Anyone else surprised by this move on the part of University? I have always had misgivings about hiring a former player to be successful. It has not worked with Harbaugh and I think this is a huge gamble by the Michigan brass.
No head coaching experience. Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin come to mind as HOF players returning to their Alma Mater to coach. Neither has been great.
Don, Harbaugh may have not met the expectations of some M fans but the program is in much better shape now than it was when Hoke was fired. It would be nice if he could beat the Buckeyes at some point in my life. Re Howard, I agree with T’s analysis. I hope he proves me wrong but losing Bielein is a huge blow as he was a great representative for the university.
Bobda, I may have misspoken about Jim Harbaugh. He will have a golden opportunity this fall vs the Buckeyes & Coach Day.
Matt Painter comes to mind. Though he did have quite a bit of asst. coaching experience and one year of head coaching experience.
I will say that in Basketball there is a lot of guys who ended up being successful who had little or no coaching experience. I think of Pat Riley going from Lakers color guy on their broadcast team to the HC and being pretty successful. I'm just a little surprised that with some of the guys out there with experience that one of them that Bobda mentioned didn't get the job. No doubt though Howard is a big name and his connections to the school and all get him off to a good start. Now he just has to learn about recruiting and all the stuff that goes into being a HC.
A lot of talk on Texas boards that Luke Yaklich, Mich asst, will head to Austin to take the opening on Shaka Smart's staff. Unless Shaka gets it going next year it could be a short stint in Austin for him though.
Yaklich did a real nice job here. Team defense was a weakness for Beilein coached teams but Yaklich was known as a defensive specialist when he was hired and M’s team defense rankings dramatically improved after he came on board.