As if they needed more ammunition, Jim Harbaugh’s critics hit social media this week amid news that another quarterback he recruited for Michigan was being transferred.
Joe Milton, who plans to graduate from school this spring, announced plans on Thursday to put his name on the NCAA transfer portal and play elsewhere next year.
He is hardly the first defender to leave – the portal and transfer practice are becoming commonplace in the sport today – but the latest in a series of defenders to leave Michigan under Harbaugh, whose track record of developing players in the position is , at best, mixed in its first six seasons at Ann Arbor.
He had some success with the transfers (more on that at a time), but lost many of his high profile quarterback recruits outside of high school. And it starts from the beginning.
The first defender Harbaugh recruited out of high school, Zach Gentry, a four-star contender in the 2015 class of Albuquerque, New Mexico, never played a match in position. He was converted to the tight end shortly after arriving in Michigan, after Harbaugh felt that the burly Gentry would have a hard time standing out in a crowded and competitive quarterback room.
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It worked for Gentry, who twice received all Big Ten honors in the tight end and was summoned by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. But that was not the case with each of Harbaugh’s subsequent recruits.
With a full year to recruit the 2016 class, Harbaugh got another high-profile quarterback at the time – the four-star prospect Brandon Peters of Avon, Indiana, whose strong arm and athleticism made him one of the best quarterbacks in the class. But four games and three years later, Peters (680 passing yards with 55% completion, 4 TDs, 3 INTs) found himself buried in the depth chart and transferred to Illinois, where he won his initial job and was successful.
Meanwhile, the results with Harbaugh’s 2017 and 2018 quarterback recruits, both four-star candidates out of high school, were similar. Dylan McCaffrey chose not to participate in the 2020 season and decided to move after four years and 13 games. And now Milton, who started the 2020 season as a Michigan starter, only to lose his job five gams. Milton’s regression over the course of the season was impressive, and the latest accusation in Harbaugh’s irregular history of identifying and developing defenders.
Harbaugh had much better success in the transfer market, choosing quarterbacks with years of experience at the university level and entering them in Michigan. Jake Rudock, a graduate transferred from Iowa, earned an honorable mention All-Big Ten for his 2015 season with the Wolverines, in which he pitched for 3,017 yards and 20 touchdowns while leading the team for a 10-3 season.
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Then there’s Shea Patterson, the transfer from the University of Mississippi who started two seasons in Michigan and pitched for more than 5,600 yards and 45 touchdowns. Still, Patterson’s prolific passing numbers were not enough to make Michigan overcome the hurdle – Harbaugh’s teams recorded a record 10-3 in 2018 and 9-4 in 2019.
Harbaugh also relied on another transfer, John O’Korn from Houston, to help fill the gap in the quarterback in 2016 and 2017. But Wilton Speight won the title in both seasons, overcoming O’Korn, who would start just six games in its two seasons of eligibility. When the 2017 season ended, O’Korn’s eligibility watch had expired and Speight, recovering from a broken bone in his spine, decided to move to UCLA.
Which brings us back to Milton, the third straight high school quarterback recruited for transfer in Michigan under Harbaugh. It wouldn’t be a dunk in this off-season for Milton, who would have to beat Harbaugh’s 2019 quarterback, Cade McNamara, and recently signed up JJ McCarthy, whose five-star status makes him the highest-ranking recruit under Harbaugh. But while Milton makes a decision for himself (and I don’t think anyone blames him for that), the change once again increases Harbaugh’s inability to recruit, promote and develop high school quarterbacks at the college level.
Will McNamara or McCarthy end up being the defender who will help bring Michigan to the top? Right. It only takes one player, a competent technical team and the right pieces around you to do that. Harbaugh seems intent on making that happen – he made changes to his coaching staff this winter, including the decision to take over as a coach for defenders.
Will it work? It is too early to know. But a big reason for Harbaugh’s struggles in Michigan – while he’s 49-22 in six seasons, but without a trip to the Big Ten championship or a College Football Playoff spot – was once again brought to light this week.
Now he must do everything he can to change that narrative.
Read more about football in Michigan:
Mike Macdonald: Michigan’s defense ‘will be multiple, go after the people’
UM youth recipients made progress (and started working) in 2020
Another NFL mock draft features two Michigan players in the first round
Michigan linebacker Adam Shibley enters the transfer portal
Tight ends, marked by falls, have new leader, coach