Four years ago, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan football were on the verge of a breakthrough.
It was Harbaugh's second season in Ann Arbor, and the Wolverines — with veteran talent on both sides of the ball — looked like one of the nation's top teams. Save for a hiccup against Iowa at Kinnick Stadium, Michigan had boat-raced its way through the Big Ten and set itself on a collision course with Urban Meyer and Ohio State.
Beat the Buckeyes, and the Wolverines would advance to the Big Ten championship game for the first time in program history; win the conference title, and they'd make the College Football Playoff.
We all know what happened next.
But four seasons later, in the aftermath of Harbaugh's latest loss, a stunning 27-24 upset at the hands heavy underdog Michigan State, it is worth revisiting that moment from four years ago.
Because Michigan's loss to Ohio State in 2016 is a clear demarcation of the Jim Harbaugh era. There is everything that came before that game: A 20-4 record and a program that seemed ready to spring into the upper tier of college football.
And then there is everything that has come since: A 28-15 record, and a program that couldn't be farther from catching the Buckeyes.
Nothing has gone right for Harbaugh and the Wolverines since they failed to stop J.T. Barrett on fourth down, leading to a 30-27 double overtime loss. They have been in a prolonged spiral the past four years, and it all culminated in Saturday's loss to MSU.
Against a Michigan State team coming off a stunning loss to Rutgers, which hadn't won a Big Ten game since 2017, Michigan was thoroughly outplayed and outcoached.
Ever since Harbaugh arrived, the Wolverines have recruited better than the Spartans. But on Saturday, any talent advantage on either side of the ball looked moot. On offense, they were dominated up front, failing to establish the run despite trying over and over again. On defense, they could not find a single defensive back who could defend Ricky White, who caught eight passes for 196 yards and a touchdown after torching the Scarlet Knights last week for ... one catch for five yards.
Michigan was favored by more than three touchdowns. And it trailed the entire ballgame. There was no sense of urgency on either side of the ball. The offense's final drive was supposed to be a two-minute drill. Instead, it ate up 4 minutes, 34 seconds. And it squandered a key scoring opportunity by calling for a jump pass from a running back out of the wildcat formation.
The defense, meanwhile, was burned over and over again by the same two receivers in White and Jalen Nailor, despite grabbing jerseys and being called for pass interference all game long. Then, to effectively ice the game, the unit gave up a backbreaking 92-yard touchdown drive to the Spartans — which, of course, featured a twisting, diving grab by White, who easily looked like the most talented player on the field. White, for what it's worth, would've been the 17th-ranked signee in Michigan's 23-man 2020 recruiting class, according to 247Sports. And he almost single-handedly beat the Wolverines.
But that wasn't the only ignominious moment from the defense. With one final chance to stop the Spartans on fourth-and-2, the Wolverines ceded 3 yards on a quarterback sneak. Then they got to watch Michigan State celebrate on the turf of Michigan Stadium.
There are some plausible explanations for Harbaugh's inability to compete with Ohio State. Meyer, one of the sport's greatest coaches, had a significant head start on Harbaugh, who was hired by Michigan in the midst of Ohio State's national championship run in 2014 and after Meyer had already signed four top recruiting classes.
But there are no such explanations for Harbaugh's inability to beat Michigan State in 2020, after the Spartans changed coaches in February and were in their greatest period of transition in more than a decade. After losing on a once-in-a-lifetime play in 2015, Harbaugh has been outcoached in each of his other two losses against MSU.
The Wolverines' inconsistency in keeping the Paul Bunyan Trophy are a microcosm of where they are as a program. They hired one of football's highest-paid coaches to compete for a national championship. Instead, they aren't even dominating the state championship; Harbaugh has a 3-3 record in the series.
The coach that Michigan thought it hired, the one that was supposed to inspire a championship culture, is seemingly nowhere to be found. After developing star quarterbacks at every previous stop, Harbaugh has yet to find the next Andrew Luck or Colin Kaepernick at Michigan, despite signing four four-star recruits and bringing in three transfers — one of whom was a five-star recruit and the No. 1 ranked quarterback in his class. And after leading tough, smart and well-coached teams at Stanford and with the San Francisco 49ers, Harbaugh's Michigan teams have been characterized by self-inflicted wounds and a tendency to fall short in their biggest moments.
Harbaugh has now had six years to build his program, and he is 3-8 against his two biggest rivals, with the ninth loss surely on its way at the end of this season. He is 2-2 against Wisconsin, with an ugly 35-14 loss in 2019 in which Michigan was not even remotely competitive. He is 3-2 against Penn State.
The Wolverines' recent traction against Michigan State — they had won the past two games in the series entering Saturday — was the one thing the program could hang its hat on. After Saturday, it can't even do that. Instead, Michigan is firmly in purgatory. Better than most college football teams. But nowhere close to elite.
And they very clearly are going the wrong way.
