Michigan Football: Better Today Than Four Years Ago?

A fitting question given the fact that it is election eve in the United States of America. Every four years, candidates hold campaign rallies all across the country in hopes of earning your vote. For purposes of this article, however, the candidate in question isn’t running for President of the United States - he’s running your football team.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought the Michigan football program was heading in the right direction during Brady Hoke’s final year in Ann Arbor, a year in which the Wolverines finished with a 5-7 record and missed the bowl season for just the third time since 1975. The results were simply unacceptable for a program like Michigan. Change was not only needed in Ann Arbor, it was demanded.

Enter Jim Harbaugh.

I won’t spend an awful amount of time reminding you of how excited the Michigan fan base was upon learning that Jim Harbaugh, Captain Comeback, the ultimate Michigan Man, would become the 20th head football coach for the Michigan Wolverines football team. Suddenly, it seemed that the path back to greatness was inevitable for a Wolverine program that had suffered through nearly a decade of mediocrity at the hands of Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke.

In his first year back home, Harbaugh wasted no time reassuring Michigan fans that the Wolverines were indeed on that path back to greatness. Even with painful rival losses to both Michigan State and Ohio State, the Wolverines managed to finish with a 10-3 record, including a Citrus Bowl win against the Florida Gators.

The following season (2016), Harbaugh had his Wolverines within an inch (literally) of a trip to Indy for a shot at the Big Ten title and a spot in the College Football Playoff. The Wolverines looked absolutely dominant throughout the year, climbing to a 9-0 record and ranked No. 2 in the country. A painful one-point road loss to Iowa was a setback, but not enough to take the Wolverines out of title contention. Michigan would drop to No. 4 following the loss to Iowa, but eventually make their way up to No. 3 by the time they met Ohio State for the final game of the season.

It was ‘The Game’ that everyone in Ann Arbor and Ohio State expected when Jim Harbaugh took the position. It was No. 2 Ohio State vs No. 3 Michigan. It was Meyer vs. Harbaugh. It was for a shot at a Big Ten title and a trip to the playoffs. It was everything that the two fanbases had grown up expecting from their programs - two college football blue bloods squaring off in the greatest rivalry in all of sports with everything on the line. The game did not disappoint. Michigan and Ohio State battled all afternoon and it required not one, but two overtimes to settle it. The Wolverines would ultimately lose the battle that day by three points, but most Wolverine fans took solace in the fact that Harbaugh had finally reestablished Michigan as a perennial top-10 football program that would compete for conference titles year in and year out.

As we now know, that wasn’t the case. Not even close.

Since that infamous battle with the Buckeyes in 2016, Harbaugh and his Wolverines have routinely cemented themselves as the third best team in their division year in and year out. Back-to-back historic losses to the Buckeyes have made a trip to Indy seem like light years away. While other Big Ten teams not named Ohio State have found ways to break through, the Wolverines continuously find ways to stay put. There’s been no breakthrough season and no reason to believe that one will happen anytime soon.

This isn’t where Michigan was supposed to be by year six of the Harbaugh era.

So the question is worth asking: Is Michigan better off today than it was four years ago? The answer is a resounding ‘NO’.

In 2016, Jim Harbaugh was a fiery sideline personality with a roster that was capable of playing with anyone in the country. In 2020, Harbaugh appears to be a shell of his former self with a roster that just handed Paul Bunyan back to a Spartan team that is in a rebuilding year with a first-year coach. What's worse, Ohio State is once again a college football juggernaut that has every intention of dismantling the Wolverines on December 12, and Michigan already looks like a team that will be unable to stop it.

I get the hesitation by some who fear getting rid of a coach like Jim Harbaugh. After all, if Harbaugh can’t win in Ann Arbor, who can? At the same time, this program doesn’t feel any closer to a conference title in 2020 than it did in 2016. In fact, it feels much, much further away. The days of blaming Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke are long gone, and the current reality of Michigan Football falls directly at the feet of Harbaugh.

So here’s where things stand six years in under Jim Harbaugh: 0-5 against Ohio State, 3-3 against Michigan State, 1-4 in bowl games, and 1-8 against top 10 teams.

The sample size is big enough to determine who Michigan is at this point, the only remaining question is whether or not you (as a fan) are okay with that?