Jim Harbaugh’s work is done. Michigan is ready.
The Wolverines (10-0, 7-0) made their intentions known last weekend at Penn State. Those intentions being to run the Big Ten table, get back to the CFP and win this asshole. Then thumb your nose at Stephen A. Smith, Paul Finebaum and anyone else who questions their legitimacy.
With the world – or at least the B1G and the NCAA – against them, nothing less than perfection will be enough for this band of brothers. And they are fully capable of doing it.
Michigan doesn’t need big offensive or defensive schemes, although it has a few.
He doesn’t need weird athletes at key positions, even if he has plenty of them.
What Michigan needs in pursuit of its first national title since 1997, it has in spades: No. 1: Badass juggernauts in the trenches. No. 2: humble individuals, collective boasting. No. 3: Such a deep and genuine connection between players and staff defies belief in this age of mercenary players looking for NIL dollars. No. 4: the martyr complex, i.e. emotional fuel.
Anyway: the players
No one at Michigan will win the Heisman this season. The most likely candidates, QB JJ McCarthy and RB Blake Corum, don’t care.
Corum, a strong contender last year, is about 550 yards off last season’s 10-game pace. But on Saturday at Penn State, in Michigan’s first major test of 2023, he posted a season-high 26 carries for 145 yards. It was only his second 100-yard game this season after posting eight in a row last year before getting injured against Illinois.
“I didn’t come back for stats, I didn’t come back for touchdowns, I came back for these guys,” Corum said on the field at Beaver Stadium in a postgame television interview. “I came back to win.”
McCarthy followed Corum during the on-field interview, grinning from ear to ear. This, after completing 7 of 8 passes for 60 yards. On the same day LSU’s Jayden Daniels had 606 yards of offense, McCarthy had 94. Let Daniels, Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. hoist the Heisman. Michigan’s second-year starter has another trophy on his mind.
Ditto, senior receiver Roman Wilson. Ditto up front receiving tight end Colston Loveland. Same as #2 RB Donovan Edwards. Ditto for the o-line, including 6th-year veteran 6th man Trente Jones, who helped move the heavy package forward in the 24-15 loss to the Nittany Lions.
Ditto for the entire defense, which limited Penn State to 238 yards and had its offensive coordinator fired within 24 hours. Michigan still leads the nation in scoring (7.5 points per game) and total defense (232.1 points per game).
Anyway: the staff
Sherrone Moore, OC and interim head coach last Saturday, only called for one pass in the final 36 minutes of the game. This play didn’t count, thanks to a DPI call, so officially Michigan ran 32 straight plays to close out the Nittany Lions. Whether it was just Moore’s call or a pregame suggestion from Harbaugh, it was awesome. Penn State has lightning fast rushers and ranks 3rd in the nation in sacks. What better way to neutralize a pass rush than to simply not pass?
Extreme? Yes. Not likely to work against Ohio State? Probably. But damn, it takes a few stones and a lot of trust in the staff.
Moore could take this approach because Jesse Minter runs the best defense in the country. A Broyles Award finalist last year, Minter is expected to take home the 75-pound trophy awarded to the nation’s top assistant this year. His unit did not give up a single point in the third quarter of the season. That’s really good, against any schedule.
During Harbaugh’s 3-game suspension imposed by the university to start the season, RBs coach and favorite son Mike Hart shared coaching duties with special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh for 1 game, and Moore and Minter took the lead role once each.
Is there any program that shares the glory and the burdens more than this?
Either way: a chip on your shoulder
Jim Harbaugh is working this situation for all it’s worth.
Let the Michigan judge, hand-picked and apparently in a conflict of interest, grant an injunction to allow the coach to be on the sideline at Maryland on Saturday and at the Big House against Ohio State on November 25, Harbaugh wins. He has already won.
Facts be damned, the entire UM community is rushing to the defense of its eccentric 9th year head coach. He’s a Michigan man, after all, and these insults won’t stay inside The Mitten.
It’s not that Michigan isn’t guilty of something related to former staffer Connor Stalions’ illegal reconnaissance and sign-stealing escapades. Michigan has had an unfair advantage at times over the past 2 seasons. And punishing Harbaugh for the sins of others is not unacceptable. NCAA rules state that the head coach is responsible for all his subordinates and the entire operation. Plausible deniability is not an issue here.
What is the problem? The nature of the punishment.
The Big Ten, by banning Harbaugh from playing the final three games of the season, publicly shamed him and the entire university. Harbaugh can still coach throughout the week. In that regard, it’s not really a penalty. Harbaugh has already proven 4 times this season that he can prepare his players and staff to enter stadiums without him on game days.
It’s hard to believe the Stalons convinced Michigan coaches he was stealing signs as a savant of the game, rather than in advance. But that appears to be UM’s claim.
The school’s other argument is that no opponent will be fooled or compromised in the future, and that its players should be allowed to reap the rewards of their hard work. Beat Ohio State for the third straight time, on par, and this team deserves a third straight trip to the College Football Playoff.
Unlike earlier in the season, Harbaugh has his superiors – AD Warde Manuel and President Santa Ono – fully involved in doing what Michigan does best: playing defense. The school went as far as threatens to leave the Big Ten And criticize the conference for a rash decision.
Meanwhile, Harbaugh, 59, spent Monday at his aloof and dryly comical best, talking about seek due process, chicken farming and leading the college version of America’s Team.
Jim Harbaugh on Michigan: “It has to be America’s team. It must be the American team. pic.twitter.com/jLegvXlXxS
-Clayton Sayfie (@CSaif23) November 13, 2023
In old-school professional wrestling parlance, Harbaugh is willing to play the role of baby or heel, whatever gets the crowd going. National loudmouths Black-smith And Finebaum took the bait and pulled.
Hero or anti-hero? It works in both cases. Chants of “Free Jim Harbaugh” rocked Madison Square Garden during a Wolverines basketball game Monday night. Poor, persecuted and misunderstood Michigan. The American team? You bet. This nation adopted Dexter for 8 seasons. Dark heroes are fun when the good guys are jerks.
Anyone who saw Moore’s sobbing love ode to Harbaugh after the game — and similar adorations from various players — knows there are several dozen Michigan men who will run through walls for the former quarterback of the Wolverines who became an enigmatic head coach.
Don’t mess with Jim. Our Jim. Teflon Jim.
All teams attempt to create an “Us against the World” narrative from scratch, but most teams don’t completely believe their own constructs or rallying cries.
This one does it.
