Jim Harbaugh is getting another chance, and so is Michigan football
As recently as one month ago, Jim Harbaugh was not my ideal candidate for the head coaching job at the University of Michigan. As a lifelong Michigan fan, the abject fear of Harbaugh’s abrasive personality weighed on my opinion of his potential homecoming, and with the recent feeling that the former Wolverine quarterback could not remain in any location for more than a handful of seasons, my eyes were focused on a more “long term” candidate.
Then, things started happening.
Brady Hoke was officially out of a job, and despite my highest level of respect for him as a man, this was the right move. At the same time, Jim Harbaugh was presiding over a full-blown collapse with the San Francisco 49ers, to the point where a team that had long been penciled in for a playoff appearance missed out on January football entirely. Whispers of Michigan’s interest in names like Les Miles and even Greg Schiano were simply that, whispers, and while the entire NFL universe discredited the idea that Harbaugh would look toward Ann Arbor for his next employment opportunity, a small band of Ann Arbor’s finest began to seriously float that this was in play.
Jim Harbaugh was available.
From that point, the fan base was in, and I began to come around. Jim Harbaugh was easily, at least in my mind, the best football coach available with any real chance to take the Michigan job, and absent the “perfect” candidate elsewhere, that mattered a great deal. This time around, being a “Michigan man” did not exactly interest a large part of the fan base (myself included), but in Harbaugh’s case, he brought that pedigree without the white noise associated with a title that has lost all kinds of luster in recent seasons.
The 49ers kept losing, Michigan kept waiting, and the buzz kept growing. In the aftermath of a bad loss to San Diego Chargers on national television, the final nail in the Harbaugh-49ers coffin was driven home, and hope actually manifested itself. Did I think he was coming? Honestly, no, but that likely had more to do with my natural pessimism than anything else. That aforementioned pool of Ann Arbor-based writers, headlined by the likes of MGoBlog’s Brian Cook and Scout’s Sam Webb, were the embodiment of optimism, and in the case of Brian especially, that isn’t exactly the status quo.
By the team word began to leak that the Jim Harbaugh deal was happening, the fan base was at a fever pitch, and the hype was very real. It suddenly seemed like a simply formality for the San Francisco 49ers, who were paying Harbaugh $5 million per season, to finish their season as a right of passage for his exit and subsequent trip to Ann Arbor. The dominoes fell perfectly, and in short order, there was an official release about a press conference, and word of Harbaugh’s trip through the airport highlighted by the sporting of a “block M” on his hat.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014. That was the day.
Somehow, someway, the Michigan Wolverines stole the national spotlight in late December without the benefit of a record even worthy of a bowl appearance. Immediately, Jim Harbaugh was given the blessing of writers, both local and national, as one of the best coaches in college football, and the theoretical rivalry between Harbaugh and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer was born.
It had been nearly three years since the Wolverines triumphed over Virginia Tech in the 2012 Sugar Bowl, and that was the last time that optimism ruled the day in Ann Arbor, as Brady Hoke exited the field with an 11-win season and the hope of half of the state. Jim Harbaugh brings hope, and he brings renewal.
The odd reality that Michigan football does not matter to a significant portion of young America is jarring. Being that I’m not terribly old myself, it seems that much more foreign that the program could be an also-ran, but with recruits fleeing as the aforementioned Hoke flailed his way through 2013, there was a growing sense that this is what Michigan had become and would stay. Quite obviously, that was unacceptable to the diehards, young and old, and the unlikely partnership of interim AD Jim Hackett and Jim Harbaugh fixed that in a hurry.
There is a 1,000-word opus to be written about Jim Hackett and what should be the immediate removal of his interim tag, but we’ll save that for now. Just know his swift movement to lock down Harbaugh is already the stuff of legend in Ann Arbor, and provided that his new head coach does what many expect him to do, Hackett will never buy a drink in a local establishment again.
Jim Harbaugh feels big. That is the best way to describe it. He was one play from a Super Bowl win in San Francisco, he transformed Stanford from a football disaster to the edge of becoming a football factory, and prior to that, he somehow launched a full-fledged program at the University of San Diego. For good measure, the fan base and the writing electorate caught yet another break on Tuesday, as Michigan and Harbaugh announced that the $8 million figure rumored to be coming was fictitious, and that the head coach will be making in the neighborhood of $5 million per season. No “highest paid coach”. Nothing of the sort.
For a good, old-fashioned pessimist, this one feels good to be true, but there is also an inherent problem searching for the reason to be negative. Jim Harbaugh could do what Jim Harbaugh has always done, resurrecting the team that he coaches before flaming out and leaving in 4-5 years, but with that as the worst-case scenario, the four-year run would be much greater than anything seen since Lloyd Carr hung up his headset. Then, there are quotes like this:
"“Throughout my life I have dreamed of coaching at the University of Michigan. Now I have the honor to live it.”"
Skepticism runs rampant in this line of work, and quotes like this are a dime-a-dozen in some circles. Still, Jim Harbaugh isn’t exactly a quote machine, and that makes this one genuinely believable. He wanted this job, he wanted this challenge, and the fact that he is a graduate of the University of Michigan matters a great deal here. Jim Harbaugh spurned the NFL for this, and he did so willingly. That simple fact seems to drive both the hope and excitement that sports can often bring.
Michigan is back and Jim Harbaugh is at the helm. There is hope in Ann Arbor, and in the midst of bowl season, there is no greater story line in college football.
Next: Where does Michigan fall among the greatest college programs ever?
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