CFB coaching carousel

Headline threw me off at first:
On 49ers: Congratulations on the purchase of your new Harbaugh!

Would have expected "ON MICHIGAN: CONGRATULATIONS ON THE PURCHASE OF YOUR NEW HARBAUGH!

 

Not bad, but he's not telling anybody at Michigan anything they didn't know 30 years ago.
All that stuff is precisely the reason they wanted to bring Harbaugh back. None of it will bother anybody in AA a teeny weeny bit unless he starts losing big time.

 

What are the expectations in Ann Arbor for Harbaugh?

Realistically, I think the best they can hope for is a top recruiting class (top 5 or top 10), a decent bowl game next season and then start contending on a national level in 2016 or 2017.

 

That threw me, too. I'm guessing "On 49ers" is the name of the blog.

 

Harbaugh would have to do quite a psych job on Morris. Not that he can't. Bellomy is a...no. I can just imagine the look on Harbaugh's face the day he lays eyes on Bellomy in practice.

The big kid, Speight, might have more promise.

The incoming frosh is a scrambly, scrappy little sucker. Harbaugh likes big, strapping guys who resemble...himself.

Michigan State's recruit is the goods. I wonder if Harbaugh goes after him, twists Little Brother's nipples a little.

 

Stealth name to consider: Kevin Hogan. He is graduating from Stanford in the spring and supposedly is kicking around the idea of transferring, if his draft projection doesn't come out favorably.

Although he never played for Harbaugh (got there a year later), he has been running the same system and they probably know each other from recruiting.

 

It's a very small recruiting class. If Harbaugh can reel in a top-20 grouping, address a couple of the glaring gaps (i.e. QB) I think most observers will be pleased.

As far as WL record, I posted many pages ago that Harbaugh ought to be able to get over .500 just by eliminating catastrophic upset losses. That'll be enough at first, but then he needs to start getting some wins over MSU and OSU.

 

Looking at next year's schedule, I can picture Michigan going 10-2 next year with losses to Sparty and OSU. They don't have a tough nonconference schedule and they don't have Nebraska or Wisconsin. Hoke leaves decent enough talent behind that Harbaugh should be able to coach up in a way that Hoke could not. He could also poach some other recruits and bring back a couple of the decommits. Plus you have the energy factor that an exciting new coach can bring in (hell, that happened during Hoke's first year). I don't expect 10-2 -- and I wouldn't consider 8-4 with losses to MSU, OSU, Penn State and maybe a bad loss to BYU or Maryland to be a disappointment -- but I certainly don't see 10-2 as being a pipe dream either. Yeah, I've got my maize and blue bias as an alum. But I don't think I'm being completely unrealistic either.

 

9-10 wins isn't out of the question at all. Hoke & crew did a lot of things poorly, but recruiting wasn't one of them. There's plenty of raw, albeit under developed, talent there.

 

Good lord. Six of their seven non-conference games in 2015 and 2016 are teams from west of the Rockies (Utah, Oregon State, UNLV, BYU, Hawaii and Colorado. Are they trying to join the Pac-12?

 

For Iowa... cut the check on Kirk and bring in the coaching lifer who can breathe life back into Iowa. Two national titles. Iowa guy.

 

I think their losses to App State and especially Toledo impressed upon U-M that if you are gonna play 'cupcake' nonconference games you shouldn't lose, they should be against teams out of your own region so they don't kill you in recruiting if you DO happen to lose them.