Welp 

Hey Ace - you must be in the former group. right?  More grist for the mill.

Half the team injured, transferred, or just gave up... This is a young team.  This win builds character, shows that we are scrappy and won't give up.

Let's go beat an 0-5 PSU team.

It is great that Michigan won, but count me in the camp that believes change is still needed on the coaching staff. 

There may be no such thing as a moral victory, but there is such a thing as a moral defeat.

The good: The team showed some fight. They didn’t quit, even when things were bad, as they quit last week. And, in that context, there’s some legit stuff to defend here: Dax Hill was out there, but every other star defensive player we were counting on this year—every one of them—was out. We’re missing THREE starters on the offensive line, and Chuck Filiaga is quite clearly the starter in which the staff had the least confidence entering the season.

And Cade looked great.

The bad: Well, the defense. The offensive playcalling much of the game that wasn’t Cade’s rampaging TD drives. The OL. Etc.

Here’s the thing about the play selection: for a good bit of the game, it was plainly terrible. And then Cade comes in and hits passes… AND the plays make sense. Michigan isn’t just running on first and second downs anymore. Actual WR flare screens. That kind of thing.

People are tempted to blame Gattis, and they’re tempted to blame Milton. Why doesn’t Gattis call that stuff all the time? Why didn’t he in OT? Why does the offense work worse with Milton? Why does he miss some of those passes? Why aren’t the coaches starting the CLEARLY better player?

C’mon, guys. We’ve seen this play before. We’ve seen it for years. Yes, it’s possible that Gattis just has massive blind spots in his playcalling. But given what we’ve seen from other offenses under Harbaugh, under multiple “OC” types, it seems like Harbaugh’s influence is visible here. He wants the ball on the ground. He doesn’t want to get away from the run. And he doesn’t really think much of reads, because offenses that have read looks built into them under both Pep and Gattis keep getting away from their reads. 2-minute drills are always a disaster, and the 2nd-and-long run play continues to be a staple. Is it a huge coincidence, or is there a common thread that remained the same between their tenures?

The simple explanation is that when Cade went in, the basic gameplan that was assembled early this week, the gameplan Harbaugh would be in meetings about, perhaps dropping suggestions that he wants a good run-pass ratio, that he wants to establish the line of scrimmage and so on, got thrown out the window. And suddenly Gattis was calling the plays he wanted to call with a QB who could hit the passes. And when the passing game worked, the defenders could no longer count on Michigan tipping runs and had to back off, and Michigan’s running game looked considerably better.

Sounds like Harbaugh is the issue here.

Regarding the Milton – McNamara issue: people are always eager to anoint the backup. What has history shown us? Every QB Harbaugh has coached here except the first one, Rudock, has gotten worse in their tenure. Speight. O’Korn (remember when he came in as a backup against Purdue? He looked great! Then he was the starter and Harbaugh starts focusing on him and…). Peters. Shea. Not just, not improved. They’ve gotten worse game over game and year over year. They get tentative, miss passing reads, look confused. Now, Milton the same.

I don’t believe McNamara was clearly the better QB in all facets in preseason. And Milton does still appear to be a better runner, which is theoretically what you want in a run-based offense that I think Harbaugh expects, which helps explain his role as a starter.

But Cade is clearly the guy now.

Now that he’s the starter, Harbaugh can get his claws into him. I expect Cade to regress over the rest of the season. I’ll be happy if he doesn’t, but saddled with the Harbaugh-influenced gameplan and Harbaugh’s QB coaching, he’ll become less decisive. He won’t be given many RPOs or run reads. Defenses will learn what Michigan likes to do, again, and tee off on it, again. And people will attack the OC, again, as they attacked Drev, as they attacked Pep, as they now attack Gattis.

But it’s Harbaugh’s team. Harbaugh is the common thread of the last four years of failed offenses. Harbaugh is the common thread with the QBs through multiple supposed offensive coordinators. It’s Harbaugh’s way. It will be until he leaves. He simply doesn’t know another way to coach.