2019 Michigan Season Thread

[Mdot21]

Is there any discernible grumbling about the state of the program with Michigan fans (beyond what is always present)?

What if they finish 8-5 this year?

Hard to see them finishing 8-5 this year. If they did- man Harbaugh's seat would be white hot.
Schedule sets up nicely as they get ND, MSU, Iowa, and Ohio State all at home. They have to play Wisconsin on the road but it's early in the season which to me is a plus. I'd rather play Wisconsin 3rd week of the season and be fresh vs having to play them late in the season banged up. Wisconsin's style of offense also plays right into Don Brown's hands. It's those spread you out, tempo offenses that Brown seems to have no idea how to slow down. Other than that the only road game they really have is Penn State. And not sure how good Penn State is even going to be this year.
Offense returns nearly everybody and has the added benefit of getting Tarik Black healthy to start the entire season, new OC in Gattis, and another year of Ed Warriner shaping that OL into form. RS Frosh RT Jaylen Mayfield has been making lots of noise. This could wind up being the best OL that Harbaugh has had at Michigan by a wide margin. RB is really the major ? mark. Chris Evans' status is in limbo right now and the hotshot 5* early enrollee RB is missing all of spring ball with a knee injury.
Defense lost a lot, but there's still plenty there for it to be pretty solid. Kwity Paye, Josh Uche, and Aidan Hutchinson all good DL players. They also added the grad transfer DE from CMU who had 16 sacks last year in Mike Danna. They should have 4 really good DE's this year with those guys. And maybe their most talented DE in Luiji Villain is finally healthy and making noise in practice. They should be able to go 5 deep at DE if Villain is healthy. Ambry Thomas and LaVert Hill is a damn good CB duo. Josh Metellus should be a really solid starting strong safety. I'd be shocked if 5* hot-shot Dax Hill didn't walk right in and start at FS as a true soph. Kid is insanely athletic. They still have Khaleke Hudson and Josh Ross will probably be a better fit at MLB than he was at OLB- those two are pretty good LB's.
Who will be the 3rd LB to emerge and the depth at DT are probably the two glaring question marks for that defense. DT took a massive beating with Mone and Marshall graduating and Aubrey Solomon deciding to transfer to Tennessee. They've got Carlo Kemp and Mike Dwumfour and that's about it. Neither inspires much faith. Kemp is a mediocre player at best and Dwumfour is one trick pony- pass rush specialist DT who has struggles with the run at times. RS Soph. Donovan Jeter and RS Fr. Taylor Upshaw are the only other DT's on the roster that aren't true frosh. Mazi Smith, Chris Hinton, Gabe Newburg, and Mike Morris- all true frosh. Smith and Hinton probably play as true frosh. Wouldn't surprise me to see Newburg redshirt this year than be processed out and transfer- and then see Morris redshirt and switch to OL- where Florida State had wanted him to play before he flipped to Michigan.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just curious as to when the seat would get really hot.  Obviously, 8-5 is not likely, 9-4 is perhaps somewhat possible, and 10-3 is not hard to see happening.

I see 4 regular season games that COULD be losses.  Lose half of those and a bowl game ...

8-5 and life gets annoying for Harbaugh. 10-3 and nothing really changes. Ten wins is the plateau/status quo range. Anything over 10 in the regular season and there's a strong chance Michigan is in the BTCG and things are super peachy, because winning that means both a championship and a likely CoFoPO bid.

[MrNubbz]

Hard to see them finishing 8-5 this year. If they did- man Harbaugh's seat would be white hot.
Schedule sets up nicely as they get ND, MSU, Iowa, and Ohio State all at home. They have to play Wisconsin on the road but it's early in the season which to me is a plus. I'd rather play Wisconsin 3rd week of the season and be fresh vs having to play them late in the season banged up. Wisconsin's style of offense also plays right into Don Brown's hands. It's those spread you out, tempo offenses that Brown seems to have no idea how to slow down. Other than that the only road game they really have is Penn State. And not sure how good Penn State is even going to be this year.

Good points if anything else the schedule favors "M".As you mention it's always better to get Bucky the 1st half of the season.The earlier the better before they get traction.Also not bad timing headed to Happy Valley,as I have no idea what to expect there.I'd imagine a drop off from the previous 2 seasons.Find out how good Franklin did on the recruiting trail

[Anonymous Coward]

Wisconsin's style of offense also plays right into Don Brown's hands. It's those spread you out, tempo offenses that Brown seems to have no idea how to slow down.

I don't agree with that. He came back down to earth at the very end of last year because Michigan had two major holes as DT and 3rd CB. Well that and ... nobody had feasted on it before the OSU game and he had the #1 defense in the country. Obviously I wish he had seen the invisible problem, but I can't hate him for ignoring the invisible problem.
Also, his reputation at BC was exclusively as a destroyer of spread offenses. And he showed us that in 2016 when he ground OSU's offense to a halt. Overturning all of that because of three games (2017 PSU, 2018 OSU/UF) is silly when there's such a better explanation. That his personnel was less perfect than he knew based on their performance in every other game.
I trust he'll iron out a lot of that this offseason just as he ironed out a lot of the issues versus 2017 PSU last year. But (1) this is also the worst personnel he's ever had at Michigan at DT and (2) my most legit gripe will remain unchanged: he's too loyal to slow upperclassmen like Gil and Watson.

[Mdot21]

8-5 and life gets annoying for Harbaugh. 10-3 and nothing really changes. Ten wins is the plateau/status quo range. Anything over 10 in the regular season and there's a strong chance Michigan is in the BTCG and things are super peachy, because winning that means both a championship and a likely CoFoPO bid.

I'd agree with this. I'm sure some fans would be very frustrated if he finished 10-3 again and lost to OSU- but hard to see them firing him after the guy had four 10 win seasons in 5 years when the program was basically a complete dumpster fire and joke for a decade under RR/Hoke.

[Mdot21]

I don't agree with that. He came back down to earth at the very end of last year because Michigan had two major holes as DT and 3rd CB. Well that and ... nobody had feasted on it before the OSU game and he had the #1 defense in the country. Obviously I wish he had seen the invisible problem, but I can't hate him for ignoring the invisible problem.
Also, his reputation at BC was exclusively as a destroyer of spread offenses. And he showed us that in 2016 when he ground OSU's offense to a halt. Overturning all of that because of three games (2017 PSU, 2018 OSU/UF) is silly when there's such a better explanation. That his personnel was less perfect than he knew based on their performance in every other game.
I trust he'll iron out a lot of that this offseason just as he ironed out a lot of the issues versus 2017 PSU last year. But (1) this is also the worst personnel he's ever had at Michigan at DT and (2) my most legit gripe will remain unchanged: he's too loyal to slow upperclassmen like Gil and Watson.

It's not an invisible problem. It's a glaring problem that few teams on Michigan's schedule under Brown have actually had the personnel to exploit. Brown plays WAY too much man to man coverage across the board. He makes it easy pitch and catch for the QB/WR's because he's not mixing up the coverage enough and he asks marginally athletic LB's and safeties to do things they have no business doing like covering elite RB's and slot WR's. Someone like Mike McCray should NEVER, EVER, NEVER be manned up one on one single coverage vs an ELITE ELITE athlete like Saquon Barkley. That is a LOSE situation 100% of the time. Devin Gil isn't slow at all by the way. He's very fast for a LB'er.
OSU's offense ground to a halt in 2016 because they didn't have the QB with the arm to exploit Don Brown's scheme. JT was a heckuva college QB- but like MOST college QB's- he doesn't have the arm/football iq to exploit that defense. OSU's offense ground to a halt in 2017 as well. And then Dwayne Haskins came in and was wheeling and dealing and carved up that man to man coverage and made it look easy. And he did it again and did it even worse in 2018 as he absolutely shredded Michigan.
I'm not even really counting the Florida game. Those guys flat out quit that game to me. I'm just going off the 2017 Penn State game, the Dwayne Haskins series in 2017, and the 2018 OSU game.
Brown's schemes are highly exploitable. The problem is few college teams have QB's and WR's good enough to exploit them- so he gets away with his all-out blitzes and basic man to man coverages and pads stats vs crappy offenses that don't have the personnel to exploit him.

His style of defense fares much better vs teams like Wisconsin than they do teams that spread it out and air it out and get the ball in space to play makers.

[Cincydawg]

It has to do with expectations.  A fan base wanting nothing less than an NC will likely be disappointed (I know this).  A fan based that expects at least a division title and a W over the main rival has a better chance of being at least "OK".  I was thinking that 10-3 is probably "break even", better is good, and less than that is going to generate grumbling.

[Mdot21]

It has to do with expectations.  A fan base wanting nothing less than an NC will likely be disappointed (I know this).  A fan based that expects at least a division title and a W over the main rival has a better chance of being at least "OK".  I was thinking that 10-3 is probably "break even", better is good, and less than that is going to generate grumbling.

10-3 just maintains status quo. He does worse- his seat starts to get really hot. He does better- 11-2 or 12-1- he's a hero again.

[847badgerfan]

I'd agree with this. I'm sure some fans would be very frustrated if he finished 10-3 again and lost to OSU- but hard to see them firing him after the guy had four 10 win seasons in 5 years when the program was basically a complete dumpster fire and joke for a decade under RR/Hoke.

Time to win. All the players are his now. There is no excuse anymore. Now that he is focused on actual coaching, instead of all the other BS, it will be interesting to see how he does this year. We know the guy can coach.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://mobile.twitter.com/orion_sang/status/1109219148528340993

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously any scheme can fail, be mediocre or dominate. So news like this can't predict which it'll be. But it tell us two things:

1) Michigan is no longer structurally incapable of an efficient 2-minute offense
2) Aside from tempo, the transition (re: concepts) may not be extreme at all, so we shouldn't expect a slow uptake. So if this year is worse that last in efficiency, that'd be *supremely* bad news.

Still, what I'm most interested in is decision making. I liked the old offense in structure but not in decisions. So I don't really care about the run/pass splits or scheme (except that a similar  scheme will be easier on the kids). Last year it was ~60/40 run/pass and I doubt it'll trend away much further than ~55/45.

• Will the run and pass games feed off each other coherently? (Last year it was clear they were controlled by separate coaches who thought separately and rarely integrated)
• Will there be coherent counters and the capacity to add counters to counters as the opponent adjusts?

• Will we actually attack opponent weaknesses or continue to primarily practice our base strengths no matter what?
• And though some debate the significance of this, I'm curious if we'll become more unpredictable on 1st down

We know none of that yet. Gattis has made good superficial decisions so far but the biggest tests are mostly unknowable until September.

[MaximumSam]

Benjamin St-Juste done with a medical hardship.  I remember his recruitment - that's too bad

[Mdot21]

Benjamin St-Juste done with a medical hardship.  I remember his recruitment - that's too bad

Yeah, it really is too bad. I had high hopes for him. He was an unranked sleeper prospect from Canada that Michigan found early and after solid performances on the camp/combine circuit and the HS All-Star games his rankings in the recruit sites exploded. 247's own rankings they had him in the top 100 players in the nation. Hard to find legitimate 6'3 DB's that have the hips and feet to play CB in college and beyond.
Not sure how big a loss it is as he never really got any action in 2017 or 2018. Michigan should be A OK at DB even with David Long leaving early and Brandon Watson and Tyree Kinnel graduating.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sad for him, obviously, but I also was excited to put a Québécois on the national radar for CFB. Would have been original.