Jim Harbaugh

EdRomero · Post by **EdRomero** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 8:51 pm

He's choosing coaching Michigan over Oakland, possibly the Jets, Giants, and several other teams if he whispered to the right people. Has a coach in his prime, with such a good professional reputation, ever gone back to coach college? I know college girls are cute, but this seems to be a strange career move.

And what's the over/under for his return to the NFL? I'll guess he coaches the Bears in 5 years.

Rex · Post by **Rex** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 9:02 pm

John Robinson counts as a successful NFL coach I think. I don't think it's tons of guys though.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 9:05 pm

Isn't he supposedly a dictatorial dick? That seems like a better fit for college.

Johnny Carwash · Post by **Johnny Carwash** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 9:49 pm

mister d wrote:Isn't he supposedly a dictatorial dick? That seems like a better fit for college.

I think this is along the lines of the correct answer. Harbaugh strikes me as a more successful Nick Saban--someone who could probably be a good NFL coach if he wanted to, but a natural authoritarian who sees things like "being liked by players" as an unnecessary annoyance. Plus the Michigan job is a lot like the 49ers job when he took over, where simply being competent would be a vast improvement over his predecessor and lead to him being instantly hailed as a genius.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:07 pm

I have no idea what it takes to be an NFL coach, but I would think the year round recruiting cycle would be more than enough to make college the far inferior option.

govmentchedda · Post by **govmentchedda** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:08 pm

More successful Nick Saban? That's a big statement. Saban is about as big a boss as you can be.

Johnny Carwash · Post by **Johnny Carwash** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:14 pm

govmentchedda wrote:More successful Nick Saban? That's a big statement. Saban is about as big a boss as you can be.

I meant more successful at the NFL level. I think Saban could have been a decent NFL coach with the right situation and time commitment, but decided "fuck this, I'll go back down a level and get treated like royalty."

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:28 pm

mister d wrote:Isn't he supposedly a dictatorial dick? That seems like a better fit for college.

He may be a bit of a dick, but I think most players love him. He never had Player Personnel authority, so it's pretty hard to be a dictator without that.

The 49ers' GM and ownership seems particularly dickish to me. Methinks they will rue their decision to alienate and part ways with the only successful coach they've had since the glory days.

Post by **brian** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:49 pm

Because of recruiting blackout periods (amongst other reasons) college head coaches work WAY less than NFL coaches. The only offseason practice period is for three weeks in the spring.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:04 pm

mister d wrote:I have no idea what it takes to be an NFL coach, but I would think the year round recruiting cycle would be more than enough to make college the far inferior option.

NFL coaches work insane, probably counterproductive hours.

EDIT: Nm, Brian covered it

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:06 pm

I know I'm in the minority on Harbaugh, but I really do think he took over a team that was stacked with talent and coached by an idiot. And that team is on a downward trajectory.

EdRomero · Post by **EdRomero** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:09 pm

Gunpowder wrote:
mister d wrote:I have no idea what it takes to be an NFL coach, but I would think the year round recruiting cycle would be more than enough to make college the far inferior option.

NFL coaches work insane, probably counterproductive hours.

EDIT: Nm, Brian covered it

I remember when Steve Spurrier came to the Redskins he said the same thing and claimed he'd be going home every night and getting a good night sleep.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:52 am

I think it's a homerun hire. And I think he may just be there a long time. I have spoken. Thread over.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:10 am

brian wrote:Because of recruiting blackout periods (amongst other reasons) college head coaches work WAY less than NFL coaches. The only offseason practice period is for three weeks in the spring.

Yeah but there is a whole lot more going on that just that in the college game.
* Fund raising takes up a ton of time (lots of schools have to fund raise there entire athletic scholarship budget)
* Every one of these has a camp(s), tournament, etc that are huge money makers for the coaches (and necessary comp for the lesser assistants)
* Many coaches offer coaching clinics
* D1 coaches also have access to the players outside of the on field practice time. Weight room, Nuitrition, Strength Training, etc are all in play year round.
* Recruiting is year round. The blackout periods help but those coaches use that time to prep for when recruiting is open---watching lots of tape of high school players
* Roster management is a bigger problem in college. Team sizes are HUGE and scholarship management is a big deal.

Probably not as insane for game prep, on field coaching, etc...but they work crazy hours too.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:31 am

I read that as "many coaches have enough time to offer coaching clinics on the side".

Rex · Post by **Rex** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:23 am

I may be making this up completely, but I recall hearing Spurrier say that one of the things he hated about NFL coaching was how much more work it was than college. In the NFL he didn't have time to play golf and do the other things that Spurrier does.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:38 am

Gunpowder wrote:I read that as "many coaches have enough time to offer coaching clinics on the side".

Nope it is all about the $$$$ and recruiting. When a coach goes after a player he is recruiting the coaches too (influence and player identification).

I have a perspective that coaching in college is not as brutal per week but over a full year the college coaches have way less downtime. It is sort of sprinters v. marathoners metaphor.

mister d · Post by **mister d** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:44 am

Comment redacted. I assumed coaching + recruiting would be worse than coaching.

Rex · Post by **Rex** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:48 am

I think recruiting is probably a bit different from basketball because the high school kids don't play year round. There is no scouting to do in the spring and summer.

Unless you're talking about the illegal money part of recruiting, and I would imagine that most schools try to shield their head coach from that.

wlu_lax6 · Post by **wlu_lax6** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:53 am

Rex wrote:I think recruiting is probably a bit different from basketball because the high school kids don't play year round. There is no scouting to do in the spring and summer.

Unless you're talking about the illegal money part of recruiting, and I would imagine that most schools try to shield their head coach from that.

No way..Youth football is year round just like every other youth sport. 7 v. 7 and full tackle club leagues are all over the fields. At the local catholic school there is spring football from morning until night every weekend.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:58 am

Coaches need to be out scouting these midget league football games.

Rex · Post by **Rex** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:09 am

Yeah I don't see how that compares to AAU basketball. I imagine there is more value in watching youtube videos of HS games.

Post by **brian** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:43 am

I very highly doubt Nick Saban and Urban Meyer et al. are spending a lot of time on the road recruiting. Most of that is left to assistants. The head coaches are there to clean up the ESPN 300 guys.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:55 am

brian wrote:I very highly doubt Nick Saban and Urban Meyer et al. are spending a lot of time on the road recruiting. Most of that is left to assistants. The head coaches are there to clean up the ESPN 300 guys.

Yeah, they make a big deal when they fly in to see the top guys (Damien Harris, the #1 RB plays about 20 miles from Lexington and the big guys all came to see him play or to make in home visits) but most staffs have 3-4 guys who are ace recruiters. UK isn't a top program by any means, but their recruiting ace is a guy named Vince Morrow who has done yeoman's work in Ohio to get some of their 4 star guys away from tOSU by luring them with the carrot of SEC football and a greater likliehood of playing earlier. Stoops himself flew in on a helicopter to watch Harris play, landing about 10 minutes before the game started for maximum impact.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 11:46 am

Harbaugh is such a great coach that rumor has Michigan playing in a bowl game next weekend. He's going to make them that much better just by showing up. Perhaps U-M will play the winner of the NCAA play-off thing to determine a true college champion. If the TV money is right, they could then fill the Big House to play the Superbowl winner.

It's only a matter of time -- during spring practice perhaps? -- when all will realize that Bo was only the second best coach to have run the Michigan team. And that goes for the next 100 years too.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 12:38 pm

I have a LOT to say on this, but for now, I'll just say that a move like this is vital for a program (and a conference) in real danger of slipping off of the relevance chart.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:55 pm

Thing 1:

I will NEVER believe an NFL reporter who quotes sources "close to the situation" ever again, from Shefter to Rapoport to... ALL OF THEM got this story 1000 percent wrong. And not just WRT to was MI a viable option (which they ALL shat on 3 weeks ago) to the details around Harbaugh "losing the team."

It's coming out today, as I suspected it would, that that was owner/management planted bullshit.

These are the same pack of clowns we were ridiculing over the Ray Rice fiasco... They have ZERO credibility at this point.

(And I want to puke as ESPN tries to play this off as Shefter "breaking the story." What a bunch of assholes.)

Post by **brian** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:58 pm

Nonlinear FC wrote:Thing 1:

I will NEVER believe an NFL reporter who quotes sources "close to the situation" ever again, from Shefter to Rapoport to... ALL OF THEM got this story 1000 percent wrong. And not just WRT to was MI a viable option (which they ALL shat on 3 weeks ago) to the details around Harbaugh "losing the team."

It's coming out today, as I suspected it would, that that was owner/management planted bullshit.

These are the same pack of clowns we were ridiculing over the Ray Rice fiasco... They have ZERO credibility at this point.

(And I want to puke as ESPN tries to play this off as Shefter "breaking the story." What a bunch of assholes.)

I know a guy who has a football blog who has literally THOUSANDS of tweets saved from these NFL reporters over the last month all saying that Harbaugh to Michigan was impossible, would never happen, would get trumped by some theoretically NFL offers, etc. Not just speculation, but actually "reporting" like you said. There are essentially zero credible national NFL "journalists" any more. They're all just shills for the shield - from Peter King on down.

Post by **brian** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:59 pm

Shit, Florio is still beating the drum this very instant that Harbaugh might stay in the NFL while he's on a plane from the Bay Area to Ann Arbor to literally sign the contract.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:42 pm

Saw this on Twitter. Kevin Lynch is a reporter for San Francisco sports talk radio station KNBR.

Post by **brian** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:16 pm

I don't doubt it. From the post-game reaction the players still really like him. The crap about him being disliked is probably spin from the SF front office.

DC47 · Post by **DC47** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:18 pm

Just saw Harbaugh. He was crossing the Huron River on foot. Funny, I didn't think it had frozen over yet.

Pruitt · Post by **Pruitt** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:35 pm

Nonlinear FC wrote:Thing 1:

I will NEVER believe an NFL reporter who quotes sources "close to the situation" ever again, from Shefter to Rapoport to... ALL OF THEM got this story 1000 percent wrong.

Even yesterday during the games, there was a crawl saying that it was confirmed he was taking the Michigan job. 90 seconds later a crawl saying that he was not taking the Michigan job. Went on for hours.

Joe K · Post by **Joe K** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:37 pm

brian wrote:I don't doubt it. From the post-game reaction the players still really like him. The crap about him being disliked is probably spin from the SF front office.

I'm starting to think that the Niners' front office was never going to pay top dollar for a head coach, and planted all that crap to preemptively justify their decision to let him go. Jay Glazer was reporting pretty much as soon as the season started that Harbaugh wouldn't be back. I don't care how difficult the guy is to deal with, deciding to cut ties with him after the success he had in his first three seasons is remarkable. Drew Magary had a post on Deadspin speculating that this is all about York being cheap, and he noted that with the new stadium in Santa Clara, ownership will be able to print money even if they field a mediocre team.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Mon Dec 29, 2014 10:43 pm

NLFC, I hope I'm not stealing your thunder, here.

I'm not even a Michigan fan, but after reading this piece by Mcgoblog, I was all fired up for the Wolverines. It was posted by Nonlinear in FB.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 9:59 am

sancarlos wrote:NLFC, I hope I'm not stealing your thunder, here.

I'm not even a Michigan fan, but after reading this piece by Mcgoblog, I was all fired up for the Wolverines. It was posted by Nonlinear in FB.

Me: Reads that, headbutts the wall, passes out... rinse / repeat.

=-=-=-=-=-=

I had a really sappy post queued up yesterday and decided not to fire it off. I texted with my sports radio buddy a bit... He's funny, because we grew up during the 10 year war, listening to bootleg recordings of Bob Ufer, playing pick-up football on the Stadium field (they actually let kids down there all the time back in the day)... But because he is now a journalist of sorts, he has to play it like he's objective.

I do feel bad for him though, because this fucked up his vacation, and as a radio guy, you don't get to go on vacation very often.

degenerasian · Post by **degenerasian** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 11:58 am

Looks like Harbaugh will get 7 years at about 5 mil per, wanted more $ for his assistants.

SportsDoc · Post by **SportsDoc** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:07 pm

He's on the gravy train now!

Recruiting: Assistants will do most of it. He'll make the occasional appearance or phone call to close the deal on a 4 or 5 Star player, that's about it.

Fund-raising: He. won't. do. any. Again, the occasional glad handing with high $$$ Alumni.

Summer camps: He'll be there the first day, then the aforementioned assistants and current/former players will take over.

He should be a scratch golfer within 2 years. It'll take 3 years to beat theOSU.

Gunpowder · Post by **Gunpowder** » Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:45 pm

Harbaugh supposedly recruits like an mf-er though.

Nonlinear FC · Post by **Nonlinear FC** » Wed Dec 31, 2014 9:54 am

Gunpowder wrote:Harbaugh supposedly recruits like an mf-er though.

One of the reasons the turn around at Stanford bodes well for Michigan is the fact that he started from a place of ZERO 4 and 5 stars and by the time he left the program was pulling in around 6 or 7 four stars and the year after he left even landed a few five stars (he was part of the recruitment process for that 2012 class.) And Stanford is famously more stringent on its admissions policies. (Folks might remember the dust-up Harbaugh sparked when he criticized MI for bringing in kids and shuffling them off to soft majors. He apologized for those comments yesterday, even though... truth.)

Two of the areas MI hasn't pulled in true blue chippers for a loooong time are at QB and RB. (Denard was random as Hell.) So, obviously you've taken care of one position with Harbaugh. Talk is that Ty Wheatley is being considered for a position, and if he falls through they might tap up and coming Mike Hart.

Jesus. This is just surreal.