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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

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