Bo Schembechler: Overrated

[FirstTimer]

http://www.onefootdown.com/2012/7/2...-solid-teams-bo-schmebechler-nearly#storyjump

The words have echoed for the past quarter century:

"If you think my career has been a failure because I have never won a national title, you have another thing coming. I have never played a game for the national title. Our goals always have been to win the Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl. If we do that, then we consider it a successful season."

So said Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler shortly before retiring following the 1989 season. Success without a national title at the country's all-time winningest program though?

Replace the Rose Bowl with the Sugar, the Big Ten with the SEC, and could you believe such a statement from Nick Saban if he coached at Alabama for two decades and didn't win a national title?

For years Notre Dame fans have poked fun at Schembechler and the regional Michigan attitude of not caring about national titles. So when Schembechler was put on the ballot for inclusion into the SBNation Hall of Fame, well it was once again time to rediscover that sugar coated record of his.



First let's just admit that Bo was in fact a very good coach---I'm not here to outright bash everything he achieved while at Michigan. He did win 194 games over 21 seasons in Ann Arbor, 5 outright Big Ten titles, and shared 8 more league titles. His .795 winning percentage at Michigan puts him in the upper-tier historically of college football coaches, and this was the third best percentage nationally for a program throughout his time in Ann Arbor, behind only Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Schembechler is also beloved for earning a winning record over hated rival Ohio State (11-9-1) and for resurrecting the Michigan football program that had gone just 51-42-2 in the decade prior to his arrival.

These are all commendable accomplishments in major college football.

Yet, what exactly are the ingredients in that shiny .795 winning percentage and at least a shared Big Ten title in 60% of Schembechler's seasons at Michigan?

The first chink in the armor is the weakness of the Big Ten during this era. There was a reason the conference used to be called "The Big Two and Little Eight."

Big Ten Winning Percentages 1969-89
NATIONAL RANK TEAM WINNING %
3 Michigan .795
6 Ohio State .758
59 Michigan State .519
69 Iowa .479
72 Purdue .474
79 Illinois .448
82 Minnesota .441
88 Wisconsin .420
98 Indiana .384
112 Northwestern .220

I'm sure there will people who will say "The league was so competitive and everyone just beat each other up!" or "College football was smaller back then so even the mediocre teams were quite strong!" but the fact is the Big Ten was close to awful during Schembechler's era. There is some truth to college football being more well-rounded and competitive on the whole back then, but this was still an especially putrid era for most Big Ten teams, and on in which the top two teams horded the majority of the talent.

Take a look at the past 20 years within the league:

Big Ten Winning Percentages 1992-2011
NATIONAL RANK TEAM WINNING %
2 Ohio State .774
9 Michigan .703
15 Wisconsin .690
16 Penn State .688
38 Iowa .571
54 Michigan State .528
64 Purdue .504
73 Northwestern .472
91 Minnesota .420
93 Illinois .408
102 Indiana .347

Even when you factor in the watered down version of today's college football (more teams, more competition with I-AA teams, etc.) this is still pretty enlightening evidence.

70% of the Big Ten couldn't even be bothered to win half their games during Schembechler's era.

Over the past two seasons Michigan has played just 7 teams who finished the season at .500 or worse, complete with a solid .571 winning percentage for their opponents. Notre Dame played 9 such teams but with a tougher opponent winning percentage of .601. The point is that anywhere from a quarter to a third of games played today are against .500 or worse teams with occasional spikes over 40%.

Schembechler played 131 such games, good for an even 53% of his total matchups at Michigan.

Even with a shorter regular season than today, Bo's Michigan teams didn't face a schedule with less than 6 teams at .500 or below until 1981---13 years into his career in Ann Arbor.

14 out of his 21 seasons on every schedule he faced had at least 6 teams at .500 or below.

The 1970's schedules in particular---where Schembechler had the highest winning percentage of any coach in the nation---were super soft.

In fact, Bo didn't face a regular season schedule where his opponents won at least half their games until the previously mentioned 1981season when they were dead even at 62-62.

13 of his total 21 seasons saw him face schedules where the opponents winning percentage was below .500.

Especially appalling was the 1971 schedule which saw Michigan run the table during the regular season, but the Wolverines faced just 3 winning teams (7-4 Northwestern, 6-5 Michigan State, and 6-4 Ohio State) with an opponents winning percentage of .368. Even after the (predictable) Rose Bowl loss to 9-3 Stanford, the 1971 opponents winning percentage rose to just .403 percent---truly awful.

So now we've established that Schembechler played very easy schedules, in a conference with one peer and typically just one more decent opponent to take care of each season. There's not a whole lot a coach can do when the competition is weak (we'll have more on this next week in regards to Ara Parseghian's Notre Dame teams) but every program faces inevitable challenges against the cream of the crop from time to time. Surely such a winning coach as Bo Schembechler won his fair share of big games when they arose, right?

No, not really.

Bo's biggest win---and some say Michigan's biggest win in school history---came during his first season in 1969 when the Wolverines hosted undefeated and defending national champion Ohio State who were riding a 22-game winning streak. That day, Michigan upset Ohio State 24-12 and Schembechler is credited with this program changing victory initiating the Wolverines dominance back on the Big Ten and national stage once again.

However, in what would become a running theme throughout his career, Schembechler's Wolverines would go on to lose the Rose Bowl to Southern Cal---a team Notre Dame tied that year by the way.

The more interesting part is that after the 1969 win over Ohio State, Bo never won a game for the rest of his career against a team that finished the season with 1 loss. Most people could forgive playing a weak schedule if you took care of business when you played the country's elite, but Schembechler went 0-16-1 at Michigan after that defeat of OSU in his first year.

What's more, he was just 5-10 against teams who ended the season with 2 losses.

21 years.

247 total games.

6 wins over teams with 1 or 2 losses.

You'd be hard pressed to find a coach in any sport across any generation who won at such a high level but almost never won big games. Schembechler is like the poor man's version of Jerry Sloan in the college football world.

It makes you wonder how the legacy of Schembechler would be altered if Michigan played Notre Dame in the early part of his career in Ann Arbor. He ended up just 4-6 against the Irish---winning the first game in '78 of the resumed series---but that was the only time he beat a Notre Dame team with a winning record.

If he was just 1-6 versus Notre Dame teams with a winning record, is it too bold to say that the Irish likely go at least 7-2 if they played Michigan from 1969 to 1977?

Moreover, Schembechler was a dreadful 5-12 in bowl games, including just 2 Rose Bowl victories (out of 10 appearances, losing his first 5) and 3 major bowl wins overall in a 21-year career at Michigan. Those major bowl wins came against 9-3 Washington in 1980, 9-3 Nebraska in 1985, and 10-2 USC in 1988.

In each Rose Bowl victory season, Michigan lost to Notre Dame. In fact, their win over the Trojans in the '88 Rose Bowl was done a month earlier by the Irish in Los Angeles by twice as many points.

Is Schembechler a Hall of Fame coach? Perhaps, but this piece puts the famous "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions" into some proper context. It should be, "Those Who Stay Will Sometimes Beat Ohio State."

 

[Senser81]

The Big10 was terrible in the 1970's. I think Iowa in the early 80's was the first decent team other than OSU and Michigan, and I think Illinois in 1983 became the first non-OSU/Michigan team to win the Big10 in like 15 years prior.

One reason for Ohio State and Michigan looking dominant all year and then losing in the Rose Bowl, many times to inferior teams, was that both Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler would have their players scrimmage basically every day between the last regular season game and the Bowl game. So come game time, the teams were so gassed they couldn't play well.

 

[JeremyHight]

It was a different era. At this time, people were happy just to win their conference. Winning a bowl was gravy, but not always needed. This isn't today's culture where people expect to win every game and anything less could be grounds for firing. Also, with bowl bids being extremely limited in the Big Ten, especially considering the fact that until 1972, no team was allowed to go to the Rose Bowl in consecutive years, even if they won their conference (1961 and 1962 being exceptions).

This is like saying "Gee, we consider x% of unemployment good now, so Abraham Lincoln was really a bad president." Different times, different expectations. Considering Michigan was about a .500 team for a decade before Bo, I don't think anyone minded him coming in and going 10-1 a lot of seasons.

 

[Cornelius]

Jaded Notre Dame fan is jaded.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

 

[packersfan4eva]

Also, there was no National Championship game back then, so winning the conference and the Rose Bowl was considered successful, and then you could argue all you wanted about being the champion. Now, unless you win the BCS title game, no one considers you a champion.

 

[Maynard]

i enjoyed that article. anytime you can bash mishigan i am all for it. Despite it being heavily jaded by a ND fan, the writer could have just posted facts and you would still have the same result....Mishigan and the Big 10 were weak and Bo is probably not a HOF coach.

winning the Big 10 mattered to teams in the big 10...but as the writer points out, the Big 10 was soft...and not much has changed btw

but the most telling stat to me is
21 years. 247 total games. 6 wins over teams with 1 or 2 losses. Thats 6-26-1 against teams with 1 or 2 losses.....thats pathetic

Plus those gravy bowl wins....he was 5-12 in bowl games with just 2 rose bowl wins. If your goal is to win the big 10 and the rose bowl, he certainly didnt do a very good job of bowl part.

 

[Cornelius]

I'm with Maynard. I hate Michigan, but you can't deny Bo brought that school from Indiana football status to a powerhouse with national respect. Bump Elliott had that program in tatters.

As for him being overrated, there is this:

Only Joe Paterno and Tom Osborne have recorded 200 victories in fewer games as a coach in major college football.

Also, it's too bad Kim Dunbar went to ND and not Michigan. :troll:

 

[Sportsbuck]

I'm with Maynard. I hate Michigan, but you can't deny Bo brought that school from Indiana football status to a powerhouse with national respect. Bump Elliott had that program in tatters.

I'm not sure I agree with that comparison, I think a more apt one would be that he took over a stagnant Michigan program similar to current day Notre Dame, and brought them back to prominence.

Also, upon doing a little research, was surprised to find out that Michigan came into the 1968 game (Elliot's last as coach, the 50-14 game where Rex Kern went for 2) ranked #4 in the nation and sitting at 8-1 with a Rose Bowl berth on the line (and possible NC hopes). Far cry from the way things are portrayed... granted the 3 years prior were extremely sub-par (4-6, 6-4, 4-6, but with a 9-1 Rose Bowl season prior to that).

 

[packersfan4eva]

Bo brought that school from Indiana football status

 

[spiker]

FT, even I have to let you have it here. The title of this thread is misleading. This article comes from an ND blog and you retitled the article yourself. I was expecting to read something about why Schembechler was overrated but instead I got these forced comparisons to ND football and I was like "WTF is this?".

Over the past two seasons Michigan has played just 7 teams who finished the season at .500 or worse, complete with a solid .571 winning percentage for their opponents. Notre Dame played 9 such teams but with a tougher opponent winning percentage of .601. The point is that anywhere from a quarter to a third of games played today are against .500 or worse teams with occasional spikes over 40%.

However, in what would become a running theme throughout his career, Schembechler's Wolverines would go on to lose the Rose Bowl to Southern Cal---a team Notre Dame tied that year by the way.

It makes you wonder how the legacy of Schembechler would be altered if Michigan played Notre Dame in the early part of his career in Ann Arbor. He ended up just 4-6 against the Irish---winning the first game in '78 of the resumed series---but that was the only time he beat a Notre Dame team with a winning record.

If he was just 1-6 versus Notre Dame teams with a winning record, is it too bold to say that the Irish likely go at least 7-2 if they played Michigan from 1969 to 1977?

Moreover, Schembechler was a dreadful 5-12 in bowl games, including just 2 Rose Bowl victories (out of 10 appearances, losing his first 5) and 3 major bowl wins overall in a 21-year career at Michigan. Those major bowl wins came against 9-3 Washington in 1980, 9-3 Nebraska in 1985, and 10-2 USC in 1988.

In each Rose Bowl victory season, Michigan lost to Notre Dame. In fact, their win over the Trojans in the '88 Rose Bowl was done a month earlier by the Irish in Los Angeles by twice as many points.

How does this explain to me that Schembechler was overrated? All this says is that ND was better than Michigan at certain points in time. It's nice to get one over on Michigan but you're coming off as butthurt by retitling this article.

 

[FirstTimer]

FT, even I have to let you have it here.

Yawn.

The entire tenor of the story is that Schembechler may not be a HOF coach, even though he is going to be. If someone is named a HOF'er..yet others may feel he isn't..doesn't that mean he would be "overrated"?

The over arching idea behind the article is that Bo may not have been as good as his record showed....hence overrated.

The title of this thread is misleading.

No it's not.

This article comes from an ND blog and you retitled the article yourself.

NO WAY REALLY?!?!?!?!

How does this explain to me that Schembechler was overrated?

Are you unable to read?

All this says is that ND was better than Michigan at certain points in time.

What article did you read?

but you're coming off as butthurt by retitling this article.

:lol:

Wut?!?

 

[spiker]

A thread titled "Bo Schembechler: Overrated" needs no direct comparisons to Notre Dame football to explain why he was overrated. Period.

 

[FirstTimer]

A thread titled "Bo Schembechler: Overrated" needs no direct comparisons to Notre Dame football to explain why he was overrated. Period.

I didn't write the article.

Take up your issue with the author.

The tone/idea behind the article is clearly stated like 4 sentences in. He meanders into ND territory..*gasp*..what a shock..but the overall tone remains. A baby could understand this.

 

[spiker]

Once again, a thread titled "Bo Schembechler: Overrated" needs no direct comparisons to Notre Dame football. None. It should not compare ND's and Michigan's records vs USC during the same time period. It should not hypothesize what ND's record would have been had Michigan played them in years that they didn't. The thread should be titled "Notre Dame was better than Michigan when coached by Schembechler: A butthurt ND blogger's analysis". Call it what it is.

 

[FirstTimer]

Once again, a thread titled "Bo Schembechler: Overrated" needs no direct comparisons to Notre Dame football. None.

And again.

I didn't write the article.

Have an issue?

Go to OneFootDown.com and bitch out the author over there.

You critiquing the writers style or content tome serves no purpose. I thought the overarching issue was interesting so I posted it. I didn't think it was some Pullitzer Prize winning article. Is the comparison to Notre Dame in there needed? No. But even if you take out the Notre Dame mentions the point of the article is painfully obvious. You're so concentrated on 4-5 short mentions of Notre Dame in a long winded blog article. It's astounding.

You bitching to/at me about the writers inclusion of Notre Dame factoids/off shoots in the article serves no real purpose and is pretty stupid.

The thread should be titled "Notre Dame was better than Michigan when coached by Schembechler: A butthurt ND blogger's analysis". Call it what it is

The fact that you think the article amounts to that pretty much confirms that you have zero reading comprehension.

 

[FirstTimer]

Here is the article devoid of anything having to do with Notre Dame:

The words have echoed for the past quarter century:

"If you think my career has been a failure because I have never won a national title, you have another thing coming. I have never played a game for the national title. Our goals always have been to win the Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl. If we do that, then we consider it a successful season."
So said Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler shortly before retiring following the 1989 season. Success without a national title at the country's all-time winningest program though?

Replace the Rose Bowl with the Sugar, the Big Ten with the SEC, and could you believe such a statement from Nick Saban if he coached at Alabama for two decades and didn't win a national title?

So when Schembechler was put on the ballot for inclusion into the SBNation Hall of Fame, well it was once again time to rediscover that sugar coated record of his.



First let's just admit that Bo was in fact a very good coach---I'm not here to outright bash everything he achieved while at Michigan. He did win 194 games over 21 seasons in Ann Arbor, 5 outright Big Ten titles, and shared 8 more league titles. His .795 winning percentage at Michigan puts him in the upper-tier historically of college football coaches, and this was the third best percentage nationally for a program throughout his time in Ann Arbor, behind only Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Schembechler is also beloved for earning a winning record over hated rival Ohio State (11-9-1) and for resurrecting the Michigan football program that had gone just 51-42-2 in the decade prior to his arrival.

These are all commendable accomplishments in major college football.

Yet, what exactly are the ingredients in that shiny .795 winning percentage and at least a shared Big Ten title in 60% of Schembechler's seasons at Michigan?

The first chink in the armor is the weakness of the Big Ten during this era. There was a reason the conference used to be called "The Big Two and Little Eight."

Big Ten Winning Percentages 1969-89
NATIONAL RANK TEAM WINNING %
3 Michigan .795
6 Ohio State .758
59 Michigan State .519
69 Iowa .479
72 Purdue .474
79 Illinois .448
82 Minnesota .441
88 Wisconsin .420
98 Indiana .384
112 Northwestern .220

I'm sure there will people who will say "The league was so competitive and everyone just beat each other up!" or "College football was smaller back then so even the mediocre teams were quite strong!" but the fact is the Big Ten was close to awful during Schembechler's era. There is some truth to college football being more well-rounded and competitive on the whole back then, but this was still an especially putrid era for most Big Ten teams, and on in which the top two teams horded the majority of the talent.

Take a look at the past 20 years within the league:

Big Ten Winning Percentages 1992-2011
NATIONAL RANK TEAM WINNING %
2 Ohio State .774
9 Michigan .703
15 Wisconsin .690
16 Penn State .688
38 Iowa .571
54 Michigan State .528
64 Purdue .504
73 Northwestern .472
91 Minnesota .420
93 Illinois .408
102 Indiana .347

Even when you factor in the watered down version of today's college football (more teams, more competition with I-AA teams, etc.) this is still pretty enlightening evidence.

70% of the Big Ten couldn't even be bothered to win half their games during Schembechler's era.

The point is that anywhere from a quarter to a third of games played today are against .500 or worse teams with occasional spikes over 40%.

Schembechler played 131 such games, good for an even 53% of his total matchups at Michigan.

Even with a shorter regular season than today, Bo's Michigan teams didn't face a schedule with less than 6 teams at .500 or below until 1981---13 years into his career in Ann Arbor.

14 out of his 21 seasons on every schedule he faced had at least 6 teams at .500 or below.

The 1970's schedules in particular---where Schembechler had the highest winning percentage of any coach in the nation---were super soft.

In fact, Bo didn't face a regular season schedule where his opponents won at least half their games until the previously mentioned 1981season when they were dead even at 62-62.

13 of his total 21 seasons saw him face schedules where the opponents winning percentage was below .500.

Especially appalling was the 1971 schedule which saw Michigan run the table during the regular season, but the Wolverines faced just 3 winning teams (7-4 Northwestern, 6-5 Michigan State, and 6-4 Ohio State) with an opponents winning percentage of .368. Even after the (predictable) Rose Bowl loss to 9-3 Stanford, the 1971 opponents winning percentage rose to just .403 percent---truly awful.

So now we've established that Schembechler played very easy schedules, in a conference with one peer and typically just one more decent opponent to take care of each season. There's not a whole lot a coach can do when the competition is weak but every program faces inevitable challenges against the cream of the crop from time to time. Surely such a winning coach as Bo Schembechler won his fair share of big games when they arose, right?

No, not really.

Bo's biggest win---and some say Michigan's biggest win in school history---came during his first season in 1969 when the Wolverines hosted undefeated and defending national champion Ohio State who were riding a 22-game winning streak. That day, Michigan upset Ohio State 24-12 and Schembechler is credited with this program changing victory initiating the Wolverines dominance back on the Big Ten and national stage once again.

However, in what would become a running theme throughout his career, Schembechler's Wolverines would go on to lose the Rose Bowl to Southern Cal.

The more interesting part is that after the 1969 win over Ohio State, Bo never won a game for the rest of his career against a team that finished the season with 1 loss. Most people could forgive playing a weak schedule if you took care of business when you played the country's elite, but Schembechler went 0-16-1 at Michigan after that defeat of OSU in his first year.

What's more, he was just 5-10 against teams who ended the season with 2 losses.

21 years.

247 total games.

6 wins over teams with 1 or 2 losses.

You'd be hard pressed to find a coach in any sport across any generation who won at such a high level but almost never won big games. Schembechler is like the poor man's version of Jerry Sloan in the college football world.

He ended up just 4-6 against the Irish(take this out of you want...perhaps the only relevant ND mention in the article. Losing record against one of the teams top rivals)...even then likely not needed but this one is at least a little debatable for relevance to the overall point.)



Moreover, Schembechler was a dreadful 5-12 in bowl games, including just 2 Rose Bowl victories (out of 10 appearances, losing his first 5) and 3 major bowl wins overall in a 21-year career at Michigan. Those major bowl wins came against 9-3 Washington in 1980, 9-3 Nebraska in 1985, and 10-2 USC in 1988.


Is Schembechler a Hall of Fame coach? Perhaps, but this piece puts the famous "Those Who Stay Will Be Champions" into some proper context. It should be, "Those Who Stay Will Sometimes Beat Ohio State."

..........

Clear what the point of the article is now?

Jesus.

 

[spiker]

I know what the article says and I have no problem with how he frames it. Listen up you retard.... I'm criticizing YOU for titling the thread in a misleading way. YOU. YOU. YOU. You come off as butthurt when you give a title that implies Bo Schembechler is overrated but the article goes on to be a thinly veiled ND-Mich comparison piece. You keep ignoring that even though I've been saying as much since my first post.

 

[Hasselbeck]

I think what the article is trying to say... is Notre Dame sucks.

:smug:

 

[Len B]

I think we can all agree that Antoine Walker > Bo Schembechler

:smugruss: