared teams (and offenses) have a signal or a word that causes them to run up to the line of scrimmage and snap the ball when a play like Ronnie Bell's catch is in question. We clearly did not. I’d rather give the ball to Hassan Haskins and have 2nd & 9 on our 48 than be back at our own 25 yard line facing 3rd & long. And I’ll never know as much about defense as Don Brown has forgotten, and I bought his explanation about emptiness in the A gap against Army, but nobody in the A gap against Wisconsin -- on 4th & Goal from the 1? That one’s lost on me.
And there's the issue of playing with some discipline. DPJ chirps at a guy and gets flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. Eubanks wrestles with a guy out of bounds... lucky he wasn't flagged. My 14-year old son didn't understand what DPJ did wrong... "he told the guy to stay off him." My response? "The guy got a penalty... he knows to stay off him." If there's an unsportsmanlike penalty to take in that game, as Skene noted, it should have been someone knocking Reggie Pearson's head off for what he did to McCaffrey.
Probably the single play that summed up yesterday most for me, was when Will Hart hit a ball that went out at Wisconsin’s 1 yard line. Call me old school, but I’m not a big fan of the punter celebrating down 28-0. And the cherry on top of that sundae was that the punt was called back for an illegal formation. Because... of course.
Also, call me old school, and I know it’s done this way after every NFL game nowadays, but do I really need to see DPJ congratulating Jonathan Taylor on TV in his postgame interview? When we went up there in '93 and lost, Walter Smith -- yes, a CAPTAIN -- cried his eyes out in the locker room, screaming "We're 4-4! We're 4-4!" Guess what? We didn’t lose again in 1993. Didn’t see that type of fire yesterday from anyone.
To questions of Harbaugh specifically, obviously it’s complicated. I know that he had lost a fair amount of former player support prior to yesterday. I had lunch with one guy a week ago who communicated the same to me. There are real problems with this program right now. I think people often confuse the words and concepts of "team" and "program," but we have a problem with both right now. This is Don Brown’s worst defense. We have no identity on offense. For the second time in Jimmy’s tenure, we have a returning quarterback who looks worse in Year Two than Year One (see: Speight, Wilton - 2017). Personally, one narrative that always drives me crazy is the quote "I can’t believe this is where we are in year five." People act as though programs should ascend upwards on a linear trajectory and then maintain a plateau of excellence. The reality is, it doesn’t work that way. Clearly, our running back and defensive tackle situations shouldn’t be what they are in Year Five, but overall? Brian Kelly was 4-8 in Year 7. Mark Dantonio was 3-9 in Year 10. David Shaw is 1-3 this year (his ninth). None of those guys were or are getting fired, and Kelly and Dantonio have had their share of off the field concerns as well.
I hate to boil so much down to one game, but it really seems like (the JT Barrett-was-short game notwithstanding) at last year‘s OSU game, the program was at a crossroads. Win that game, as we were favored to do, and we check off a lot of boxes for "program goals." Beat Ohio State. Win on the road. Play frigging Northwestern for the Big Ten Championship go to the playoff. Instead, we took the other fork in the road, and in spectacular fashion. Since then, we have had captains and undrafted free agents quitting on bowl games, and the team looking like a completely disorganized mess. Something is clearly broken. I still side with @ch13ba and @Chewbacca in thinking that Jimmy is the guy to fix it, or at least he ought to be given that chance. Sometimes the devil you know is much better than the devil you don’t. If we fired Harbaugh right now, there are three possible outcomes…
1) You get another Hoke or RichRod
2) You get another guy who eventually gets you to the same level Harbaugh is at now
3) You get Clemson or Alabama
The latter is awfully unlikely, even moreso given their... ahem... "recruiting advantages." I suppose one could argue that there's a level 2.5 in there somewhere, but again, I see that as very hard to attain.
Naturally, this is all made that much more difficult to swallow by what’s gone on in Columbus the last 20 years. But again, I’m anxious to see how or if Harbaugh can right the ship.
As @Blue_note says, Go Blue. Always.
Obviously, there’s a lot not to like. As former New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi was often fond of saying, "it’s not what you want.” @ChrisBalas has been here a long time… he doesn’t throw the word "unacceptable" around very often, and it has made several appearances over the last few games.
As has been well documented -- here and elsewhere -- the body language yesterday was atrocious. It was most notable to me on Coan's long touchdown run. The guys chasing him didn’t appear to care that he was running past them for a touchdown. Gus Johnson talked about Coan's "breakaway speed," which I suppose was a joke. Even that wasn’t a bigger joke than their entire stadium singing "Build me up Buttercup" at our expense.
There is so much to criticize… personnel, scheme, preparation. From a personnel standpoint, there has been no bigger fan on this board (or anywhere else) of Ben Mason than myself. That said, if Zack Charbonnet -- who was clearly banged up -- was well enough to play at all, why isn’t he getting the ball on 2nd & Goal from the 7? Ben Mason is a one-trick pony on offense. And he’s really good at that trick. Second and goal from the seven is not his spot.
Furthermore, most prepared teams (and offenses) have a signal or a word that causes them to run up to the line of scrimmage and snap the ball when a play like Ronnie Bell's catch is in question. We clearly did not. I’d rather give the ball to Hassan Haskins and have 2nd & 9 on our 48 than be back at our own 25 yard line facing 3rd & long. And I’ll never know as much about defense as Don Brown has forgotten, and I bought his explanation about emptiness in the A gap against Army, but nobody in the A gap against Wisconsin -- on 4th & Goal from the 1? That one’s lost on me.
And there's the issue of playing with some discipline. DPJ chirps at a guy and gets flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. Eubanks wrestles with a guy out of bounds... lucky he wasn't flagged. My 14-year old son didn't understand what DPJ did wrong... "he told the guy to stay off him." My response? "The guy got a penalty... he knows to stay off him." If there's an unsportsmanlike penalty to take in that game, as Skene noted, it should have been someone knocking Reggie Pearson's head off for what he did to McCaffrey.
Probably the single play that summed up yesterday most for me, was when Will Hart hit a ball that went out at Wisconsin’s 1 yard line. Call me old school, but I’m not a big fan of the punter celebrating down 28-0. And the cherry on top of that sundae was that the punt was called back for an illegal formation. Because... of course.
Also, call me old school, and I know it’s done this way after every NFL game nowadays, but do I really need to see DPJ congratulating Jonathan Taylor on TV in his postgame interview? When we went up there in '93 and lost, Walter Smith -- yes, a CAPTAIN -- cried his eyes out in the locker room, screaming "We're 4-4! We're 4-4!" Guess what? We didn’t lose again in 1993. Didn’t see that type of fire yesterday from anyone.
To questions of Harbaugh specifically, obviously it’s complicated. I know that he had lost a fair amount of former player support prior to yesterday. I had lunch with one guy a week ago who communicated the same to me. There are real problems with this program right now. I think people often confuse the words and concepts of "team" and "program," but we have a problem with both right now. This is Don Brown’s worst defense. We have no identity on offense. For the second time in Jimmy’s tenure, we have a returning quarterback who looks worse in Year Two than Year One (see: Speight, Wilton - 2017). Personally, one narrative that always drives me crazy is the quote "I can’t believe this is where we are in year five." People act as though programs should ascend upwards on a linear trajectory and then maintain a plateau of excellence. The reality is, it doesn’t work that way. Clearly, our running back and defensive tackle situations shouldn’t be what they are in Year Five, but overall? Brian Kelly was 4-8 in Year 7. Mark Dantonio was 3-9 in Year 10. David Shaw is 1-3 this year (his ninth). None of those guys were or are getting fired, and Kelly and Dantonio have had their share of off the field concerns as well.
I hate to boil so much down to one game, but it really seems like (the JT Barrett-was-short game notwithstanding) at last year‘s OSU game, the program was at a crossroads. Win that game, as we were favored to do, and we check off a lot of boxes for "program goals." Beat Ohio State. Win on the road. Play frigging Northwestern for the Big Ten Championship go to the playoff. Instead, we took the other fork in the road, and in spectacular fashion. Since then, we have had captains and undrafted free agents quitting on bowl games, and the team looking like a completely disorganized mess. Something is clearly broken. I still side with @ch13ba and @Chewbacca in thinking that Jimmy is the guy to fix it, or at least he ought to be given that chance. Sometimes the devil you know is much better than the devil you don’t. If we fired Harbaugh right now, there are three possible outcomes…
1) You get another Hoke or RichRod
2) You get another guy who eventually gets you to the same level Harbaugh is at now
3) You get Clemson or Alabama
The latter is awfully unlikely, even moreso given their... ahem... "recruiting advantages." I suppose one could argue that there's a level 2.5 in there somewhere, but again, I see that as very hard to attain.
Naturally, this is all made that much more difficult to swallow by what’s gone on in Columbus the last 20 years. But again, I’m anxious to see how or if Harbaugh can right the ship.
As @Blue_note says, Go Blue. Always.
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