What do you think about Michigan playing two quarterbacks?
Harbaugh says Michigan could re-define what a starting quarterback is and play Shea Patterson and Dylan McCaffrey in every game pic.twitter.com/joIMeey4Xx
— Trevor Woods (@WoodsFootball) July 19, 2019
Harbaugh: "Patterson and McCaffrey have an explosive ability to throw and run. We found that Shea was better in the shotgun and that's why we went more to it. Shea is comfortable in an up tempo, no huddle offense, so spreading things out helps those two quarterbacks."
— TheWolverine.com (@TheWolverineMag) July 19, 2019
Harbaugh on why they switched to an RPO heavy scheme pic.twitter.com/tvuu6tx43E
— Trevor Woods (@WoodsFootball) July 19, 2019
I’m going to post a bunch of tweets summarizing Jim Harbaugh’s comments at Big Ten Media Days:
Harbaugh: "It's been helpful having the freshmen come in in June and get their physicals done earlier than usual. I want to see Daxton Hill play safety."
— TheWolverine.com (@TheWolverineMag) July 19, 2019
Harbaugh: "We want our vipers to have the ability to be a good safety or nickel, but also a linebacker or a pass rusher off the edge — kind of like a Swiss army knife, Jim Thorpe type of player."
— TheWolverine.com (@TheWolverineMag) July 19, 2019
Harbaugh: "Hassan Haskins started at RB, then moved to viper, and is now back at RB. He had a slight meniscal tear before spring started, and we knew he'd be limited. He's back to running and should be ready to go for the start of camp."
— TheWolverine.com (@TheWolverineMag) July 19, 2019
Harbaugh: "Onwenu has had a great offseason and worked a lot on his technique. He looks tremendous."
— TheWolverine.com (@TheWolverineMag) July 19, 2019
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Yeah, and how about 2 offensive line coaches too…… that worked out great! Broken vertebra in Speight, Peters in a wheel chair. So 2 QBs, what could go wrong.
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Get them both knocked out on the same play? Of course.
17’s post literally made me bust out laughing at 7:40 in the morning. It belongs in the Hall of Fame.
I wish harbaugh would just stfu. I see this past week he’s publicly raggin on Meyer too (0-4 Harbs!) When he was first hired his mouth & antics where kinda welcome, even inspiring along with the Michigan Fanbase’s new found optimism that Wolverine Football was on its way to the Promised Land.
But after 4 years of ‘nothing’ & continual mediocrity & no signature wins his mouth & antics have frankly worn thin. Its time for this extravagantly paid big mouth to put up & shut up! If he can’t get it done in ’19 its time for Warde to start putting together a short list………..
As I see It……….INTJohn
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It’s extremely rare for two players to get injured on the same play, and when I see it, it’s usually on special teams.
Jim Harbaugh hasn’t produced mediocrity. Mediocrity is 6-6 or, for an average, somewhere between 8-4 and 4-8. Michigan has been 10-3 in three out of his four seasons.
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To your first paragraph: My response was a tounge in cheek sarcasm of Murphy’s Law to 17’s sarcasm – just see the humor, laugh & move on – don’t go MgoBlah on me.
Next para: Yeah Mediocrity! 10-3 doesn’t cut it when he has No signature wins or championship of any kind but has several signature losses (and Jeff Brohm does have a sig win?). If Harbs was makin 4 mil /yr I would say Michigan is getting what its paying for but at 7.5 mil/yr Harbs has been no cost effective on field success. Yeah there hasn’t been any last second goal line stands in The Big House needed to beat the likes of Akron – at 7.5 mil/yr there never better be either and this is the only positive ‘on field success’ one can point to re Harbs tenure – Michigan is back to beating teams they should beat.
But they still can’t beat a good team anywhere in order to win any kind of championship. we all know the record – do you really think that 10-3; the kind of ’10-3′ Michigan has produced under Harbs for waht he’s being paid makes him more than ‘mediocre’?
I don’t………INTJohn
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There’s no good way to summarize how “good” Harbaugh has been at Michigan. It is fair to say that he’s been the best coach we’ve had since Bo almost 40 years ago. (Carr won a championship, but was usually 8-4 and had the benefit of facing John Cooper for a while….so was he better?)
It is also fair to say that Harbaugh hasn’t made it to Indy and hasn’t beaten OSU. We can list all of the legit reasons why – ranging from injuries, shady OSU behavior, bad refs, dumb luck, and getting outcoached.
The problem with Harbaugh is that he could be the best Michigan coach since Yost and not live up to expectations – where were that he would bring us to Bama, Clemson, OSU territory.
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This is how bad rumors get started. Carr was the coach for 13 seasons. He was 8-4 exactly twice; three times if you count when he went 8-4 in the regular season of his final year but beat Florida to finish 9-4.
The truth:
0-loss seasons: 1
1-loss seasons: 0
2-loss seasons: 2
3-loss seasons: 5
4-loss seasons: 4
5-loss seasons: 1
The plurality of Carr’s seasons resulted in three losses, which fits nicely with the fact that his average year was 9.4 wins and 3.1 losses.
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I assume he means the two QBs would split snaps in a game, but not necessarily be on the field at the same time. I think this is pre-season talk and they’re not serious about this. Patterson will be the main workhorse, and McCaffrey will be backup.
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He said both could play, potentially at the same time.
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Yeah, this smacks of a misguided attempt to keep them both happy, one that could very well screw up whatever offense we have this year if he actually tried it. It’s not as if they have distinctly different styles that could each be effective in different situations or against different defenses. They do things pretty much the same, so try them both out and pick a winner, Jim. That’s your job.
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……..and now I’ll elaborate a lil bit on what is possible logic on Harbs part to actually alternate qb play to some extent tween Caff & Patt.
Patterson is going to be in the NFL – we all know this. he doesn’t need an entire season of seasoning for the NFL to fall in love with him. So its not necessary to necessarily give him 99% of the game snaps…………
Caff needs experience – as much as he can get – for at least 2 fold reasons:
1- otherwise Michigan is beginnning a very tough 2020 schedule with a very inexperienced guy at the qb position.
2- to find out whether Caff is a paper tiger. Is this guy going to continue to get bones broke because that is his physiological bone strength structure or was the collarbone fracture simply a footbal play aberration?
So I can understand harbs actually wanting to play Caff as much as possible, sharing time with Patterson………………intjohn
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“he doesn’t need an entire season of season for the NFL to fall in love with him.”
Disagree. The NFL isn’t in love with him. He’s not looked at as an elite NFL prospect. I didn’t bother doing a comprehensive search, because this is what you’ll find just about anywhere, but WalterFootball.com has Patterson as the #10 quarterback in the draft.
https://walterfootball.com/draft2020QB.php
The #10 quarterback in the 2019 NFL Draft was Gardner Minshew, who went to the Jaguars in the 6th round (#178 overall). Only one more QB was drafted (Trace McSorley, later in round 6). In 2018 it was Tanner Lee at #10 (coincidentally, also to the Jaguars in round 6 but at #203 overall).
The NFL isn’t in love with Patterson.
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The NFL is in love with him and his stock will only go up more after the ’19 season……
the NFL drafts about 12 qb’s every year out of the 300ish guys that play in FBS & FCS. Patterson as you’ve noted is already in this 12 qb/yr bracket. So yes the NFL ‘loves’ him even if he’s not ‘elite?’. Some1 will draft him just like some1 drafted Brady, Bart Star & how Unitas ended up with the colts after being cut by Pittsburgh. And do I need to mention Matt cassalI? Oh shit I just did! IF a guy makes it to NFL , the NFL loved him………. INTJohn
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I think what Harbaugh is really saying is something to the effect of “McCaffrey is really good and we need to find ways to get him on the field both to exploit his talents to win games, keep him happy so he doesn’t leave, prep him for next year, and maybe try to keep Shea healthy the whole season.”
I like the idea of trying to get him snaps somehow for all of those reasons. The problem is, I’ve never seen a successful use of two QBs either in a rotation or at the same time. Gimmick only.
The best thing I can hope for is that the team is good enough to get bigger leads so that Shea can have a quick hook to the bench and let McCaffrey play. The last couple years we haven’t had very many games where back-ups got ample time.
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Of course, one way to have him on the field more this year would have been to not bring in Patterson at all. Can’t have it both ways, Jim.
But I agree that Michigan needs to keep their foot on the gas on offense, build up big leads as often as possible, and get McCaffrey in their for 2-3 real drives a game, i.e. drives where we run our full offense, and don’t just have him hand off to a fourth string RB on every play except 3rd and long because we’re afraid of being accused of “running up the score”.
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LOL at not bringing in Patterson, the lone 5-star quarterback Michigan has landed since Ryan Mallett.
So you want 5-star talent, but you don’t want to deal with the drama that comes along with getting elite guys stacked up behind each other.
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I’m not saying that at all. Please pay attention before you get all superior. Harbaugh is the one wanting to squeeze both guys in as quasi-starters instead of just declaring that one is the starter, period, and the other is the backup. I’m saying that Harbaugh needs to make the tough decision, because that’s his job, that’s what’s best for the offense, and because he KNEW that kind of decision might very well be needed when he brought Patterson in top of McCaffrey. I’m saying he can’t have it both ways.
There is no advantage to playing the offense the way that Harbaugh is hinting. You need to evaluate everyone during fall practice and then choose a starter and a backup, and stick with the starter AS the starter until and unless they are seriously not getting the job done. If your backup is 95% as good as your starter, fine and dandy. Bring him in earlier or with a smaller lead than you would if he was only 60% as good, and sleep better knowing that if your starter gets hurt, you probably won’t miss a beat. But don’t rotate them, and don’t play some silly game where you’re picking a new starter every week and keeping it a big secret until the offense walks onto the field for the first series.
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“Please pay attention before you get all superior.”
THIS is the type of drama that exists when you have tons of talent. You have multiple guys wanting to get on the field and the threat of backups leaving if they don’t see the field. So in today’s game, you have to talk about or consider these types of time shares, whereas back in the 1990s or 1980s, you just waited your turn to play.
When you say, “Patterson is the starter. Deal with it. You might get a few snaps if we blow out Rutgers,” that’s when the transfer portal gets inflated.
You say you want elite talent, but like I said, you don’t like the drama that comes along with it.
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Silliness and deflection. As I pointed out quite clearly, it’s not a choice being being the starter and only getting a few snaps in one big blowout, and you know that, so your trying to paint this that way just tells me you have no real argument. And as also pointed out, this is not about “the drama”, it’s about what’s best for the offense and the team. Having a quarterback 1A and 1B rarely works out.
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LOL. My argument is the one I was waging with Lanknows over the span of a week or two. If you want to see it, go back and check out the Joe Milton countdown post.
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Is this an accurate summary of your take on modern QBs, WCB?
Unrealistic: QBs waiting their turn to start as upperclassmen
Unrealistic: Playing multiple QBs
Realistic: Recruiting 5-star QBs every year
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Let’s hope we win big enough for Mac to get plenty of snaps
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@ Thunder and anyone else who thinks Harbs record at Michigan isn’t ‘mediocre’…….and now onto a definition of ‘Mediocrity’ ; at least according to Michigan standards:
(I’m putting it here cause i can’t stand how reply posts on this site get more & more narrow till they’re down to 1 letter per line)
I guess if you want to say 6-6, .500 is ‘average’/ ‘mediocre’ vs Harbs record at Michigan ( 38- 13; his average is 9.5 wins – 3.5 losses a percentage of .730) then you have definately fallen into mediocrity your selves.
Michigan is the ALL Time winningest college team in history as all of you well know. With a long term average/mediocre winning % of .740ish. Along with this is a lot of wins over the buckeyes as welll as B10 championships. This is what being average and mediocre at Michigan is! get some damn pride in your selves and quit comparing Michigan’s average to a .500 average Illinois,Utah St, Washington St & Rutgers! Each of which long term average is in fact .500ish or 6-6………..
Sad that a .730 winning percentage by Harbaugh has become welcomed at Michigan while not beating the Buckeyes or winning any kind of Championship. Like I heard Pat Fitzgerald say at B10 media Days a couple days ago : “Stats are for Losers” and I’m also sick of reading some of the BS on how Michigan was ‘co East Divy Champs in ’18’ BULL!
I watched the ’18 B10 Championship game at Drafts in Mission Beach – it also happens to be the Buckeye hang in San Diego and when Northwestern took the field I didn’t’ see them line up against both the Wolverines AND the Buckeyes.
Yeah Mediocre at Michigan is 9-4 ish but also with victories over the buckeyes once in awhile and B10 Championships, too. Its sad that all of you are grasping at any slight of delusional ‘positiveness’ while lowering Michigan’s football standard to the likes of .500 teams.
Pathetic and no wonder Michigan may never beat OSU again, you’ve all settled for every one else’s average…………
As I See It…………INTjohn
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Yep, because my definition of “mediocre” is different than yours, I’m a mediocre person.
Makes sense.
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I don’t see a problem with playing multiple QBs. Helped us win against Wisconsin last year. Gardner/Denard. Pass to Navarre. Gimmicks become innovations when they work.
I agree it can help keep key players happy. Praise to Harbaugh for trying, even if it’s lip service.
Is this new dynamic brought on by transfer freedoms or the “social media” boogeyman? I remember Henson/Brady. Maybe today Driesbach grad transfers but ‘drama’ aka competition has always been part of the game and egos too.
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All I’m saying in this is, there seems to be a lot of sideshows going on at Michigan since Jim Harbaugh has taken over. I know he has nothing but good intentions. I know he’s trying to change college football, and Michigan football, for the better. So I am sure he is well meaning.
But I want to see wins in big games consistently. Game rules changes, transfer rules changes, 2 offensive line coaches, international trips, having famous people as honorary captains, speaking his mind to the NCAA to a painful extent, all these things and more, were interesting for a while. But they’ve started to lose their substance to me. Nick Saban never takes part in most of these things. I don’t think he likes the side shows, the media explosions. But he wins. I want to see winning, especially in the games that get National attention, like Notre Dame and Ohio St. And I want to hear talk from Coach Harbaugh about winning National Championships.
I want to see the main thing become the main thing. I want to be happy on Saturday after watching Michigan football, not left with questions and doubts like happened after the Notre Dame, Northwestern, and Ohio St, games last year. It’s a very tough schedule this year. I wish I could hear talk about those games right now, not all the sideshows.
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