One of my players is a UW fan. He texted me yesterday to ask if I was going to watch the game. I responded that I was going to skip the beat-down and watch a chick flick with my wife instead because: a) marriage is all about clock management, and given the amount of time I spend on HS football during the week Saturday nights need to be family time; and b) she gets more irritated during Michigan losses than I do.
We were out shopping yesterday so we got home after the game had already started. We were down 14-0. I watched about ten minutes and saw a bad JV team playing against the varsity. I am shocked that the recruiting and development have been so bad, particularly with Herbert on the staff.
So, true to my word (sort of), we watched the last 3 episodes of Ted Lasso (highly recommend it; thanks for the recommendation @schimbee ). The last time I sampled so little of a Michigan football game was the 2010 Ohio State game. I thought that was the nadir of my emotional involvement with Michigan football but I was wrong. The opposite of love is not hate, it is ambivalence. And right now, I fully accept that Michigan is not just a bad team but a poor program whose problems go far beyond laying an egg in a game here or there. The program is, in my opinion, broken. No less a football analyst than Mrs. Varnsen agrees. So when I tuned in last night and saw that my MSU/IU assessment of the program was further confirmed, I wasn't angry. I just didn't want to invest more time belaboring the obvious.
As bitter a pill as it was to swallow, I could explain this all away with RichRod because his recruiting was so scattershot and obviously amateurish. I could understand it with Brady because he seemed to be the Peter Principle writ large -- a guy who'd been successful at lower levels who just couldn't make the leap. But Harbaugh was obviously credentialed and had us on the verge of going to the play-offs in 2016 but for a brain fart by Kalis in Iowa City and a series of cruel developments at Columbus. He has had every reasonable resource and been given the benefit of every doubt. But here we are in year 6 and he has yet to recruit a QB who's developed into a championship caliber player. In fact, they've all been wash-outs or remain (at best) players with serious question marks. The only two position coaches on the team that I have any faith in are Zordich and Warriner and the former is not a terrific recruiter. The rest of the staff is either unproven (Gattis; charitably), mediocre, or, IMO, just bad (Nua tops the list here). I think Don Brown is a great motivator and someone kids love to play for. I also think he's a One-Note Annie whose scheme relies upon superior talent and: 1) the team that we need to beat is always going to have equal or superior talent; and 2) we don't even have talent superior to Wisconsin any more.
The Michigan football program is in a horrible position. It bet the house on a guy who seemed like he was as "can't miss" as Michigan will ever reasonably expect to get, they got him, and he missed. I think the program is broken and cannot be restored under Harbaugh's leadership. Warde Manuel or his successor will have to identify and recruit a new head coach and staff in an environment where resources are scarce and where a lot of top candidates (note: not FANTASY candidates like Urban Meyer, but the Matt Campbells of the world) will rightfully question whether Ann Arbor is the right venue for them or not. The cupboard is not bare but there are real holes all over the place, who knows what the transfer portal will look like, the University's administration is committed to observing the rules (which I support) but it is not clear to what extent football is a real priority in the way that it is at the schools we need to beat, the program has a questionable perception among (and strained relationships with) in-state HS coaches, JH single-handedly breathed life into our in-state rival's recruiting narrative (at least vis-a-vis UMich), our biggest rival is as consistently good as it has ever been, and other programs are successfully poaching Michigan for talent.
In 2014 I wrote that it was "the winter of our discontent." It turned out that it was only a prelude to the humdinger of 2020-21. Michigan's fortunes are no longer in Jim Harbaugh's hands. Warde Manuel is on the clock. Unless Michigan starts cheating, I will root for the team until the day I die. But I no longer have faith that all Michigan has to do is erase the legacy of two bad hires and one confounding one. Its position in the changing world of CFB is fundamentally different than when Rich Rodriguez took the reigns in 2008 and, absent a shockingly good hire, I don't think it is likely to return to that echelon for a very, very long time.
We were out shopping yesterday so we got home after the game had already started. We were down 14-0. I watched about ten minutes and saw a bad JV team playing against the varsity. I am shocked that the recruiting and development have been so bad, particularly with Herbert on the staff.
So, true to my word (sort of), we watched the last 3 episodes of Ted Lasso (highly recommend it; thanks for the recommendation @schimbee ). The last time I sampled so little of a Michigan football game was the 2010 Ohio State game. I thought that was the nadir of my emotional involvement with Michigan football but I was wrong. The opposite of love is not hate, it is ambivalence. And right now, I fully accept that Michigan is not just a bad team but a poor program whose problems go far beyond laying an egg in a game here or there. The program is, in my opinion, broken. No less a football analyst than Mrs. Varnsen agrees. So when I tuned in last night and saw that my MSU/IU assessment of the program was further confirmed, I wasn't angry. I just didn't want to invest more time belaboring the obvious.
As bitter a pill as it was to swallow, I could explain this all away with RichRod because his recruiting was so scattershot and obviously amateurish. I could understand it with Brady because he seemed to be the Peter Principle writ large -- a guy who'd been successful at lower levels who just couldn't make the leap. But Harbaugh was obviously credentialed and had us on the verge of going to the play-offs in 2016 but for a brain fart by Kalis in Iowa City and a series of cruel developments at Columbus. He has had every reasonable resource and been given the benefit of every doubt. But here we are in year 6 and he has yet to recruit a QB who's developed into a championship caliber player. In fact, they've all been wash-outs or remain (at best) players with serious question marks. The only two position coaches on the team that I have any faith in are Zordich and Warriner and the former is not a terrific recruiter. The rest of the staff is either unproven (Gattis; charitably), mediocre, or, IMO, just bad (Nua tops the list here). I think Don Brown is a great motivator and someone kids love to play for. I also think he's a One-Note Annie whose scheme relies upon superior talent and: 1) the team that we need to beat is always going to have equal or superior talent; and 2) we don't even have talent superior to Wisconsin any more.
The Michigan football program is in a horrible position. It bet the house on a guy who seemed like he was as "can't miss" as Michigan will ever reasonably expect to get, they got him, and he missed. I think the program is broken and cannot be restored under Harbaugh's leadership. Warde Manuel or his successor will have to identify and recruit a new head coach and staff in an environment where resources are scarce and where a lot of top candidates (note: not FANTASY candidates like Urban Meyer, but the Matt Campbells of the world) will rightfully question whether Ann Arbor is the right venue for them or not. The cupboard is not bare but there are real holes all over the place, who knows what the transfer portal will look like, the University's administration is committed to observing the rules (which I support) but it is not clear to what extent football is a real priority in the way that it is at the schools we need to beat, the program has a questionable perception among (and strained relationships with) in-state HS coaches, JH single-handedly breathed life into our in-state rival's recruiting narrative (at least vis-a-vis UMich), our biggest rival is as consistently good as it has ever been, and other programs are successfully poaching Michigan for talent.
In 2014 I wrote that it was "the winter of our discontent." It turned out that it was only a prelude to the humdinger of 2020-21. Michigan's fortunes are no longer in Jim Harbaugh's hands. Warde Manuel is on the clock. Unless Michigan starts cheating, I will root for the team until the day I die. But I no longer have faith that all Michigan has to do is erase the legacy of two bad hires and one confounding one. Its position in the changing world of CFB is fundamentally different than when Rich Rodriguez took the reigns in 2008 and, absent a shockingly good hire, I don't think it is likely to return to that echelon for a very, very long time.
