Brian Wright Takes name out of contention for 10th coaching job
Per Bruce Feldman of Fox Sports
BruceFeldmanCFB
|
Toledo's offensive stats in 2017:
Total offense- 14th
FIrst Downs- 11th
Passing offense- 26th
Rushing Offense- 29th
Scoring Offense- 16th
Pass efficiency- 7th
Yards per game- 485.1
Would have been a great hire by all accounts. Also, in many minds he was somebody this fanbase has wanted to replace drevno at OC. Wright will be a highly pursued power5 coordinator in the next year or so, so getting him early would have been wise. He was also a top nominee for the Broyles Award this year. In other news, things are getitng very, very interesting in regarding this programs search for another coach.
February 10th, 2018 at 8:30 PM ^
the best we can hope for is treading water
February 10th, 2018 at 8:56 PM ^
Yep. Who would have known when Harbaugh was hired that he was so committed to mediocrity?
February 10th, 2018 at 9:03 PM ^
It kind of reminds me of Hoke's commitment to his staff. He never wanted to let anyone go even if it was the right thing to do. Surely Harbaugh is smarter than that and he knows something we don't.
February 10th, 2018 at 9:27 PM ^
Why don't we hire another Tyrone Wheatley type/qualified RB coach and move Jay Harbaugh to another position.
February 10th, 2018 at 9:43 PM ^
Like somewhere else. Jay Harbaugh has no business as a coach who is primarily a recruiter. He's batting 0.00
February 10th, 2018 at 9:51 PM ^
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't running back pretty much the best performing position on the offense last year?
February 10th, 2018 at 9:59 PM ^
They were pretty good except for the fumbles and the horrible blitz pick up.
February 11th, 2018 at 12:00 AM ^
I am not sure I am going to congratulate any offensive coach for a team that ranked #105 out of 129 teams in Div. 1. in total offense - https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/21.
BTW, we were #49 in rushing offense at 178 yds/game and 4.37 ypc. So I guess he was the shining star among the offensive coaches. Passing was #110.
February 10th, 2018 at 10:09 PM ^
not that it was much of a horse race
February 10th, 2018 at 10:31 PM ^
Which were also coached by Jay until this year lol.
February 11th, 2018 at 10:02 AM ^
and, isn't jay regarded as one of the better recruiters?
February 11th, 2018 at 10:21 AM ^
Yes, he's third behind CP and Mattison in my book
February 11th, 2018 at 12:21 PM ^
Jay Harbaugh does a lot of work out in California, which is tricky when you're trying to get people to come to Michigan. Even if he were the most (legally) persuasive recruiter in the country, that would be a tough gig.
February 11th, 2018 at 12:18 PM ^
We had two running backs with 6.0+ yards per carry this year. There was only one each year that Wheatley was the coach.
All three primary running backs had 5.0+ yards per carry this year. Our lead back, De'Veon Smith, was in the 4.0 range when Wheatley was here.
Yes, fumbles increased and pass pro wasn't great, but fumbles can be somewhat random, and our pass pro hasn't been very good since Fred Jackson left.
February 10th, 2018 at 9:59 PM ^
The best offensive position group last year was RBs. TEs have been good since Jay was hired. He should be the least of anyones worries on offense.
February 10th, 2018 at 10:30 PM ^
We had 3 different runningbacks go for well over 500 yards and well over 5 ypc this year.
In terms of his recruiting, I think Devin Asiasi, Tarik Black, Sean McKeon, Dylan McCaffrey, Mustapha Muhammad, and Nick Eubanks, among others, were pretty strong pick ups.
February 10th, 2018 at 10:34 PM ^
Fanbase just wants to complain with meme like hot takes all day and twice on Sunday.
I have no beef with Jay's recruiting and his position groups have not been a problem.
February 11th, 2018 at 8:21 PM ^
Jay Harbaugh has been making me eat my words since the day he was ired here. I don't know why of all the issues with our offensive staff his name would come up.
February 11th, 2018 at 12:25 PM ^
I don't get the 0.00 comment.
247 Sports credits him with the recruitments of:
- Mustapha Muhammad
- Christian Turner
- Ben VanSumeren
- Hassan Haskins
- Tarik Black
- Dylan McCaffrey
- O'Maury Samuels
- Joel Honigford
- Kurt Taylor
- Devin Asiasi
- Nick Eubanks
- Sean McKeon
- Tyrone Wheatley, Jr.
https://247sports.com/Coach/Jay-Harbaugh-3589/Recruits?RecruitmentYear=…
February 10th, 2018 at 11:57 PM ^
You’ve never been a manager (or at least not a successful one. Not saying drev or pep shouldn’t be gone but there are so many facts you don’t know that make these types of statements ridiculous.
February 11th, 2018 at 12:41 AM ^
The passing part of our two headed OC was just awful. I would send Drevno back to coaching up the OL and less input as OC. May be McElwain can help out with the passing side of the OC. I just wish Harbaugh would go hire one of the top 5 OC from another school and let him take over.
February 10th, 2018 at 9:03 PM ^
And yet, with average QB play, this team would have won 11 regular season games.
If only we had a coach on the staff who knew how to develop QBs.
I can't believe what's happened to this fanbase.
February 10th, 2018 at 9:22 PM ^
Wait...I gotta bite on this one. How exactly do we win 11 games?!
Or are you making the assumption that our opponents’ behavior remains constant, and the only variable of the game that changes is better QBing from Michigan? I don’t think that’s how these situations work...
February 10th, 2018 at 9:30 PM ^
Did you watch the MSU and OSU games? And we played Wisconsin pretty evenly until Peters went down.
My point is, Harbaugh simply hasn't had consistent QB play in 3 seasons. Rudock struggled the first half of '15, Speight struggled the last quarter of '16, and all our QB's struggled all year. Has he forgotten how to coach quarterbacks? Or has he simply walked into a terrible situation at the most important position on the field? Both are possible, but one is far more likely than the other.
February 10th, 2018 at 10:25 PM ^
that the QB whisperer meme was a facade?
February 10th, 2018 at 10:33 PM ^
Did you see him turn an Iowa backup into an NFL draft pick? Did you see him turn an Al Borges-recruited 3 star into a top 3 QB in the conference?
February 10th, 2018 at 10:41 PM ^
Nailed it. Very well stated.
February 10th, 2018 at 10:47 PM ^
And those are low on his list of career achievements.
February 11th, 2018 at 9:46 AM ^
An Iowa starter who was going to be a backup... behind a guy who ended up getting drafted higher even after Rudock got coaching from Harbaugh.
Rudock improved slightly at Michigan, but his stats really weren't all that different from his numbers at Iowa.
February 11th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
The 2nd half of Rudock's season was off the charts, once he learned the system. It ended up being one of the best individual seasons by a Michigan QB ever.
February 11th, 2018 at 11:19 AM ^
without Rudock, harbaugh tenure is vastly different. Jake singlehandedly propelled Michigan to the position they are at now. and by that, I'm saying Michigan is fixing to explode this year. without the first year performance, the recruiting classes would be very different. because of the immediate results, 2 monster classes were signed. and those classes are about to show how good they really are. without Jake's performance, it's a totally different narrative.
February 11th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
it actually was one game against indiana that made rudock's numbers look aggressively better than they were the other 12.
February 11th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
The other 5 games to wrap up the 2015 season:
95/147 (64.6%), 1274 yards, 9 TD, 2 INT
That's 3,312 yards, 23 TD, and 5 INT projected over a 13-game season.
That's pretty dang good...and it includes arbitrarily removing his best game of the year.
February 11th, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^
You could probably say something similar about the vast majority of record breaking quarterbacks.
He made some pretty amazing plays against your team too.
February 11th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
You had me until you called Sp8 a top 3 qb in the conference... thats just not true.
Here is what Sp8 did in 2016 with Chesson, Darboh, and Butt as targets.
183 of 293 (62.5 percent), 2,375 yards, 17 TDs, 6 INTs
Here is what Tyler Oconner did with a crap 3-9 team around him at MSU
154 of 262 (58.8 percent), 1,970 yards, 16 TDs, 9 INTs
I would be willing to bet if OConner was our qb that year his numbers would be better than what Sp8's were. Their numbers were pretty much dead even halfway through the year anyway until Sp8 had his good 3 game stretch that padded his stats agains Illinois, MSU, and Maryland. Other than those 3 games I think you would struggle to find another game in his career where Sp8 played well.
February 11th, 2018 at 1:23 AM ^
Alex Smith
Colin Kaepernick
Jake Rudock
Wilton Speight
Yeah, one bad year negates all of that.
February 11th, 2018 at 6:51 AM ^
Andrew Luck
February 10th, 2018 at 10:50 PM ^
So who's fault is it exactly that every single QB we trotted out this past season sucked?
February 10th, 2018 at 11:01 PM ^
At the end of the day, it's Harabaugh's fault. It all comes back to him. What point are you trying to make? That he doesn't know how to coach quarterbacks anymore?
February 10th, 2018 at 11:07 PM ^
Because you're listing past achievements as if they're relevant to the current team. The fact is said QB that played well in 2016 did not last year, even before his injury, and neither did the other two. One of which was his hand-picked recruit. Obviously he wasnt doing something right with them last year.
February 10th, 2018 at 11:19 PM ^
I refuted a comment that stated "the best we can hope for is treading water" by pointing out that Harbaugh has a career track record of developing QB's, and so treading water is not "the best we can hope for." Of course it's possible that could happen, or they could even regress. I have no idea. But to say it's the best we can hope for is ridiculous.
And yes, past achievements are relevant to predicting future outcomes. Is that really something that educated people need to debate?
February 11th, 2018 at 12:48 PM ^
would not be the first athlete to be affected by an injury even after the physical aspect was healed. Jimmy Piersall wrote a book called "Fear Strikes Out" quite a while back (but recent when I was young) that talks about the emotional impact of injuries. It may have taken Speight longer than one off-season to overcome the mental aspect of his injuries.
February 11th, 2018 at 8:38 PM ^
OR, hear me out here because I know this will sound radical. Maybe he just sucks..
February 11th, 2018 at 12:45 AM ^
with a half decent QB, our only loss would have been @ PSU. Our D was just not ready for that game.
February 11th, 2018 at 4:47 AM ^
Harbaugh does not coach the qb's. Speight told me that directly, with emphasis.
February 11th, 2018 at 9:35 AM ^
that until Jimmy has a solid, healthy quarterback and a line to protect him all these gripes are of vanishing importance.
Of course, now he has to make these things happen.
But I really am of the opinion that with so much up in the air relative to QB and OT--with the schedule we play--people who want a national championship or win over OSU next year may be setting themselves up for disappointment.
The crazy thing about the gambles that high-profile schools have to take is that a good coach still may need five years to maneuver into contention, and by then you are fifteen million dollars in the hole. This is why ADs CANNOT just be yes-men.
February 10th, 2018 at 11:04 PM ^
Essentially his argument is "If these games went completely different we would have won".
February 10th, 2018 at 11:10 PM ^
Help me to understand where you're coming from. Your belief is that if a coach performs at level "X" for one single season, that performance reflects how the rest of his teams will play for the remainder of his career?
February 10th, 2018 at 11:49 PM ^
No, not at all. In fact you seem to like that argument when you try to predict future results for other teams when you say things like "Well they're losing such and such players so they'll clearly take a step back" when that's not always the case. College football isn't like the video game, sometimes teams less experienced manage better seasons than experienced teams.
I'm saying you can't make the argument "Well if we had a better QB playing in these games we would have won" when the game plans would have been different, and the other team may have adjusted as such. Again, real life college football isn't like a video game.
Besides the fact your argument during the season was "If Peters was starting during MSU we would have won". I specifically remember you saying that. Now you've changed it to "If we had good QB play". Ok? Where was that good QB play going to come from then when none of our QBs were good?
We didn't even win 11 games with good QB play in 2016, it's a ridiculous thing to say.
February 11th, 2018 at 6:13 AM ^
It's funny you made the video game comparison because I literally wrote the same thing in my response but then deleted it. LOL. Again, I agree with you that Harbaugh did a bad job coaching this year, and my original comment may have been hyperbole, but I'm simply refuting the idea that things can't get turned around because he's done it everywhere else he's been. The QB play was uncharacteristically terrible this year and that was a big reason for all of our losses.