Legacy.
Nowadays, that word seems to have a different meaning when it comes to the college football lexicon. Well, during these strangest times in college football, every word seems to have an altered definition from the one assigned to it all those years ago. Like, I don't know, 2019?
As Jim Harbaugh leaves the college game for the NFL Cinematic Universe, completing his trilogy of transitions from campus to the big leagues: from Michigan to the Chicago Bears as QB in 1987, from Stanford to the San Francisco 49ers as head coach in 2011 and now Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers, also as head coach, we find ourselves tasked with characterizing the legacy of a decidedly different type of college football character.
Earlier this month, that was an easy task when it came to Nick Saban (the GOAT!) and even Jerry Kill (the show's revivalist). But when it comes to the Michigan man just out of Michigan, it's not that simple. Nothing about Jim Harbaugh is.
It is as disconcerting as it is loved. Misunderstood by at least as many people as revered. If the world of college football were a Facebook page, we would all (Wolverines and others) have to click on the relationship status line that says, “It's complicated.”
I'm willing to bet that most people reading these words right now might think that Harbaugh's tenure in Ann Arbor was relatively short. But it was not. He spent nine full seasons on the sidelines of The Big House. That's three times more than his first stint as head coach in San Diego and more than double his four-year stints at The Farm and later with the Niners.
Those same people might believe he struggled mightily during the first half of his near-decade at Michigan. Once again, he didn't. His teams posted three 10-3 records and averaged more than nine wins per year during his first five seasons, earning five consecutive New Year's Bowl berths.
That perception of failure comes from those handful of games in which Harbaugh struggled, the 18 losses that offset those 48 wins, most of which came in the only games that really matter to anyone in blue, a bunch of losses against Michigan State and Ohio. State and a 1-4 record in those postseason games through 2019. Their 2020 pandemic season brought an abysmal and abbreviated 2-4 record.
But the three years since then represent what may well be the best multi-season streak in the Wolverines' 145-year history: a 40-3 record with three straight wins over Ohio State, three straight Big Ten championships, three college football playoffs. back-to-back appearances and, this year, the program's first unanimous national title since 1948.
All that time, all nine years, was marked by a seemingly endless litany of stories that seemed strange as they happened; but with the benefit of even a little hindsight, we can now see them as images of a man willing to oppose the college football system.
Call it a pioneer. Call it wild. As long as you end up calling it all unique.
Since June 2015, his first year on the job, our brains have been scorched with the sight of Harbaugh, 51, shirtless, throwing passes during his coaching staff's “Summer Swarm” football camp tour. . But what you may have forgotten since then is the mission behind that road trip, to conduct training in Florida, California, Pennsylvania and, gulp, Alabama. His QB appearance game took place in Prattville, about 90 minutes from Tuscaloosa. Even now, the Yellowhammer State message boards are red with anger.
Two years later he took his team to Rome. The one from Italy, not those from Alabama or Ohio, where Harbaugh sang opera and gave Pope Francis a corn and a blue helmet.
There is no word to describe the inner beauty that shines through the eyes of our Holy Father and his words… “Pray for me” pic.twitter.com/doUpeajuRp
– Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) April 26, 2017
In the years that followed, the Wolverines walked alongside their coach along the beaches of Normandy and through the streets of Paris and South Africa. The trips were expensive (the bills were paid by Michigan donors) and were criticized by non-Wolverines for being bombastic. But they were unconventional at worst, and as Harbaugh himself noted, college basketball programs had been on similar trips for decades.
Then, as we all remember, there were the outlandish recruiting stories. Harbaugh imitating “How's business? Boomin'!” by DJ Khaled. to try to attract a defensive back from California. Harbaugh climbs a tree in a recruit's front yard to demonstrate his own upper-body strength honed by the NFL. Harbaugh sleeping on top-ranked kicker Quinn Nordin's couch so they could have a conversation when the recruiting dead period ended at midnight that night, just the first in a series of sleepovers he had planned for that winter.
And we haven't even mentioned persimmons.
But while we were all making jokes about the coach's extravagance, all those silly stories turned out to be the building blocks of what was to come. The assault on the deep south and the west? This year's national championship roster included eight players from Georgia, seven from Florida, five from Tennessee, at least one representative from Louisiana and South Carolina and even one from Alabama. Those overseas trips resulted in days of live coverage on “SportsCenter” and, in the words of Wolverines assistant coach Mike Hart, “a lot of recruits asked us, 'Where are we going next year?'” And as for those wacky social media stories saturated from the recruiting trail, Harbaugh's inaugural haul at Michigan in 2015 was ranked 40th by ESPN. In 2019, he came in at eighth place, having finally broken through the SEC's talent lock. The following year's group included Blake Corum, Roman Wilson and the core of this year's CFP-winning squad.
On the other hand, that class was accompanied by an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that violated restrictions put in place due to the pandemic. This is also the part where Harbaugh's critics will remind us of his two separate three-game suspensions this season, with ongoing investigations into recruiting violations and, of course, the sign-stealing mess that shows none, ahem , signs. to disappear soon. Even now, after the man who was the program's executive director accused of implementing an overly nuanced signal decryption network packed up his khakis and returned to the pros, a cloud hangs over the program.
So, we find ourselves once again faced with that trisyllabic word that, today, carries much more weight and complication than its six little letters suggest.
Legacy.
If you go up and down every day humming “Hail to the Victors,” then Jim Harbaugh's legacy might be easy for you. He returned home vowing to return his alma mater to the top rung of college football, and that's what he did. There's a big silver and gold trophy they just put up in Schembechler Hall to prove it. But the reality is that there will not be a period at the end of his M-block chapter until the researchers have finished and his final reports are read aloud. When that will happen, no one knows. When this happens, it could turn out to be all much ado about nothing. But it could also go in a very different and very destructive direction.
Then, and only then, will we truly know what Jim Harbaugh's legacy will be. The only thing we know for sure now is that he won't be in Ann Arbor when that happens.
See? Complicated.
