I have to give Jim Harbaugh some credit. Even if something couldn’t be further from the truth, he’s willing to try to speak it into existence like perhaps no other coach in college athletics.
Harbaugh spoke with 247Sports earlier this week and discussed how Michigan has performed since he took over as head coach in 2015. When asked how close Michigan is to a national championship, Harbaugh claims they’ve already been as close to winning one as you can be without actually doing so.
I mean, just look back over the last the last years that we’ve been here last five years. About as close as you can possibly be. But you got to put it over the top. That’s what drives us. -Jim Harbaugh
Uhh, what?
Harbaugh has to be talking about 2016, the year that his Wolverines went to Ohio State in a meeting of the No. 2 and No. 3 ranked teams in the country. An unfortunate spot kept an Ohio State overtime drive alive in a game the Buckeyes would eventually win a couple plays later.
Had Michigan won they’d have gone to the Big Ten Championship but instead the Big Ten East went to Penn State and the Nittany Lions wound up winning that over Wisconsin.
Ohio State was still gifted a College Football Playoff appearance that year despite not winning the conference and were embarrassed by Clemson, 31-0 in the Fiesta Bowl.
So is that what Harbaugh is trying to sell as being “about as close as you can possibly be” to a national title?
Forget the Ohio State game, the Wolverines also lost to an un-ranked Iowa team earlier that fall.
Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan team was close to making a Big Ten Championship game where a win would have gotten them into the CFP. But close to a national championship?
Harbaugh is yet to beat Ohio State in his five years in Ann Arbor, hasn’t yet won his own division of the conference, let alone the Big Ten and has never finished a year with fewer than three losses with the Wolverines.
But sure, ” About as close as you can possibly be”
Keep trying to speak that into existence, Jim. Somewhere, somebody might actually believe you.