Michigan faces it’s toughest test yet this week at home against Rutgers… WAIT DON’T GO!
So far Michigan and Michigan State are the same team this year. Both were * last year. Both have played 2 teams known to be dog $#%@. Both played one team that was an impressive scheduling decision a few years ago but turned out to be a probably garbage team this year (Washington/Miami). Both have offenses being carried by seemingly outstanding Running Backs. And both look about as good as you could have hoped for even taking into consideration the amount of SUCK they’ve gone up against thus far…
To be honest, I’d argue that MSU has been slightly more impressive thus far… Maybe I haven’t watched as much of their games so I’m picking less nits than I am against Michigan *** But I haven’t seen Payton Thorne miss obvious read option keeps after 4 years of QBs who can’t make correct read option keeps… But despite a bad game against Washington, Cade has largely looked competent in the limited amount he’s been asked. He bounced back against NIU and attempted multiple deep throws that looked pretty good.**** A little more help on catchable balls from his WR, a correct PULL on a read every once in a while (I believe he had ONE against NIU), and that seemingly unstoppable Corum/Haskins and this offense might finally meet expectations. So what are these expectations and should they have kept Harbaugh?
I’ve stated my thoughts on this before. You keep a coach that wins 8-10 (mostly 10) games every year and hope he gets over the edge or gets lucky every once in a while. If he dips to 6 games before beating OSU, going to Indy etc. then you fire him. Last year U-M went 2-4… But… you know… Covid… so maybe we just pretend all of that didn’t happen. When they announced Harbaugh’s extension/renegotiation I had mixed feelings. Because of the lower salary and buy out option I didn’t hate it… I also wasn’t confident it would work out long term. I was also leaning towards “If it’s not likely to work out long term, maybe you should have fired him after the Wisconsin/MSU/Rutgers embarrassment and used the Covid throwaway year to find your next coach and give him extra time to recruit/succeed.” Signing him also meant both the athletic department (if they’re smart) and the fans (haha probably not) had to accept a less than ideal set of expectations for this season. With a seemingly tough schedule and a new Defensive coordinator inheriting the worst defense since year 1 Rich Rod, the outcome wasn’t going to be good. You weren’t going to beat an at the time seemingly unstoppable OSU. You were probably going to lose to Penn State and /or Wisconsin and (at the time thought to be good) Washington. Indiana was supposed to be good. MSU was on the road…. 8 wins seemed like the optimistic expectation.
So fine, we’re back to the same deal: Win 8 games and stay. Win 6 games and GTFO… But this time with one caveat… You’re rebuilding the defense, fine. They can suck.. But your offense better look good. Harbaugh has had 7 years to find a QB. Gattis has had 3 to install his system… If you’re still trying to run the spread with a QB who can’t make a PULL read, if you’re still wasting NFL talent level WRs by not throwing them the ball, if your still a crap offense, I don’t care if you squeak out a 9th win because of COVID absences or some turnover luck… you should be fired.
As I mentioned before, so far things seem to be going well if largely untested. Getting back to the opening line of this already too long post that I’m trying to finish before kickoff… Rutgers actually looked to be the closest thing to a test that the offense would have thus far… Greg Schiano has turned them back into a bad-Big-Ten-Level team (that isn’t actually a Big Ten team). You might laugh at this (and you should always laugh at Rutgers) but it’s much improved from their usual bad-highschool-and-not-even-crazy-small-town-Texas-all-there-is-is-football level. They’re undefeated through three games. And yes, that was against 3 powderpuff teams, but they’ve still only given up 34 total points in these three games combined… By comparison, in 2019 they gave up 34+ points in 7 different games including a 44-34 WIN over LIBERTY! That’s a big improvement. So yeah, this could have been at least a bit of a test for Michigan buuuut…. Life repeats itself and just like when Rutgers first “joined the Big Ten,” a bunch of Rutgers players (including the star CB) got arrested and will not be playing in this game… It’s like the old saying goes… you can take the good RBs***** out of the Rutgers but you can’t take the Rutger out of the idiots with paintball guns******… or something like that.
*
** In Michigan’s case almost literally… as they played two teams name “the Huskies”
***I DO love to hate the team I love…
****One of them WAS overthrown but it also looked to me like the WR slowed down a bit after the ball was in the air.
*****Jonathon Taylor, Saquon Barkley and Stevie Scott were all once committed to Rutgers
******They were arrested for shooting people with paintball guns*******
*******Allegedly