I think fans, including myself, underestimated the rebuilding task Harbaugh faced when he took over three years ago. Fairly obvious that the talent level and depth of the squad has markedly improved on his watch. We have become much more physical on both sides of the ball and the offensive and defensive schemes are superior to what they were in the Hoke and Rich Rod era. Harbaugh has beaten MSU, Wisconsin, and PSU. Mt. Urban is a tough mountain to climb but, if I recall correctly, it took Tom Osborne more than a few years to finally get by the various Oklahoma and Floridian monsters that tormented Nebraska. I think most Michigan fans are still confident in the future although there are some loud critics just as there were critics of Osborne during his early years. But, those M fans who think we can do better with a new coach are idiots.
Mike, He may ( or may not) be a pain in the ass, but after App. State and the Rich Rod and Hoke eras, I think the pain threshold level in M's administration has gotten higher....
Hey UF loses to Michigan no matter the coach. The Gators have regularly beat the rest of the Big Ten whenever they have played.... but Michigan is a thorn.
Bob I'm sure Saban is a pain in the ass too. I don't hear anyone complaining about him. Al Davis was right.
Gipper, you're kidding right? There are a lot of people complaining about Saban. The difference has been that he has actually won the big ones pretty consistently. I have said it often "Saban is an asshole...but he our asshole!" 8)
Yeah I would say that winning cures a lot of personality issues. The Patriots coach is an asshole, but he's the best coach in the NFL so nobody really cares. I would take Saban in a heart beat and wouldn't complain one bit about his personality if he could win big at ND. Gerry Faust was one of the nicest guys around, but he was a terrible college coach and in the end everybody hated him. Charlie Weis was not a nice guy, when he was winning in his 1st 2 years at ND everybody just went along, but when things turned so did the fans. Face it fans love a winner. Saban is a winner, Harbaugh has been a winner at each of his previous stops and has certainly done everything he can to rebuild Michigan football. He's not going to be outworked. I still don't like him though! Brian Kelly was actually starting to recapture the fanbase who hated him after the 4-8 season, till losing the last 2 out of 3 games. Now we are back to daily Brian Kelly outrage posts on most ND boards.
Gipper, Terry, one correction for my statement. There are a lot of people complaining about Saban. None of those complaining are Alabama fans though. :lol:
hahaha there were more than a few Bama fans complaining after Saturday. Of course, those complaining are idiots, but they are there.
Corey, the only complaint I had was, you guessed it, we didn't run the f@#$%&- ball enough. But I'm sure that was the OC's fault :wink:
Well Hurts only threw the ball 23 times, not sure how few passes you want him to throw. You don't really want to become Navy or Ga.Tech do you? It seems to me that the problem was that Stidham was the best QB that day, he was so efficient throwing the ball. I thought he'd be a great QB this year, he got a slow start but is humming the ball now. He's the best QB in the SEC. That was the difference, you ran for more yards than Auburn and I'm not sure passing less would have meant a different outcome. Auburn was jacked, their stadium was jacked, they had the best QB and they had a healthy defense and while not as many RB's as Alabama had they had one really good one. Oh yeah I see Auburn will be fined 250K for the post game celebration...I'm sure they'll find a way to pay it!
Auburn had some really cool offensive plays also..... like Johnson's jump pass. They kept the Bama defense off balance most of the day.
Terry, Harris ran the ball 6 times, Scarborough ran the ball 6 times. Hurts ran the ball 18 times. That has been one of my concerns. Some of those were called runs and some were scrambles, but Hurts takes off too quickly when his primary receiver is not available. Harris and Scarborough are great backs but we didn't use them last Saturday. We moved down the field in the 3rd qtr using Harris and Scarborough almost exclusively, then we didn't try that again. I don't know why.
Good points and those stats are pretty consistent with a lot of QB centric running games. It's similar to ND's stats where too many of our runs are QB scrambles off of passing plays. It's been an interesting morphing of the Alabama offense from 2012 when you guys were mostly under center with a Pro style offense with AJ McCarron. To a QB centric offense with a mostly shotgun/pistol approach and a dual threat QB who is a better runner than a passer.
Terry, and that would be okay if we didn’t have 4 or 5 outstanding running backs. We don’t need Cam Newton or Johnny Manziel. We need a very good passer who can also scramble.
I think something that is very much overlooked was during the time this year where they were talking about firing the Gus Bus, they reshuffled the line and moved some kid to center. That OL has been playing very well ever since then and especially well in giving Stidham time to throw the ball.