Coach Harbaugh Is No Longer The Big Man On Campus

I have a feeling that Coach Howard is gonna step over Coach Harbaugh on the list of Meeechigans best coaches this season. Heck, I think he already has. Coach Howard will have less talent, but get more out of that talent this season, even though it's a bit of a transition season for him.

I think he would have overtaken Coach Harbaugh, had his team been able to compete in the NCAA Tournament. Again, I think he already has, and my list at the bottom reflects my thinking.

It is a hard thing to get 5 star recruits to come to Meeechigan basketball, and Coach Howard lost out on a few, before he landed the #8 player in the land a few weeks ago. I think that those dominoes will begin to fall his way more often now that the ice has been broken.

The difference between Coach Howard, and Coach Harbaugh it seems, is that Coach Howard is out there competing for the elite recruits, and Coach Harbaugh has seemingly abandoned that strategy, settling for 3 & 4 star recruits, and abandoning the state of Ohio completely. I do not like that. I don't like it one little bit. Go out and compete for the best, even if you lose on some of them. Eventually, you're gonna win some battles.

It didn't hurt Coach Howard's recruiting efforts when his team went out and beat 2 top ten teams (North Caroline & Gonzaga) to begin his tenure. In beating those teams, and winning the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament at the beginning of his tenure, it brought Meeechigan from an unranked team, to #4 in the nation. Winning helps recruiting. Beating top 10 teams brings it to a whole nother level. It allows you to seriously go after the 5 stars.

These recruits know who the coaches are recruiting, and if they see that you're not going out and trying to recruit the best players to be their potential teammates, they are not going to take your program seriously. These recruits talk to each other. They know who is recruiting who. They don't care, when you tell them they can play at the Big House, they care that they won't get their asses kicked in front of 110,000 people. Unless you can look em in the eye, and say that your out there recruiting this 5 star athlete, and that 5 star athlete to help them achieve greatness, they will tune you out, and head to The Horseshoe.

While Coach Howard cannot boast of the best basketball facilities, he can honestly boast about his NBA experience, with not one, but two rings on his hand. He has highly rated NBA players who rave about his time as one of their coaches, and many more NBA players who rave about being his teammate.

Coach Howard uses all the tools in his belt, to recruit top talent. I don't see that coming from anybody in the football program. They are simply relying on the Meeechigan brand. The problem is that the Meeechigan brand, as far as football is concerned, hasn't had any luster in a very long time.

It seems like a lifetime ago since they beat Ohio State. He is 3-3 against a Michigan State program, that gets inferior talent year after year. That is all about coaching. Coach Harbaugh is not coaching up his kids at the level other coaches are able to do. Look at how much John Beilein got out of his talent. John Beilein never went after the 5 star players, but rather went about recruiting players to fit his scheme, and while he never quite won a national championship, he won Big Ten Championships, and his teams played in 2 National Championship games. One of those games was against Louisville, who after they beat us, had to forfeit all of their wins for the season. Did Beilein claim the championship? No, he went about the business of recruiting the right players to get back to the tournament. In all honesty, John Beilein was a better coach than Coach Harbaugh. Like Harbaugh, he got inferior talent to teams like Duke, MSU, UCLA and others, but he went out and beat them. Harbaugh can not say the same.

Much will be determined about Coach Howard this year. He will have a team that is still mostly Beilein recruits, not suited to his system, and he will have lost two key players, but he will have had 31 games as Michigan head coach, to try and coach these kids to play in his scheme, which is more of an NBA style scheme. This is a transitional season for him, and a trip to The Dance would be considered somewhat of a success in a talent laden Big Ten Conference.

My hope is that Coach Howard wins the games he's supposed to win, maybe steals a couple against better teams, and maybe wins a game in the tournament. Mostly though, I hope he develops his freshmen, and prepares them for the 2021-2022 season, which I believe will be his breakout year as the head coach of our beloved Meeechigan Basketball Team.

At that point in time, we might just have a new Head Football Coach at Meechigan. Here's the thing though. I'd be happy to see Coach Harbaugh still coaching the football team, because if he's still the coach, that would mean that he finally righted the ship. I just don't see that happening though. I think Coach Harbaugh is just too damn stubborn to make the changes in philosophy, particularly on the defense, to do that.

Time will tell, but at this point, my list of the best coaches at Meechigan go like this:

1. Coach Carol Hutchins (softball)
2. Coach Juwan Howard (basketball)
3. Coach Eric Bakich (baseball)
4. Coach Jim Harbaugh (football)
5. Coach Mel Pearson (hockey)