What We Learned: The 2016 Offseason

Michigan will always be in the headlines, as long as Jim Harbaugh is around. The offseason started with a big bang, as celebrities from all over gathered to Ann Arbor for the unprecedented “Signing of the Stars” in February, to celebrate National Signing Day with the Michigan recruits.

After Michigan hosted this incredible event and landed the consensus #1 recruit in the country, Rashan Gary, it was time to ruffle some feathers. Jim Harbaugh accomplished this by bringing Michigan to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida for spring break. This was such an outrageous move by Michigan, that the SEC commissioner Greg Sankey tried to block it from happening.

The attempt to block the camp failed, and all it really did was create some more publicity for Michigan. Thank you, Mr. Sankey!

Jim Harbaugh will outwork every coach. Many coaches like to take the summer off as a time to relax. Mississippi’s Hugh Freeze was one of these, claiming that being a good father and running satellite camps are mutually exclusive.

Jim responded by saying “we are not kindred spirits”, basically calling Hugh lazy. Harbaugh may be right, as Hugh Freeze can afford to be lazy, as long as his bagmen are working hard.

Jim’s satellite tour continued to draw ire from other coaching staffs, including Rutgers (lol), Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and others. But Jim Harbaugh simply does not care. He just wants the best team, and he will go all over the country, and even the world, to find it.

Jim Harbaugh will make his players outwork every other team. By all accounts, the summer practices have been intense, physical, and lengthy. Jim Harbaugh is separating the men from the boys, as he lines up his depth chart for the fall season. Here is a recent tweet exchange involving a UCLA player (Howard) and Michigan players (Crawford):

Crawford later deleted the tweet, but one of the “likes” for his reply was fellow Michigan freshman David Long. The players may not like the hard work now, but hard work always pays off in the end.

We learned very little about the team/depth chart. While other teams are announcing starters, Michigan continues to hide out in “the submarine”, and is doing a frustratingly great job at keeping all team data close to the vest. We are left to decipher information from premium websites that rely on unnamed sources in practice. This information is often contradictory. It also is slanted toward positive reports, never truly being critical of players. This makes it very difficult to know what to believe. The best way to find out what is really going on with this team is to turn on your TV at noon ET on September 3, and watch for yourself. Then and only then, we will know who made the starting lineup this season.

Top 3 Harbaugh Tweets of the Summer. This will normally be top tweets of the week, but Harbaugh put together a great summer of tweets, and didn't really hold back on anyone.