It’s amazing how inflated our sense of this program is, something I’m immensely guilty of as well. Frankly, while I understand this unprecedentedly bizarre season was a mess, who really cares? Youngest team we’ve ever had, no QB, insane circumstances, basically a meaningless season. The fact it seems a majority of us want JH is gone is just total foolishness. Why? Because he’s achieved at basically the same level as our “glory days” (you know, aside from when football was played in leather helmets), with the only real difference being OSU has morphed into a total dynasty.
If we’re being honest, it really doesn’t matter who we hire, Michigan is never going to be a consistently elite program on the level of an Alabama or Clemson, or even osu. It can’t reasonably happen, and if it ever did, it wouldn’t be sustainable.
Here’s why:
1. Of high level football programs, we are probably the best university overall. That’s a wonderful thing, and as a graduate I am extremely proud of that, but it’s not conducive to football. First, no matter how much MSU fans whine about “general studies,” a general studies degree is actually exponentially more difficult to achieve than a vast majority of degrees at a school like MSU. This is due to the fact there’s no such thing as a course titled “general studies.” The players are in LSA, the largest college at UM, where the average fellow student got a 33 on their ACT and had a 4.0 (actual numbers). Since the overwhelming majority of classes at UM are graded on a curve, that means our guys are directly competing against the upper 1% of all college students. So, while I was there for instance, Taylor lewan and Mike Schofield were in my global politics class. I can assure you, these kids didn’t have it “easy” because they were general studies majors, they were competing directly against the rest of us gunning for high level law school admission. The fact we have the most academic all Americans we’ve ever had is absolutely unbelievable. However; the fact remains it’s extremely difficult to achieve at a high level at UM competing against the literal upper 1% of American college students. This is something really only Michigan experiences of the “blue blood”
Programs; as the class sizes at ND make the use of the curve exponentially less frequent, meaning; though a great school as well, the players are often not directly competing with the general population. So, if you’re a blue chip kid aiming for the NFL, you want to come work your ass off to kid a B at UM or play a hell of a lot more madden getting As at Alabama? No brainer for most these kids.
2. Recruiting. We not only will not cheat, which is again a good thing, but we have to find this incredibly special sort of kid that is willing to deal with the aforementioned academic rigors; no “benefits” they’d get at many other schools, and an almost total lack of geographic quality. Michigan is cold. Michigan is a very difficult school. The airport is 45 minutes from campus. Trying to get the elite national recruits to sign up for terrible weather, far from home, and no $, oh wait, and you get to work much harder in school? Good luck. It takes an extremely unique kid like Dax to think beyond the fact Alabama is going to pump out nfl players without degrees (or with nonsense ones worth the paper they’re printed on) while winning titles and driving brand new mustangs, and think hmmm I should really have a degree I can do things with when my inevitably short career is over. Those kids don’t grow on trees. Their “handlers” do not profit from them going to Michigan. 81% of scholarship power 5 players come from families at or below the poverty line: tell me how effective JH selling “were ranked the number 1 public univeristy!” Is compared to a very poor family being offered 300k. So, you’ve got a very mediocre, at best, state for football, you have Ohio owned by the greatest midwestern dynasty of recent history, and you have ND/PSU to deal with for the scraps. It’s an absolute mess for any coach to deal with.
3. OSU. We could hire Mike Tomlin tomorrow and, for the aforementioned reasons, we still will not consistently beat Osu. They are currently on a totally different level. It would take a massive scandal or catastrophic coaching hire to get to their level, maybe both. Ohio remains a top 3/4 state for high school talent, and they absolutely own it to an extent we’ve never seen. Why wouldn’t they? In the last 7 seasons osu has more 11 win seasons than Michigan has IN OUR HISTORY. OSU has more 12 win seasons in the last 3 years than we’ve EVER HAD. OSU has had the second most first round picks in the last decade or any school, and the second most kids drafted in the top 100. Why do they beat us? Tell me what coach can consistently “out scheme” a 2020 roster that has 31 composite top 100 players on it. You know how many Michigan has? Here’s a list: Dax, Hinton, McGrone, Corum, Charbonnet. That’s it. Good luck! OSU has more 5 stars than the rest of the big ten combined, and just added FIVE more with a chance at two in the late signing period. It’s an absolute all star team that is also, conveniently, obsessed with beating us.
Back to our delusion, as an elite academic school with what I would describe as a “good” football history, here is what has actually transpired in the last half century:
Bo wins per season: 9.1 (11 game regular season for most of tenure). 78% winning percentage overall, 84% in conference (during an era in which basically no program was competent outside of the big two)
Gary M: 8.8 wins per season. 73% winning percentage. 74% in conference.
Lloyd: 9.3 wins. 75%. 78% in conference.
RR: 5 wins. 41%. 25%.
Hoke: 7.7 wins. 61%. 56%.
JH prior to this absurd season: 9.5 wins. 74%. 73%.
So, JH took us back to basically our best times of recent memory, while OSU is unreal, the big ten East is maybe the best division in football, cheating has never been a bigger problem, AND we came off probably the worst 7 year stretch in our history prior to his arrival.
Has his era been an immense success? Nope. But it’s very good given the circumstances and we could do ALOT worse. We need to stay the course with new coordinators and stop pretending the next hire will make us something we’ve literally never been.
If we’re being honest, it really doesn’t matter who we hire, Michigan is never going to be a consistently elite program on the level of an Alabama or Clemson, or even osu. It can’t reasonably happen, and if it ever did, it wouldn’t be sustainable.
Here’s why:
1. Of high level football programs, we are probably the best university overall. That’s a wonderful thing, and as a graduate I am extremely proud of that, but it’s not conducive to football. First, no matter how much MSU fans whine about “general studies,” a general studies degree is actually exponentially more difficult to achieve than a vast majority of degrees at a school like MSU. This is due to the fact there’s no such thing as a course titled “general studies.” The players are in LSA, the largest college at UM, where the average fellow student got a 33 on their ACT and had a 4.0 (actual numbers). Since the overwhelming majority of classes at UM are graded on a curve, that means our guys are directly competing against the upper 1% of all college students. So, while I was there for instance, Taylor lewan and Mike Schofield were in my global politics class. I can assure you, these kids didn’t have it “easy” because they were general studies majors, they were competing directly against the rest of us gunning for high level law school admission. The fact we have the most academic all Americans we’ve ever had is absolutely unbelievable. However; the fact remains it’s extremely difficult to achieve at a high level at UM competing against the literal upper 1% of American college students. This is something really only Michigan experiences of the “blue blood”
Programs; as the class sizes at ND make the use of the curve exponentially less frequent, meaning; though a great school as well, the players are often not directly competing with the general population. So, if you’re a blue chip kid aiming for the NFL, you want to come work your ass off to kid a B at UM or play a hell of a lot more madden getting As at Alabama? No brainer for most these kids.
2. Recruiting. We not only will not cheat, which is again a good thing, but we have to find this incredibly special sort of kid that is willing to deal with the aforementioned academic rigors; no “benefits” they’d get at many other schools, and an almost total lack of geographic quality. Michigan is cold. Michigan is a very difficult school. The airport is 45 minutes from campus. Trying to get the elite national recruits to sign up for terrible weather, far from home, and no $, oh wait, and you get to work much harder in school? Good luck. It takes an extremely unique kid like Dax to think beyond the fact Alabama is going to pump out nfl players without degrees (or with nonsense ones worth the paper they’re printed on) while winning titles and driving brand new mustangs, and think hmmm I should really have a degree I can do things with when my inevitably short career is over. Those kids don’t grow on trees. Their “handlers” do not profit from them going to Michigan. 81% of scholarship power 5 players come from families at or below the poverty line: tell me how effective JH selling “were ranked the number 1 public univeristy!” Is compared to a very poor family being offered 300k. So, you’ve got a very mediocre, at best, state for football, you have Ohio owned by the greatest midwestern dynasty of recent history, and you have ND/PSU to deal with for the scraps. It’s an absolute mess for any coach to deal with.
3. OSU. We could hire Mike Tomlin tomorrow and, for the aforementioned reasons, we still will not consistently beat Osu. They are currently on a totally different level. It would take a massive scandal or catastrophic coaching hire to get to their level, maybe both. Ohio remains a top 3/4 state for high school talent, and they absolutely own it to an extent we’ve never seen. Why wouldn’t they? In the last 7 seasons osu has more 11 win seasons than Michigan has IN OUR HISTORY. OSU has more 12 win seasons in the last 3 years than we’ve EVER HAD. OSU has had the second most first round picks in the last decade or any school, and the second most kids drafted in the top 100. Why do they beat us? Tell me what coach can consistently “out scheme” a 2020 roster that has 31 composite top 100 players on it. You know how many Michigan has? Here’s a list: Dax, Hinton, McGrone, Corum, Charbonnet. That’s it. Good luck! OSU has more 5 stars than the rest of the big ten combined, and just added FIVE more with a chance at two in the late signing period. It’s an absolute all star team that is also, conveniently, obsessed with beating us.
Back to our delusion, as an elite academic school with what I would describe as a “good” football history, here is what has actually transpired in the last half century:
Bo wins per season: 9.1 (11 game regular season for most of tenure). 78% winning percentage overall, 84% in conference (during an era in which basically no program was competent outside of the big two)
Gary M: 8.8 wins per season. 73% winning percentage. 74% in conference.
Lloyd: 9.3 wins. 75%. 78% in conference.
RR: 5 wins. 41%. 25%.
Hoke: 7.7 wins. 61%. 56%.
JH prior to this absurd season: 9.5 wins. 74%. 73%.
So, JH took us back to basically our best times of recent memory, while OSU is unreal, the big ten East is maybe the best division in football, cheating has never been a bigger problem, AND we came off probably the worst 7 year stretch in our history prior to his arrival.
Has his era been an immense success? Nope. But it’s very good given the circumstances and we could do ALOT worse. We need to stay the course with new coordinators and stop pretending the next hire will make us something we’ve literally never been.
