Jim Harbaugh is off to the NFL after an indelible nine-year run at Michigan. There were highs, lows, controversies and lots of khaki pants.
Legacy.
These days, that word feels like it carries a different meaning when it comes to the lexicon of college football. OK, during these strangest of college football times, every word feels like it carries an altered definition from the one it was assigned oh so many years ago. Like, I dunno, 2019?
As Jim Harbaugh departs the college game for the NFL Cinematic Universe, completing his trilogy of transitions from campus to the big leagues — Michigan to the Chicago Bears as a QB in 1987, Stanford to the San Francisco 49ers as a head coach in 2011 and now Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers, also as head coach — we find ourselves tasked with characterizing the legacy of a decidedly different sort of college football character.
Earlier this month, that was an easy task when it came to Nick Saban (the GOAT!) and even Jerry Kill (the scrappy program reviver!). But when it comes to the Michigan Man who just left Michigan, it’s not that simple. Nothing about Jim Harbaugh ever is.
He is as befuddling as he is beloved. Misunderstood by at least as many people as he is revered. If the college football world were a Facebook page, we would all — Wolverines and otherwise — have to click on the relationship status line that reads, “It’s complicated.”
I’m willing to wager that most people reading these words right now might think his tenure in Ann Arbor was a relatively short one. But it was not. He spent nine full seasons on the sidelines of The Big House. That is three times longer than his first head-coaching stint at San Diego and more than twice as long as his four year terms on The Farm and up the road with the Niners.
Those same people might believe he struggled mightily during the first half of his near-decade at Michigan. Again, he did not. His teams posted three 10-3 records and averaged more than nine wins per year over his first five seasons, earning five straight New Year’s bowl berths.
That perception of failure comes from that handful of games in which he did struggle, the 18 losses that countered those 48 wins, most of which came in the only games anyone dressed in blue truly cares about, a pile of defeats against Michigan State and Ohio State and a 1-4 record in those postseason games through 2019. His 2020 pandemic season brought an abysmal and abbreviated 2-4 mark.
But the three years since represent what might very well be the greatest multiple-season run in the Wolverines’ 145-year history, a record of 40-3 with three straight wins over Ohio State, three consecutive Big Ten championships, three College Football Playoff appearances in a row and, this year, and the program’s first unanimous national title since 1948.
