Jim Harbaugh won two games last season. The Michigan football team was a disconnected, dysfunctional mess. He took a pay cut. Recalibrated his diet and workout regimen. Lost weight. Changed his staff. Redoubled his commitment. Rediscovered his locker room and sideline energy. And broke fall camp with a unified and hungry team that won its first seven games.
By almost any measure, the improvement from one year to the next has been impressive. And if we were only judging the program under Harbaugh during this two-year window, most of you would be feeling hopeful, if not a bit giddy.
After all, these Wolverines are young, will return lots of key skill players and playmakers, and have shown the kind of chemistry and resolve that can lead to significant places.
In this vacuum, the story line is simple: a coach adjusts, his team develops an identity, together they wipe away a difficult year.
But then college football doesn’t unfold in a vacuum, and nothing about this sport is simple. Games unfold in the tenure of the coach, where everyone has a long memory.
Which means that the Wolverines loss to Michigan State on Saturday wasn’t just painful because of a single loss to a rival, or because of a questionable replay, or a tough-luck fumble, but because of last year’s loss to that same rival.
And because of six losses to Ohio State. And a road loss to Iowa in 2016. And a road loss to Penn State in 2019. And a handful of bowl game losses.
And a lack of an appearance in the Big Ten title game, and the College Football Playoff and, well, all those other losses to the Spartans, a program U-M dominated in the 70s and 80s, had the slight upper hand in the 90s, dominated again in the early 2000s, before losing control of the rivalry around 2008.
Since that year, MSU has won 10 of 14.
Harbaugh has been involved in half of those games. He carried the weight of all 10 losses on Saturday. Because he was hired, in part, to retake control of MSU.
Is that fair?
Of course not.
It’s also a disservice to the program the Spartans have become, first under Mark Dantonio, now under Mel Tucker.
All of which makes it harder to judge Saturday’s game as a single-act affair, or at least in the narrow context of the last 12-plus months.
There, in that space, the Wolverines played tough-minded, purposeful football. There, in that space, the road team didn’t flinch — unless you consider a balky handoff a flinch and I don’t. There, in that space, the quarterback played the game of his life, and the defense made several drive-stopping plays.
There, in that space, in the fulcrum of the loudest crowd Spartan Stadium had seen in years, the Wolverines did what they didn’t do a year ago: they kept coming, again and again. They just came up a play or two short.
It happens.
What shouldn’t keep happening is blaming the officiating, or any other tough loss on an act from above. Harbaugh told a radio station earlier this week his players “deserved better” after a replay overturned a sack-fumble-touchdown.
This isn’t the first time a coach has complained about a call. But when Harbaugh says his players deserve better, he’s assuming that MSU’s players got every call they were supposed to get. And they didn’t. No team ever does.
Assigning blame when in pain is natural. And while a portion of the fan base may gouge themselves on the red meat, it ultimately won’t distract from Harbaugh’s difficulty in winning the biggest games.
This is a sticky place to be.
If not Harbaugh, then who?
If Harbaugh, then what?
Or, rather, when?
When will some of these games end with the Wolverines sprinting to the corner of the stadium to sing? When will a season end with a win over Ohio State? Or a spot in the conference championship game?
When will U-M return to the kind of place it held a generation ago, when eight and nine win seasons were interrupted with conference titles and Rose Bowls?
Harbaugh got close in his second season but hasn’t been that close since. Not really.
And while his record is more than solid overall and he restored some measure of pride and stability after the Rich Rodriguez/Brady Hoke years, he finds himself in a kind of purgatory, in the kind of place where it’s almost impossible to judge a loss like Saturday’s in the context of one season.
If we were, then 7-1 is a pretty damn good way to start. And, as Harbaugh said Monday during his weekly news conference, the story of this season isn’t over — at all.
“A new day, a new week, a new four-game season,” he said.
He’s right, it’s all still out there. Even now, even after the crushing loss to the Spartans, even after Michigan held a 16-point, third-quarter lead.
The goals remain intact. The dreams aren’t yet deferred.
And while the Wolverines need a little help to get where they dream, mostly, they have the opportunity to help themselves: Indiana, Penn State, Maryland, Ohio State. Win them all and the road ahead could be wide open.
It’s up to Harbaugh.
It’s still his story to write.
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