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We’ve all been in relationships that have gone bad before despite our best intentions to make it work.
The courtship is the most exciting part, followed by the honeymoon phase where your partner apparently can’t hurt. But the real test of any relationship is what happens when adversity strikes and there are some things you may need to put some serious effort into to unravel its foundations.
Jim Harbaugh, a hire that was a match made in heaven for him and the Michigan Wolverines, has been tested more than anyone realized in nearly six seasons at the helm of the football program. There are several well-documented chapters in its history that have kept the Wolverines from taking that next step as a program, but that has now regressed into something accelerating towards its expiration date.
Despite expectations that this should be a football team competing for the Big Ten and the Nationals, there are plenty of Michigan fans and people following the program who could stay on board with staff. who won 9-10 games a year with a chance. to pierce from time to time. Something that Harbaugh supporters have always been able to put off was the idea that no matter how many overwhelming rivalry games and underdog losses Michigan endured, they were doing business in the games in which he was preferred.
Once that stops happening you really have to ask yourself what are you doing here.
It’s not just that Michigan has 2-4. It’s that from top to bottom – from the support staff to the Boy Scouts – this operation has no idea what it is or what it wants to be. Body language is terrible. According to the Michigan Daily, Harbaugh apparently had to ask his team on the bench to cheer up when wide receiver AJ Henning made one of the only highlights of the day for the Wolverines in the 27-17 loss to Penn State. .
Even prominent elders are voicing their opinions.
This team is just over two years away from entering Columbus at 10-1 and is favored to win and advance to the Big Ten Championship. We know how this one ended, and it may be a game that the diet never fully recovers, as they are 11-10 in their last 21 games.
Any fastball in this program is gone. If touchdown behavior is any indication, it doesn’t come back with that coaching staff in place.
It has been such a crazy year for everyone, not just college sports. We knew the potential was there for the Big Ten to be overthrown this season. No one expected Penn State to be winless for five weeks, just like no one expected Michigan to struggle with people like Michigan State and Rutgers. But Saturday’s game proved which program between Michigan and Penn State is currently having a bad season and has real issues to deal with.
The Nittany Lions aren’t good, but they were flying around the field and playing with a goal. They were excited when things went as planned. They are not particularly well trained, but their guy took them to Indianapolis and also had his team play competitive games this year. PSU certainly kept it closer to the state of Ohio than Michigan likely will.
Harbaugh’s schedule is simply nearing the end of something that has been bubbling and purifying for a few seasons now.
I will never question Harbaugh’s desire to coach a winner and do it to his alma mater. He was candid about it. He is (mostly) self-aware and despite what he says, almost everyone knows the program is a mess. To his credit, he’s pulled a lot of strings to bring Michigan back to where it should be, including changes in coaching staff and getting involved in the transfer quarterback carousel, but they’re just not there.
Harbaugh is a loyal guy and wants to do good by people who are loyal to him, maybe for some fault. This is what makes it such a hard pill to swallow with its offensive and defensive coordinators.
Neither Josh Gattis nor Don Brown are sticking to their end of the bargain. Brown in particular was someone who should have been in the hot seat after 2019, and some will argue sooner. On offense, Harbaugh handed over the keys to someone who has never had experience playing games, and despite the ‘Speed in Space’ mantra, they have no identity. At least you knew what Harbaugh, Jedd Fisch, Tim Drevno, and Pep Hamilton were trying to be.
Harbaugh left almost nothing behind in his quest to bring Michigan back to national prominence. For a while there, he had restored them to respectability. We’re now back where we started with a few weeks to go and an even darker outlook for the 2021 season.
Harbaugh is a good man, and when all is well he is a competent football coach. Things aren’t going well here, however. He’s at the top of the pyramid in a team that doesn’t seem to care anymore and a coaching staff who teaches the wrong things or no longer reaches his players. Even its most staunch supporters have started to turn around, and level-headed optimists – myself included, while level-headed is questionable – believe it is time for a change.
As this season approached, Harbaugh was the only Power Five head coach in the country without more than two years on contract. Pandemic or not, this is not normal for anyone, and entering 2021 this season without a new deal would be a disaster. Michigan must either close the deal or move on. After six years without a Big Ten Championships, without a win over Ohio State or as an Underdog, and many other failures, they should choose to move on.
Whether Harbaugh stays, extended or not, it’s hard to think of any tried or burgeoning assistants who would tie their wagons to him. Just qualifying the staff and hoping what Notre Dame has become in four seasons since her 4-8 campaign doesn’t apply to this situation. If you are planning on giving it a seventh grade, you are probably doing so in the hopes that it will go further. How long can both sides really wait to see if this can click?
Whether it’s a mutual separation of paths, a “retirement”, or just stepping away and returning to the NFL, Michigan and Harbaugh should explore this. It doesn’t have to be ugly or with burnt bridges. This arrangement has not worked and is deteriorating rapidly. It doesn’t matter what sports director of public relations Warde Manuel and Michigan want to put on is up to them to decide, but it makes more sense than ever to break it even if there was a contract extension waiting for ‘to be signed in February.
A search for coaches would pose real challenges, especially given the financial impact of the pandemic and the potential for COVID-19 to wipe out another year of spring football. And there’s no guarantee that an arriving coach can help Michigan win their first Big Ten title in nearly two decades or kill the beast in the south, but fear of the unknown is not. a reason to sit on your hands. It may not be elite work anymore, but it is certainly desirable work that will mainly give you what you need to at least put in an effort to wrestle every now and then. Heck, Michigan has repeatedly pushed with the guy he still has.
Manuel had some good rookies in Michigan – namely Mel Pearson with hockey and Juwan Howard with men’s basketball. I am not questioning his search for a coach and respecting a criterion, but he must take the first step.
The hardest thing to do is leave a person and / or a place that you love very much, especially then when it’s one of your own. But when the writing is on the wall, it’s time to step aside and do what’s best for your future.
Harbaugh is no longer the future of this program and the sooner Michigan realizes this, the sooner they can move on and try again to find someone who can.
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