I was in attendance for the UTSA Roadrunners 11th win, worth it even though it's one of those played-nobody schools. Their football program is only 10 years old.
I caught the second half of that game!! Dude, I absolutely love what UTSA is doing this year. It will be interesting to see what realignment does for them. Question: Is the whole recent head coaching soap opera going on within the Texas college football bluebloods just a reaction to watching an upstart like UTSA as the second highest CFP Texas team?
They're a fun team, I can see a few of these guys going in the draft. This coach Traylor seems like the real deal, hopefully he doesn't get lured away too soon. I don't expect the AAC will make the CFB take them that much more seriously but this season could start netting them some local 5 stars. I'm not the guy to ask about NCAA politics, although Texas and Oklahoma seem doomed to the same failure and obscurity that A&M has gotten since their move. Seems like a panic move would be plausible for UT, not so much Oklahoma.
Honestly, I think the first time I really ever took notice of UTSA was when I saw them on a list of all-time best alternate uniforms for a black number they have. Speaking of which - Utah’s helmets yesterday were incredible. Might have outdone some of the hand painted helmets Army and Navy have been doing for a while now.
Wow, that is insane. For every helmet. And then you have multi billion dollar corporations in the NFL on national mega broadcasts, and they use stickers.
Wolverines one win away from the CFP. The Jets chances at hiring a great CEO-coach on the ropes. I hope the Wolverines smother their opponents in the Big Ten Championship Game. After that I hope the Johnson's open up their wallet and make Harbaugh the highest paid coach of all time. That's one way you can spend money without affecting the cap at all and 5 years of Jim Harbaugh would change the Jets trajectory forever.
I have a few thoughts. I posted a brief comment about this somewhere in one of the Saleh threads. Jim Harbaugh’s future is one of the most interesting coaching discussions these days, but so far he’s largely been overlooked. That could change over the next six weeks. Michigan will be at #2 in the CFP and is the closest thing to a playoff lock outside of UGA, so we won’t know the answer for at least another month, but I really think Jim Harbaugh’s chances of leaving UM just went UP, not down. For a few reasons. First and foremost - UM reworked his contract a year ago and he went from an $8 million salary down to $4 million with not very large bonuses and a minuscule buyout compared to some of the other coaching buyouts you see. Two years ago, he was paid in the top-5 of all college coaches; he’s now third from the bottom in the Big-Ten, just a cup of coffee ahead of Greg Schiano. UM is now in a bit of a pickle if they really want to keep him. At the very least, he’s going to want his contract renegotiated again if he’s going to stay. If I had to bet, I’d say his agent emailed the AD this morning. The coaching carousel is about to begin, with several really attractive openings and a two of the guys most rumored to be HC targets signing long-term deals with their current teams. Not to mention, +/-20 NFL teams that are probably getting tired of giving two-year head coaching tryouts to coordinators. The point - Jim Harbaugh’s leverage is peaking. At some point in the next couple weeks, as UM gets a bigger national spotlight, someone will ask him whether or not he’s given any thoughts to moving to the NFL. When he gives an answer that says everything EXCEPT, “No, I’m staying at UM,” we’ll know that he’s either looking for more money or a new job. He’s been a really enthusiastic recruiter every year he’s been at UM - except this one. This is a guy who pissed off SEC coaches by holding satellite camps right in their backyards and pulled out some of the best players. This year, his prized commitment is a 5-star from Grosse Point - a local kid who probably wasn’t that difficult to lock down. For UM’s biggest home game of the season, biggest win in a decade and one of the most iconic college football rivalry games, he had a remarkably mediocre list of 2022 recruits in attendance, and only 3-4 really elite kids. Some of this is no doubt because he fired his whole coaching staff last year, and any relationships they built went out the door with them. Sure, he’s had down-years before. It just seems like he’s lost his enthusiasm for recruiting. And it’s not just the 2022 cycle. UM is off to a really slow 2023 too, although there’s still plenty of time. His job was already getting tougher, but it just went up one more notch after yesterday. OSU has been at the top of the rankings, both in recruiting and game results for a while. Now, PSU is in the top-5 recruiting. MSU went crazy last year in the transfer portal and just locked down Mel Tucker with a new contract - a guy who recruited under two relentless recruiters in Nick Saran and Kirby Smart. The Big-Ten East was always tough but it’s only getting tougher, and UM is losing the battle for new talent. 2021 was a great year for UM, but if Harbaugh’s goal is to win a championship at UM, he’ll have to run the Big-Ten East gauntlet every year with no more than one loss and then win the conference championship. His talent to do that is on the decline. Over the last two years UM has lost a shitload of kids via the transfer portal and several were really high recruits. Not exactly sure what this says, because the same thing has been happening at Penn State. If you want to look at this optimistically, you could say it’s because their positions are so competitive they needed to go elsewhere for playing time. For a kid like Zach Charbonnet, that might be true. He had great 2019 but then dropped behind Hassan Haskins and I guess after yesterday we know why. But OSU recruits on a higher level and doesn’t have the same problem. So, something is going on. If nothing else, it’s got to be kind of a gut-punch for Jim Harbaugh to see players leave through the portal. It’ll be interesting to watch the portal in January to see if this trend turns around. Jim Harbaugh put ALL emphasis this year into beating OSU. He’s now accomplished that - the first time in the last 10-years and only the third time in the last 20. For the last year, UM ate and slept beating OSU. A pretty solid strategy - focus on beating the best and everything else will fall into place. Aside from a 4th quarter collapse against MSU, it worked. And, barring a bizarre collapse against Iowa, UM will be a playoff team after going into the season unranked. If Jim Harbaugh left at the end of last season, his legacy would have been - the guy who can’t win the Big Game and never lived up to a UM tradition of excellence. If he’s been entertaining any thoughts of leaving UM, this is probably his best opportunity to go out on a high note. Lastly, the 2021 season will soon be over and any praise he’s earned at UM will soon be fleeting. That’s how it’s been his entire tenure. UM went into the game against MSU undefeated and ranked No. 6. The next day, UM fans were muttering about “Same Ol’ Harbaugh” and revisiting the debate about whether or not it was time to move on. He responded by winning out and beating OSU and you’d think that would silence all critics. For now, it has. If he loses the Big-Ten Championship to Iowa, you’ll hear people again calling for his head. Not everyone, but also not just a few. Harbaugh knows this and it must be an exhausting loop. He also knows that if he goes 9-3 in 2022, with losses against OSU and either MSU or PSU and a 3rd place finish in the Big-Ten East, his current contract means it won’t cost UM much at all to fire him. There’s a better than average chance all that happens. Maybe not, but why not get out while the getting’s good I’ve had this discussion and made the same points with a few diehard UM fans, including my nephew, UM senior, just last night. Nobody yet has disagreed with a single point, but every one of them has disagreed with the conclusion. Their argument? Jim Harbaugh is a “Michigan Guy,” bleeds blue and maize, loyal to his alma mater and blah blah blah. All true. Except, has UM been as loyal to Jim Harbaugh as they all think he is to them? He was asked to take a pay cut to make less than Scott Frost, for fuck sake. He could win this week but lose next week and it’s not unthinkable that he could be fired. He won’t, but all I’m saying is - it’s not unthinkable in the world of UM football. As long as OSU is the gold standard in the Big-Ten, nothing he’ll do will ever be enough and people will constantly be calling for his head. When it comes to Harbaugh-UMichigan loyalty, it’s an incredibly dysfunctional relationship. UM fans expect Harbaugh will want to stay until THEY decide it’s over. That’s loopy. His loyalty might mean that he wouldn’t seriously entertain an offer from USC, although he definitely should. I doubt it means he’d stay at UM valued less than Indiana values Tom Allen, while his brother is making $9 million to coach in the NFL.
@Sundayjack - Helluva post. I really think nailing Harbaugh down as the voice and power on the Jets would transform the organization forever. Parcells would have done that if he had been on a real 5 year contract - one that the Jets would have re-upped without thinking too hard after year 4. Unfortunately his contract was with a dying owner and he never felt it extended beyond that. Still he transformed the Jets for a run of sustained success over 15 seasons. Just imagine what 5 years of a focused completely in control Jim Harbaugh would do for this organization. The Jets real runs of success have been when they had the commitment of a no-nonsense HC who was the face of the franchise. Weeb in the late 60's and Parcells in the late 90's who built the framework for the 00's.. Add Walt Michaels in because he came from the Browns back when the Browns were the Browns and he coached under Weeb for nearly a decade. Those are the periods when the Jets were good. We need the next great coach to come in and run the show - and I mean the whole show. Harbaugh's issues have always been over power and control. The answer to that is to give him all the power and with that the control he needs to right the Jets.
I have to confess - I’m not a huge Harbaugh fan, although I can’t say exactly why. Nothing I could point to. But I’d absolutely take a guy with a record of NFL success over yet another two-year tryout with a modestly successful coordinator. Some guys are good coordinators and that’s all they’ll ever be. So, yeah, I’m onboard for Harbaugh. If anything I said in the magnum opus above is correct, it works the same for any team looking to hire Jim Harbaugh - now is the best opportunity to throw money at him and make it happen. If he reworks his contract with UM after the playoff, he’s off the market for at least a couple years. If for some illogical reason he sticks it out at UM under his current contract, I’d read that to mean he’s looking at the coaching landscape and he’s waiting for his first choice of jobs to open. The time to make the phone call is now. Whether or not the Jets are on his shortlist, it’s not that difficult to figure out what it would take if they really want him. At least $1.00 more than what his brother makes and total control of all football decisions. Gotta be the easiest contract negotiation of all time.
BTW, your point about the salary cap seldom gets mentioned and it’s really mind-boggling that it doesn’t. Teams will dedicate a disproportionate share of a defined salary cap on a single player and then cheap-out on the one expense that affects success the most and salary cap not at all. Is it unfair to fire Robert Saleh after one season just to hire Jim Harbaugh? Sure. But I’ll bet Sam Darnold thought it was unfair to draft Zach Wilson and trade him away. It’s a business where you should be looking for the best player at every position. Why that shouldn’t apply to a head coach - the guy who fires more guys each year than any one else - is beyond me.
Good stuff here, but it’s been pointed out before on this board, who on the Jets has the gravitas to fire the HC and GM at this point? Woody and Chris have no allies or confidants in the industry at this point. Probably why the Jets hierarchy always looks like an island of misfit toys.
That’s the most discouraging part. I have a theory on why that is. Still a work in progress, but I’m going to say it because it’s pitching right into Br4d’s wheelhouse and… well… I’m a pleaser. Biggest thing holding the Jets back right now? My theory - the moral hazard of Old Money. Consider that the Detroit Lions, owned by the Ford family, and the Jets, owned by the Johnson family, both have the same problem: ownership that has the luxury to not care. From the minute these people exited a vagina, they knew that their worst decisions had little or no consequences. Winning might be nice and losing may suck, but either way it doesn’t change tomorrow.
And the NFL is easy money no matter what you do. It is easy to overlook your shortcomings running a team by pointing at the bottom line, even though it is a collectively bargained agreement that actually makes your money for you - not your competence in running the team.
The Rooneys seem to be okay though. Of course, the Steelers are the family’s only business so they’re much more properly incentivized to be good at it.
The Rooneys were very bad at football for the first 40-odd years of running the franchise. It was the second generation of family owners that turned the franchise around. I did a post on it somewhere here and it was very similar to the Mara's except the Mara's were a bit more successful because the kids took over earlier. Also, the Rooneys came out of a saloon-keeper's family in Pittsburgh. The Mara's scion was a bookie.
If you were to rank the level of importance each team's owner's voice had at an owner's meeting, where do you think guys like Woody, Chris and Hymie would fall in that list? That's something that any high profile HC candidate is going to consider and since these guys handle their business like amateurs from the moment they wake up, I don't they rank that high. If Harbaugh's name ever came up linked to a Jets hire, it would only be for leverage. We're stuck with rookies.
It’s a theory that still needs some work. The only true test would be if we could somehow arrange for Paris Hilton to own the Green Bay Packers. Not forever. Probably only need 5-6 years to either prove or disprove. The problem is convincing all the Wisconsins holding shares in the Packers to temporarily give them up in the name of science.
A fact that hits you in the face like a fucking frying pan and there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do to fix it.
I like this discussion so I’ma see if I can move it to its own thread out of selfishness. Easier to find in another six weeks. Continued here => Jim Harbaugh Discussion
