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The locals are restless, and with good cause.
When Jim Harbaugh was hired prior to the 2015 season, the belief was that he would return Michigan football to venerability, that it would be just a matter of time before the Wolverines had reached the mountaintop, yet again. But what has since transpired hasn’t gone according to belief.
Though pundits proclaimed that 2015 would be a success if the maize and blue went bowl eligible, they went 10-3 and followed up with another 10-3 season in 2016. But the former was a great success story, of a team overachieving in the moment, while the latter was a failure, with three losses by a total of 5 points, by a team that had higher aspirations than facing Florida State in the Capital One Orange Bowl. Mediocrity loomed again in 2017 before another 10-3 rebound in 2018. 2019 was a mixture of the two, beating the teams that were lesser than before losing to those who presented a challenge. Then the wheels came off in 2020, with the sole wins coming against Minnesota and Rutgers.
In the moment, fan enthusiasm is at a low perhaps not seen even in the Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke years.
Such turmoil is understandable given what’s happened, and while a loss to Indiana for the first time since 1987, let’s face what 2020 was for a lot (but not all) teams: an aberration.
In a pandemic year, Michigan was hardly the only team that underachieved. Though Penn State seemed to right the ship late in the season, it finished 4-5 in 2020 — a far cry from the expectations that it was on the cusp of reaching a College Football Playoff for the first time. Yet, the Nittany Lions don’t face similar scrutiny — likely because James Franklin managed to win a Big Ten title in 2016, a year in which he lost to Pitt and was drubbed, 49-10, by Michigan. But, with some teams having no spring football — like Michigan — inexperienced teams tended to fare worse than those with a plethora of returnees.
This wasn’t canon, per sé, but there’s a reason why Northwestern achieved while Michigan did not. The Wildcats came into 2020 with the most returning experience, while the Wolverines were 125th. LSU, coming off a national championship, played four more games than Michigan and went 5-5 in that span, also trying to break in a new starting quarterback, as the Wolverines were. The Tigers were ranked 127th in returning experience. Some teams, like Alabama (88th in returning experience) achieved anyhow, but had strong quarterback play, whereas Nebraska (17th) did not meet the same fate. Returning experience isn’t a perfect predictor, but more often than not, teams not loaded with experienced talent could not make do in a year where there was no usual when it comes to preparation.
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For now, the argument rests with Jim Harbaugh, whether or not he’s the right leader for the Wolverines. In terms of APR (academic progress rate), Harbaugh’s numbers are stellar. But he’s not judged by that by the fanbase as much as his record, particularly against Ohio State. The most frequent blast on Harbaugh is the fact that in five tries, the Wolverines haven’t bested the Buckeyes, though they came close in 2016 and 2017. The other three contests weren’t competitive. Yet, coaches like James Franklin get a pass, because in seven tries, he upended the scarlet and grey once. People point out 2017 Iowa or 2018 Purdue as reasons why it’s unacceptable that Harbaugh hasn’t been able to overcome OSU, but those are one-offs. Does anyone really believe that those iterations of the Hawkeyes or Boilermakers were better than the Buckeyes? Despite winning the Big Ten in 2016, does anyone really believe that Penn State was better than Ohio State that year? OSU rarely gets upset, but even elite teams have that happen from time to time. Alabama used to have an Ole Miss problem, Clemson dropped an unlikely game to Syracuse in 2016. It happens.
But when it comes to Ohio State, no program in the Big Ten has had sustained success against the Buckeyes in recent years. Here are the list of teams who have beaten OSU since Urban Meyer took over in 2012: Michigan State won twice (2013 Big Ten Championship game and 2015 regular season), Clemson has won three times (2013 Orange Bowl, 2016 and 2019 College Football Playoffs), Virginia Tech won in 2014, Penn State won in 2016, Iowa in 2017, Purdue in 2018, and Alabama in 2020. That’s it — that’s the list. Dabo Swinney and Mark Dantonio are the only coaches to have taken down the scarlet and grey more than once in that time span.
What’s more, as far as it pertains to Michigan, the Wolverines floundered for the better part of seven years under RichRod and Brady Hoke, and they weren’t exactly humming in the final years under Lloyd Carr, save for the bulk of the 2006 season. Ohio State? Save for the shortened 2020 season, it’s reached double-digit win seasons 16 of the last 19 seasons (the Buckeyes went 7-1 in 2020 and likely would have reached double digits if they had played enough games). Michigan has achieved that same fate only seven times in that span, three of which have come under Jim Harbaugh. To expect the Wolverines, coming out of a dismal era, to suddenly compete with OSU takes more than just wishing for it to happen.
This isn’t to absolve the Jim Harbaugh era of responsibility. Michigan has to be better. It often plays down to competition and has spells where it hasn’t looked competent in recent years. Some of the lack of success can be blamed on attrition, as the 2017 class was close to being a full bust, despite it being one of the most highly-ranked classes ever to wind up in Ann Arbor. Either the highly-ranked players didn’t live up to their pre-college accolades or they transferred out. It’s difficult to compete with the upper echelons of college football when you all but lose an entire class. But many of those admonishing Harbaugh now had previously called the 2020 season something of a free year due to the pandemic and then found themselves upset when it didn’t turn out to be a wild success.
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Now Harbaugh has been extended and there’s all kinds of talk about the team having renewed energy. I think it was a mistake for Michigan to not publicly showcase the new-look defense and what it has on offense in some capacity, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether we in the media or the fans got a glimpse of spring action. What matters is that the program is diligently working to correct the wrongs of the previous year. This isn’t an ‘if a tree falls in the forest’ type scenario because we know they’re working.
As for the future, the Wolverines need to build to become what it seemed to be in 2018: a team that can beat every other in the Big Ten save for Ohio State. 2020 aside, 2019 was a step backward, but a minor one. 2020 was one, certainly, from a perception standpoint. But weirder things have happened in college football than what appeared to be a bad team one year to rebound significantly in the coming season.
For now, handwringing over the state of the football program will do no good, because most criticism is based on outside perception and conjecture, given that we know close to nothing about how the team will be this fall.
The best we can do is accept this team for what it is, what it has been, and stop pretending like it’s been worldbeaters in recent memory, because 1997 was more than two decades ago now. As frustrating as it might be, Michigan needs to retool, and it’ll have to crawl before it can walk. That means realizing that Ohio State — a team that can only be compared to Alabama and Clemson at this juncture — is not its peer at the moment. In order to get back to that point, the Wolverines have to take baby steps to the point where at least the other teams in the conference fear them.
And we won’t know if that’s on the verge of happening again until it takes the field this fall — proving that 2020 was either an aberration or a sign of a team truly on the decline, once again.
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