Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I see what you are saying,the old "there are lies,damn lies and statistics".This could be M's year because of the offense coming to fruition and other squads thinning out.Get while the gettings good

If there is one thing I have learned over time, a "ranked" defense doesn't mean much.  I have found that typically highly ranked defenses tend to play ball control, "3 yards and a cloud of dust" football.  It's easy to make your defensive stats look good when the opposing offense gets half of the possessions they normally would.

1994 Penn State is a great example.  It was, perhaps, the best offense in college football history.  I think they averaged less than 2 minutes per scoring drive.  This gave opposing offenses more possessions, and more opportunities to score.  Pundits claimed that the Penn State defense was average, but a closer look at the stats showed that Penn State's defense was actually pretty darn good.  Especially when considering that the defense was typically on 2nd and 3rd string players shortly after halftime.

That effect is elided if you use efficiency stats that weight defensive performance per drive, per position the offense puts them in, and play-by-play. These also tend to be opponent adjusted. If we wanted to be snarky, we could say that counting stats are for suckers. S&P+ and FEI, as the most famous examples, are more holistic and avoid more biases of incomplete interpretation.

Similarly, a closer look at Michigan's 2018 stats shows that their defense was good, but not great.  Certainly not top 5.  More like top 20, POSSIBLY top 10, if you're feeling generous.

I've been quoting all of the Don Brown regular seasons on the basis of S&P+. Michigan finished the regular season in the Top 5 and fell to #9 after the bowl game.

You keep focusing on Watson, Mone and Marshall. Literally zero of them were starters. Aubrey Solomon was also not a starter. 

I join this fascinating discussion only to add that averaging 9-win seasons is pretty good for job security. See Brian Kelly at Notre Dame. He is actually closing in on the record for most wins by any head coach at Notre Dame (side note, he already has the most losses)--now it will take a couple more years because of the vacated wins (which are now losses) in 2012/2013. One championship game appearance, and one college football playoff appearance (with beat downs both times) have been enough. It's probably helped that USC has been down, somewhat helping him protect his record in rivalry games, but if 9 wins is enough at ND, it's going to be enough in most places.

Harbaugh's warm-ish seat is similar to Cooper's, in that all it would take is a couple of wins against Ohio State and a Big Ten Championship or two to cool it back down.

Also, expectations are everything on this. Michigan's expectations for Harbaugh have always been higher than PSU's for Franklin. PSU was emerging from a very dark place as a program, which tempered expectations (although I'm sure they recently built way back up), whereas Michigan's problems came from two bad hires in a row--and Urban Meyer, which did not temper expectations. Harbaugh is supposed to deliver at the highest heights; Franklin merely needs to make PSU a player in the Big Ten East again (which he has done).

Fans don't love Kelly, but they don't hate him enough to get the admin to send him packing. That's the thing about averaging pretty good seasons, with an occasional great one. Typically that's good enough.

Kelly benefited from four bad hires (only three of whom coached) before him, but the death of the video operator was a big issue, as were his tantrums, early. Playing for a national championship in year 3 helped him a lot, though getting crushed in it tempered that a bit. Curiously, I don't get the sense that the sanctions wiping out all the wins in 2012/13 did much damage to him, but maybe I just haven't been following closely enough. 2016 was bad, but a 4-win season would be bad for any coach. However, making the playoff last year bought him at least a couple more years (barring something stunning). Only four coaches have been at ND longer than Kelly, and you've heard of them: Rockne (13 seasons), Leahy (11), Parseghian (11), and Holtz (11). His .704 win percentage is behind them, Layden, and Devine. 

If Kelly can get a national championship, they will make a statue of him. If not, he will be remembered as the worst of all worlds (except the Willingham and Weis worlds): good enough to keep his job, not good enough to take ND where it expects to go. 

He's 57 now, going into a year ranked in the top 10, with two very tough games on the schedule (at Georgia, at Michigan), so the likelihood of another CFB playoff berth this year is low, but expectations are for a 9-to-10 win season, which is easily good enough to keep him around. That schedule also sets the Irish up for a great season, because outside of those two games, the only other ranked opponent (preseason) on the calendar is at #25 Stanford. A couple of big road wins, and the Irish could definitely be in the playoff again.

But I also think that Notre Dame's fan base is in danger of permanently lowered expectations. It's been a long time since 1988, and a lot of great coaches have done well at places other than Notre Dame. All the new alumni over the last 20+ years have only heard of ND's greatness, they haven't witnessed it. This is especially true because literally every time the Irish have been close over that time, the last game was a blowout loss:
2000 (Bob Davie's best year): blowout loss to Oregon State in the Fiesta Bowl;
2002 (Willingham's big start): blowout loss to NC State, to finish on a three-game slide;
2005 (Weis's first year, the year of the Bush Push): 14-point loss to the Buckeyes in the Fiesta (and most people remember that it felt like a blowout);
2006: blowout loss to LSU in the Sugar Bowl (immediately after a blowout loss at USC);
2013 (MNC): just a whuppin--it was probably worse than the 28-point loss looks on paper;
2018 (CFB): another beat down; at least Clemson did the same to Alabama the next week. 

That's a lot of hard landings. Winning the Hawaii, Sun, Pinstripe, and Music City Bowls doesn't heal much. The Citrus over LSU was nice, but still, not close to the big games other programs are winning.

I remain surprised that this conversation is going nowhere. Why are you so closed to the "nuance" that the guys we lost from 2018 were AMAZING but the ones lost from 2016 were EVEN BETTER?

  Ask yourself the same about Franklin/PSU.Pot/kettle what's Don Brown 0-6 the last two games of the year,just win baby.But you're quick to point out what Franklin is against M or with out Moorhead.The 2016 group was the 85 Bears next to last years squad that I know but you were also excited about last years squad.0-6 with out evidence of remotely replacing what was lost - IMO.Well at least Brown has that offenseto fall back on like Franklin had Moorehead

  Ask yourself the same about Franklin/PSU.Pot/kettle what's Don Brown 0-6 the last two games of the year,just win baby.But you're quick to point out what Franklin is against M or with out Moorhead.The 2016 group was the 85 Bears next to last years squad that I know but you were also excited about last years squad.0-6 with out evidence of remotely replacing what was lost - IMO.Well at least Brown has that offenseto fall back on like Franklin had Moorehead

You're jumping around a lot. It's hard to get used to.

With where Michigan is as a program, they aren't judged based on OSU anymore. They are judged based on hitting 10 wins and how they do against the conference's other teams in this tier. That's PSU, MSU, and UW. When Harbaugh came in Michigan was -- head to head -- well below all of those. Now the program has climbed to be -- head to head -- above all of those. And the climb continues.

Franklin has similar expectations to keep (to win ~10 games on average and be better than MSU head-to-head and equal or better than Michigan head-to-head.

I've been consistent in this talking point. Now you may disagree with me that these are the best standards to judge Harbaugh and Franklin, but if that's how you feel and if you want a coherent conversation, the thing to say is "I disagree with those standards," rather than continually change the conversation to say whatever is on your mind that second.