Jim Harbaugh in the 1987 Rose Bowl: a game Michigan lost 22-15 to the Arizona State Sun Devils.
(Courtesy of www.nydailynews.com)
This week Jim Harbaugh was hired as the University of Michigan Wolverines head coach. His contract is a seven year deal worth five million dollars per year; about the same salary he had coaching the San Francisco 49ers. (See link for the announcement: Click Here.)
Jim Harbaugh returns to his alma mater where he played from 1983 to 1986, and where he started as QB his junior and senior year. Harbaugh went on to play in the NFL from 1987 to 2001. He started coaching quarterbacks in 2002 for the Oakland Raiders, which led to a full time coaching job at San Diego and then later Stanford. Most recently he coached the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 to 2014. At San Diego he went 29-6, and at Stanford he went 29-21, but his last season at Stanford he went 12-1, having turned around a dismal program. At San Francisco his teams went 49-22-1.
He is clearly qualified and has led turnarounds before - Stanford and the Forty Niners, but can he turn Michigan around? How long will it take? Exactly what is success at Michigan?
Michigan has the most all time victories in the FBS, as well as a plethora of national championships. (
Click here for more). However, they really haven’t been great in over 80 years; most of their national championship success dates to before 1933. Can they be relevant in the Big Ten and challenge for championships under Harbaugh? Most certainly, especially given how weak the Big Ten is. U of M has the resources, facilities, and now a big time coach to do so.
How long will it take? We have to assume the program is a shell of its former self; the athletes just aren’t there, so at least three years before they can challenge Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin, not to mention Nebraska and a recovering Penn State.
We believe that in the 2018 season Michigan will be back at the level that Bo Schembechler and Lloyd Carr had them at. They will challenge for the Big Ten Championship, occasionally winning the big game.
Can they win a National Championship under Harbaugh? Probably not; there is too much competition at the collegiate level and not enough to offer at Michigan from a football perspective. They will not be long time laggards like Notre Dame, but they will also not reach Alabama or Florida State excellence. So they will be perennial Big Ten championship contenders, never quite getting over the National Championship hump.