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One month and a lifetime ago,
Jim Harbaugh sat at a podium with a
backdrop of College Football Playoff
logos, expressing vigorous optimism
for the future of the Michigan foot-
ball program.
“It’s still a beginning for this
team,” Harbaugh waxed, his outlook
unchanged in the wake of Georgia’s
23-point drubbing in the Orange
Bowl. “That’s when it began last year,
and it’ll begin anew this year. Start of
a new year.”
Harbaugh continued, his voice
firm.
“To me, it feels like a start. Feels
like a beginning.”
A beginning, indeed.
In a stunning turn of events,
Harbaugh will return to Michigan
for the 2022 season. He informed
an “elated” Warde Manuel of his
decision Wednesday evening, on
the heels of traveling to Minnesota
to interview for the Vikings’ head
coaching vacancy earlier that day.
After a month-long craze of NFL
rumors and boundless speculation,
Harbaugh will remain in Ann Arbor.
Each of Harbaugh’s seven years
as the Wolverines’ coach began with
the same tired song and dance: Will
Harbaugh leave? Baseless rumors
swirled. TV personalities and pun-
dits prattled alike. It was, if anything,
a tired yet entertaining ritual.
Each time, Harbaugh remained
in place.
Though interest from the NFL
hardly waned, the sentiment was
unrequited. Harbaugh had yet to
accomplish what he first set out to
do.
In 2014, at his introductory press
conference,
Harbaugh
deflected
questions about expectations. In typ-
ical Harbaugh-speak, he preferred to
stress the importance of the first day
of practice, the first meeting and the
first week at his new job. One day at
a time.
But, to borrow a phrase from
Harbaugh’s vernacular, sometimes
the questions answer themselves.
The expectations were already set
in stone; the beloved former quar-
terback had come home to rescue
Michigan’s sputtering football pro-
gram from the abyss. Harbaugh —
ballyhooed, quirky and charismatic
— would be the savior.
It took seven long years, a herky-
jerky roller coaster ride of thrill and
disappointment, for that vision to
materialize. But this past year felt
like a climax, Harbaugh’s program
at last delivering upon the unspoken
promise. He vanquished Ohio State,
captured a Big Ten Championship
and led Michigan’s inaugural foray
into the College Football Playoff. He
had, at last, returned the Wolver-
ines to their long-vacant spot on the
sport’s grandest stage.
In
December,
underneath
a
drizzle of maize and blue confetti,
Harbaugh stood triumphantly on a
makeshift stage and reached deep
into his soul to unleash a “Go Blue”
that rang throughout Lucas Oil Sta-
dium. He hoisted the coveted Big
Ten Championship trophy high
above his head, a Christmas-morn-
ing grin plastered across his face.
Charles Woodson joined him for a
resounding rendition of “The Vic-
tors,” beckoning cheers from the
giddy Michigan faithful on hand.
This felt like the glory days; this was
pure euphoria.
As of Wednesday morning, the
growing consensus was that the
moment would become a culmina-
tion of Harbaugh’s Michigan tenure,
his final triumph as a Wolverine.
NFL interest appeared to be build-
ing to a crescendo. Tuesday evening,
reports surfaced that Harbaugh to
Minnesota was a formality; he had
allegedly exchanged a handful of
“goodbyes” and “thank yous.”
Harbaugh is 58. NFL interest
won’t last forever; much of it is tied to
his year-to-year success at Michigan.
These past two seasons — a 2-4 cam-
paign followed by a Big Ten Champi-
onship — certainly emphasized the
sport’s fickle nature.
On the heels of the Wolverines’
best season in decades, one that Har-
baugh rightfully called one of the
best in the storied program’s history,
Harbaugh’s personal stock may have
never been higher. NFL speculation
long inundated Harbaugh because
people had a hard time believing he
could live without chasing that cov-
eted Lombardi Trophy again. Temp-
tation, then, made sense. Perhaps the
lightbulb never died.
But it certainly flickered. And
with Harbaugh informing Manuel
that NFL speculation would not
become a reoccurring issue, effec-
tively deciding to commit to Michi-
gan for the long-term, it appears to
have died.
Few disputed Harbaugh’s proc-
lamation that this was merely the
start, a full-fledged restoration of a
sleeping national power. It’s an ardu-
ous task to stack successful seasons
in college football, particularly in
the Big Ten. But everything seemed
to be trending upwards for the Wol-
verines, a revelation following years
of tumult.
This time last year, without sig-
nificant NFL interest, Harbaugh
preoccupied himself by overhauling
the program’s culture with a youth-
ful coaching staff, a seismic shift that
paid immense and immediate divi-
dends. In December, he capitalized on
Michigan’s on-field momentum with
a top-10 recruiting class and seemed
poised to reel in touted prospects in
droves. Michigan’s future was tied to
a tantalizing nucleus of young talent,
headlined by freshmen J.J. McCarthy
and Donovan Edwards and sopho-
more Blake Corum.
And Harbaugh himself appeared
revitalized. His quips — about
George Patton and Neil Armstrong,
about “Clint Eastwood wins” —
returned with fervor. He seemed,
at last, genuinely happy. This was
the Harbaugh who wanted to wear
cleats into the Mormon church,
who orchestrated sleepovers with
recruits, who waged war on SEC sat-
ellite camps, who reveled in his fic-
tional character Freddy P. Soft. This
Harbaugh brought the old Michigan
back with him.
Now?
It’s all here to stay.
Michigan’s
disastrous
perfor-
mance in the Orange Bowl revealed
just how far the Wolverines, as a pro-
gram, have to go to entrench them-
selves in college football’s upper
echelon. A product of the many
inequities that mar college football,
there’s a chasm between mere play-
off contenders and championship
contenders, and Michigan has yet to
cross it. Harbaugh knows that. Of the
many traits that Harbaugh embod-
ies, ignorance is not one of them.
It’s impossible to overstate how
losing Harbaugh may have cratered
this program. Michigan is littered
with people — current players,
incoming recruits, high school pros-
pects, assistant coaches — whom
Harbaugh sold on a vision. He con-
vinced them that he would take care
of them, that he would ascend them
to new heights, that he would usher
them from boys to men.
When those promises are stripped,
loyalty often goes with it. Perhaps, in
the alternate universe in which Har-
baugh leaves, the doomsday scenario
never materializes. But it’s difficult
to imagine this beginning, absent the
man who patented it.
With Harbaugh in tow, the proc-
lamation is alive and well.
Goalposts have shifted. Michigan,
finally, is over the hump. If this is a
beginning, then Harbaugh’s vision
lies on the other side, beyond resto-
ration and into sustainment, a pro-
longed stay in the upper echelon as
opposed to a guest pass. That carries
with it a new set of goals for Har-
baugh to accomplish in the second
stage of his tenure.
Perhaps Michigan permanently
closes the gap with Ohio State, capi-
talizing on the program’s surge on
the recruiting trail and vibrant cul-
ture. Perhaps the Wolverines restore
their glory days. Perhaps they crack
that elusive group of championship
contenders, joining Clemson, Ala-
bama and Georgia with a spot at the
sport’s most coveted dinner table.
We can’t be certain which path
Michigan will follow. All we know is
that there’s no time for a honeymoon.
Harbaugh has to find a pair of
new coordinators, with Mike Mac-
donald and Josh Gattis each moving
on. Replacing Macdonald, the archi-
tect of the defensive restoration and
someone whom players touted as a
genius, is arduous. Gattis’s shoes, too,
are large; while his “speed in space”
proclamation never truly material-
ized, Michigan’s offense blossomed
into one of the nation’s best under
Gattis’s watch this past season. It’s
not easy finding two heirs in the
same offseason, let alone this late in
the cycle, with spring ball looming in
March.
And yet, with Harbaugh here to
stay, those glaring holes at coordinator
feel, at least in part, moot. Michigan
has a legitimate shot to turn all of those
above hypotheticals into reality. With-
out Harbaugh, they are mere fantasies.
At the aforementioned introduc-
tory press conference, Harbaugh
likened his different coaching desti-
nations to building houses. At each
stop — first San Diego, then Stanford,
then the 49ers — Harbaugh had built
what he called “pretty nice homes,”
doing so from the ground up.
At Michigan, though, he aspired
for more. A beginning, but not neces-
sarily an end.
“I would really like to live in one
permanently,” Harbaugh said, fully
immersed in his metaphor. “That’s
what I’m very hopeful for here.”
A chorus of applause followed.
Seven years later, as the Wolver-
ines grapple with this new reality, so
will Harbaugh. He can finally move
in for good.
JARED GREENSPAN
Managing Sports Editor
SPORTSWEDNESDAY
SPORTSWEDNESDAY
Jim Harbaugh returns to lead new beginning
at Michigan sans his coordinators
HOME ALONE
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