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Michigan finished its 2019 regular season 9-3 after losing to Ohio State yesterday 56-27. As the Wolverines wait for word on where they will be playing in their bowl game, they are going to prepare to capture their 10th win this season. A 10th win this season would be head coach Jim Harbaugh’s second bowl win and his fourth 10 win season in Ann Arbor.
Getting 10 wins in a season is nothing to complain about, as Michigan was wishing to get to that just a decade ago. Harbaugh has brought Michigan out of the shadows after suffering from poor seasons with two head coaches who weren’t able to keep Michigan on the map. Harbaugh has put them back on the map, but they aren’t relevant as they’d like to be.
10 win seasons are nice, but soon that won’t be enough to please the Michigan alumni, fans, and administrators. Winning games is important, but so is beating Michigan State, Notre Dame (if scheduled), and Ohio State. Along with beating your rivals is winning a Big Ten Championship, and appearing and possibly winning the College Football Playoffs. Harbaugh is 1-1 against Notre Dame, and 3-2 against Michigan State, but 0-5 in the most important one against Ohio State, along with zero Big Ten Championship and playoff appearances.
This isn’t a “Jim Harbaugh needs to be fired” article, that doesn’t solve the problem. Nobody knows what the problem is for Harbaugh to get past Ohio State, to get more than 10 wins, to play for a Big Ten title or appear in the playoffs. It’s not like Harbaugh hasn’t tried to become better than 10 wins either.
Harbaugh adapted his offense to modern-day football as he thought that was a problem for his guys. He brought in Josh Gattis as the offensive coordinator, and while the offense struggled at first, they would later improve and start showing signs that they will be an attacking style of offense and with another year under the system this group will only get better.
His defense hasn’t seen as many changes as defensive coordinator Don Brown came in 2016 after his 2015 defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin left to become the head coach at Maryland. The secondary coaches have changed on the defense, but not the coordinator since 2016. The defense got better with Brown’s changes, but haven’t been able to compete against Ohio State in two of the last four games with Brown.
Brown even adapted to more zone after getting torched by crossing routes against Ohio State in 2018. He’s had a top-three defense every season except for this year as they are eighth right now with one game left to play. They are still a tough unit but usually have a big blimp on their resume, and in back-to-back years it’s been against Ohio State.
The only person who has to figure out this problem in the end though is Harbaugh. He will be happy with 10 wins as any coach would be, but everyone knows he’s better than that. He is a championship type of coach who just can’t get over the 10-win mark and right now doesn’t have the answers to what he has to do to get over that hump.
He will be in year six next year at Michigan and with some important seniors leaving on both sides of the football and possibly some underclassmen declaring for the NFL. Harbaugh might have some secondary coaching changes to adjust with, but both of his coordinators should return.
Michigan is playing good football, but are just a few things away from playing elite football like Clemson, LSU, and Ohio State are this season. Fans hope that Harbaugh can get over the hump sooner rather than later, or else the 10 win cycle will be a repeat performance year-in and year-out. After so many 10 win seasons, that will become the norm and everyone will want something more than that. As we’re approaching another possible 10 win season, that is very close to that being a reality.
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