The problem at Michigan
Many Browns fans are also Ohio State football fans, which means most of you reading this follow the Buckeyes as well.
So, then, you’ll appreciate today’s piece.
In my previous piece, I pushed hard — campaigned hard — for the Browns, following JoJo Natson’s season-ending knee injury, to give his job as a third/fourth wide receiver and punt and kickoff returner to rookie Donovan People-Jones. Whether they do that or not remains to be seen as I write this, but I expect them to do so.
Anyway, Peoples-Jones is a player I really like. I was thrilled when the Browns took him in the sixth round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He is the poster child of the difference — wide, wide gap — that exists now in the rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan. Former Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer went all out in his recruitment of Jones, who played at Detroit’s talent-rich Cass Tech High School. He could see the immense ability of Peoples-Jones — everyone could see it, really; he was a definite difference-maker — and knew he’d be a great fit at Ohio State. But he ended up staying in-state at Michigan. That’s the last Meyer wanted, to have to face Peoples-Jones for three or four years.
But the thing that saved Meyer, and then his successor, Ryan Day, and, for that matter, the rest of the Big Ten, was that People-Jones was coached by Jim Harbaugh. That was a guarantee that he would never reach his full potential, or anything even remotely close to it. Peoples-Jones played well but certainly not great at Michigan, only occasionally flashing the brilliance for which he was known at Cass Tech.
With Meyer/Day and the Buckeyes, or any number of other Big Ten teams, especially Penn State, Peoples-Jones would have been coached up to the point that he would have played well enough to be a first- or second-round draft pick. That he didn’t go until the sixth round after an average career at Michigan is an indictment of Harbaugh and his coaching, or, as it were, a lack thereof.
The coaches at, and fans of, Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten schools hope Harbaugh stays because he recruits great talent but can’t develop it, which means Michigan will never be what it could be, or should be, but will be good enough that the powers to be at the school will be reluctant to fire him given how hard they went after him, and how much they’re paying him. It would be admitting the obvious, that the school made a huge mistake and is reluctant to admit it. Pride and stubbornness are terrible things.
Going forward, I am anxious to see if Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski and his assistants can rebuild Peoples-Jones into what he was in high school. The team surely needs it with Natson no longer available.
The problem at Michigan was written by Steve King
