jay harbaugh

Well, we've got a coaching vacancy. Due to Matt Weiss getting axed due to Computer Crimes, Michigan has an assistant opening. We spent a bunch of time talking about it on WTKA this morning, and we mainly discussed two scenarios:

• Promoting Kirk Campbell to QB coach, which is probably JJ McCarthy's preferred outcome.
• Moving Jay Harbaugh to QB coach, hiring someone else, and having Harbaugh re-assert himself as a QB whisperer.

Possibly relevant to this: Chris Partridge got cut loose by Ole Miss and is now looking for a job. He was a co-DC at Ole Miss and may have gotten out over his skis a little bit in that job. Ole Miss's D was just 50th in SP+ this year. With Jesse Minter around, he won't have a DC title if he does return to Michigan. If he's fine with that, though, he was an ace recruiter and an ace recruiter would help out considerably after a down class.

Also he might be an in with Davison Igbinosun, who was a freshman All-American CB for Ole Miss with 10 starts to his name. He hit the portal more or less as the same time as Partridge got axed, so you have to think that grabbing Partridge would bring him along. A 6'2" CB ranked #162 in the composite last year with a year of starting under his belt would be an excellent pickup. That's not a reason to hire a coach by itself, but since Partridge has a lot of experience with Michigan already and had a successful first stint… it might be a reason to make a somewhat awkward position coaching switch if the elder Harbaugh can backfill at QB coach.

[After THE JUMP: sign and fire]

It's back. Mmmm, Cheap Seats except tackling UFC 1. Which has Jim Brown doing color! Simultaneous thoughts: "why?" and "how did you get friggin' Jim Brown?"

The Sklars would appreciate a like on the video; this first episode is free to the world, future ones will be on UFC Fight Pass. Sign up, or deprive yourselves. I don't make the rules.

A large survey. ESPN surveyed "over 200 coaches, players, and administrators" about where college football is going. Upshots:

• A healthy majority (60%) of respondents think football should no longer be under the NCAA umbrella at all.
• A whopping 80% characterized NIL as a "black-market pay-for-play system that is being used to secure recruits and transfers," which means Michigan is in a small minority of naïve teams. Also it's a gray market—not explicitly prohibited but of murky validity.
• 75% say tampering is a problem that needs to be addressed, which is essentially impossible right now.
• A third of respondents favor a 12 team playoff model; another third favor eight teams, with other formats taking the remaining third.
• Only 15% endorsed lifting the one-time transfer restriction, about which more in the next bullet.
• Also relevant to next bullet: 88% of respondents believe direct player compensation is on the horizon, with a majority expecting it within five years.

While we wait to hear about a new DC, as Sam Webb reported($) yesterday and then publicized on WTKA today, Michigan will be shuffling around their offensive assistants in the wake of Josh Gattis’s departure. In a nutshell:

• Matt Weiss promoted to co-OC with Sherrone Moore
• Ron Bellamy (safeties) to wide receivers
• Grant Newsome (analyst) to tight ends, a promotion to an on-field role.
• Jay Harbaugh (tight ends) to a defensive position TBD.
• Moore (co-OC/OL) and Hart (RB) remain in place (for now?)

Let’s discuss.

OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR

Changes: Matt Weiss, who was brought on board last year from the Ravens, and was Harbaugh’s top lieutenant during the Vikings saga, has been raised to co-OC, the position previously held by Josh Gattis. Sherrone Moore, who gained the title last season with his promotion to OL coach, will remain co-OC and share the play-calling duties with Weiss.

On-Field Impact: Weiss is an analytics dude who was supposedly a big part of the success of the Ravens’ running game, and was basically brought in as a co-OC with Gattis and Moore. The title bump allows him to take a more active role in shaping the offense around his quarterbacks’ various strengths and weaknesses. They already did a lot of that last year, anyways.

I believe however that people are overestimating how much of that is going to be Weiss and how much of a role Sherrone Moore’s plans are going to shape the kind of offense Michigan runs. Moore was a real part of the play-calling brain trust last year, and appeared to have a major hand in gameplans, which featured subtle changes in blocking while other aspects remained static. That’s partly because Harbaugh learned offense from Schembechler, and has been a feature of Harbaugh offenses throughout his career. But it’s also meant that his OL coach has been a chief officer of the head coach—usually with Drevno, but certainly with Warinner too. Moore may not be getting a title bump, but I think it would incorrect to assume that Weiss has been promoted to the primary OC of the pair. It’s probably going to be even more of a collaborative effort, with Moore and Weiss and Harbaugh taking on some of the roles that had been consolidating under Gattis the last three years.

Make no mistake: More than any OC ever under Harbaugh, Gattis was the one running the collaboration. His fingerprints were all over the offense, his history evident in the interesting things they tried (there were 10x as many ideas stolen from Penn State or Vanderbilt than from Stanford), his #SpeedinSpace philosophy forming the basis of its function, and he was deciding what plays they called. My guess is those duties are going to be spread around, not simply passed on to Weiss, because giving over to Gattis in the first place was a huge concession by Harbaugh.

Recruiting Impact: OC is not a position group. We’ll come back around to this with the receivers.