John Baxter
Michigan special teams coordinator John Baxter is no longer coaching at Michigan. He has been re-hired at USC, which is where he was before spending one year in Ann Arbor. Michigan took a step forward on special teams this year, doing an excellent job on kickoff returns (#3 in the country with 28.4 yards/return), pinning opponents deep on punts, and covering kickoffs, not to mention thwarting a couple attempted fakes by Florida in the Citrus Bowl. Michigan also forged a pretty decent kicker out of Kenny Allen (80% on field goals, 100% on extra points), who spent the previous three seasons concentrating on punting. There were a few hiccups along the way, though, including the dropped punt snap that lost the Michigan State game, a punt return touchdown allowed against Indiana, and a long return allowed against Rutgers. Michigan was better on special teams, but not great.
It’s unclear how Baxter’s position will be filled. Michigan recruiting coordinator Chris Partridge was on staff temporarily for the Citrus Bowl after defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin left Michigan for the Maryland head coaching job. Durkin tried to take Partridge to Maryland, but he stayed at Michigan after being promised an “increased role.” This may be that increased role. Prior to coaching Jabrill Peppers, Juwann Bushell-Beatty, Rashan Gary, and others at Paramus (NJ) Catholic, Partridge was a position coach and assistant special teams coach at both Lafayette and The Citadel, so he does have some experience with coaching specials. If Partridge were to take on a coaching role, there have been rumors that Devin Bush, Sr. – the father of Michigan early enrollee Devin Bush, Jr. – will leave his head coaching job at Pembroke Pines (FL) Flanagan to take on a recruiting coordinator role for the Wolverines.
Baxter’s recruiting area was the West Coast. This change should not affect the Wolverines greatly in that area, since Jim Harbaugh, Tim Drevno, Jay Harbaugh, and Greg Jackson have all spent time living and coaching on the Left Coast. Baxter was also in charge of implementing a respected academic program to help athletes stay on track while playing sports, a program he puts in place wherever he goes.
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I liked the improvement in special teams this year. There was one video clip of a punt or kickoff return (can’t remember which) where the opposing team’s returner tried to juke to the left and Michigan’s defenders all moved with him. The returner tried to cut right and all the Michigan defenders moved with him again. The returner then gave up, tried to run up the middle, and got about 2 extra yards. It was a beautiful thing to see the coverage team stay disciplined.
But I’m sitting thinking that such discipline is not exclusive to Baxter. And I’m sitting here thinking Harbaugh can’t be shaking his head saying, “Crap, I didn’t see that coming.” In other words, Harbaugh will find someone and Michigan marches on into 2016.
But man … I really liked that video clip of the coverage team moving in synchronicity with the attempted jukes of the returner. Thing of beauty.
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The hope here is that Jay Harbaugh picked up the thinking that Baxter brings to special team coaching.
Most of the boys on my father’s side of the family went to the Citadel, so they took me to Charleston for a look. I took one look at a couple lines of guys standing there in uniform on a warm spring morning and announced with a great deal of conviction something to the effect of “That ain’t happening!!!!!” Went home and applied to Michigan. Pissed my Dad and one Uncle in particular off pretty good. Probably the best decision of my life and about the only good one there for quite a stretch.
My cousin was an honorable mention All american LB for the Citadel after being a very small, but very tough All State Guard at the high school level. It gave me hope as an athlete until I went to a family reunion and found out that he was adopted.
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Here’s a question to Thunder and Roanman, both coaches … if you were to rank all the coaching tasks for a football team like Michigan — on a blended scale that measures both importance to winning and difficulty to coach — what would that ranking look like?
There’s a half-million “it depends” qualifiers around that, no doubt. One big one that occurs to me is this — “With a roster full of super-talented athletes? Or mostly marginal players?” For now, let’s say it’s Michigan’s projected 2016 roster.
What I’m getting at is while special teams are important, is the special teams coach the #1 most important/difficult thing to coach? I suspect not. Sure, a bad/lazy coach can make for a long season. But can a generally competent coach under the guidance of a HC like Harbaugh achieve what’s necessary for ST to be effective?
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First of all, I’m not a coach although I have coached at very low levels. And most of the coaching I have done was on a Basketball court. The very small bit of football I have coached was many, many, many ….. many years ago at the JV level. I just play one on Touch the Banner.
Secondly, I can’t even begin to answer your first question. Football is such a unique game requiring so many skill sets. There are a million things going on all at once. Every coach, team and program is different.
I also think that a guy with a unique system that people haven’t seen or maybe more likely don’t see a lot of can catch kids that don’t necessarily fit the popular mold and construct something that is like nothing else and that wins or is maybe even special. I think John Beilein is the king of this approach in Basketball. “Don’t ever bring me a kid that can’t shoot!” RichRod at the beginning of the Zone Read and Spread thing maybe fell into this category among football coaches. Ken Niumatalolo for sure fits that description.
I don’t know what is the most difficult aspect of football to coach. My tiny football coaching experience was Receivers and DB’s ,,,,, there was no distinction for me beyond that. Lanky appears to have some ranking in his head, where Offensive Line coaches are more important than RB coaches. I think that’s crap, as football is in my mind more of a team game than maybe any other. One glitch from any of 11 guys can kill. A guy that can see and read and then run like a deer can make a mediocre line look pretty good. A slow, half blind guy that drives into the pile can make a pretty good offensive line look like crap. A QB that can keep Safeties honest and linebackers thinking about coverage can way help a team’s running game even if you have a mediocre O Line and a half blind Tailback running behind it. We saw all of that, both the positive and negative aspects, during the course of the 2015 season.
Special teams coaches have more stuff to coach as they have four different units. So you need to be coaching kicking, punting, snapping, catching snaps and placing, blocking in space (thats way harder than it looks) catching punts (a terrifying thing to do in my experience ….. its amazing how well you can hear em coming) receiving kicks (different from receiving punts) and while … hands … you either got em or you ain’t, catching both is coachable. Those are the just physical skills, now you have to come up with and then drill your schemes, reads and plays for each. It’s a big job for what amounts to somewhere around 30% of the game. Baxter to USC is absolutely a loss.
We dominated field position for much of the season and I believe we won some games because we returned kicks at a top 5 level, punted and covered punts at a very high level. I’m too lazy to think through how to quantize our punt coverage, but we were very solid at special teams. We had a huge loss because we failed at snapping, receiving the snap and then thinking through a solution to adequately mitigate the first two failures.
Finally, I always go back to Frank Beamer who I love and as was pointed out to me by somebody earlier this year Urban Meyer, who I don’t ….. just saying’, two coaches you could argue are among the best head coaches at the college level of all time. Both coached/coach their special teams.
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Wow … very nice response, and thank you for taking the time to write that up!
I am absolutely no coach, I have very little X’s and O’s knowledge, and I never played organized football other than intramural touch at college. There I played defensive line (then I was pretty quick and could get into the QB’s face in a split second**), and punter (I’m the only sports fan in my family, so when I was a kid I’d spend hours punting the ball around the backyard). So I’m no expert in football, but I *love* the game.
I understand it would be better to retain Baxter than lose him. I suspect we will be okay, as I think Harbaugh understands the value of the position and will get the best he can get. I doubt he will relegate it to an after-thought. (Saying Hoke did that would be harsh, but I think saying Hoke valued the role less than others would be fair.)
** Back then I was also fast, and for softball was often put out in center field because I could run down balls. The trouble was, I had no arm. So I’d chase down a ball that got into the gap and I’d heave it with all my might back to the infield. After that my arm would ache and I was mostly useless thereafter.
Don’t ask about basketball. I can’t dribble to save my life. I could play a spirited defense, and I was okay at rebounding, but heaven help me if I ever got the ball and had to dribble. 🙂
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This seems like a question best answered in a mailbag post.
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