Making coaching change decisions based on this season is loony.
I agree and I'm having a hard time figuring out where I stand on this.
Note first that I am not speaking here as an Ohio State fan trying to degrade my school's primary rival but rather from the perspective of "if I were a Michigan fan what would I want?" and/or the "if I were Michigan's AD, what would I do?"
I understand Michigan fans pain at repeated losses to Ohio State. I'm old enough that I was in Jr. High, HS, and college while John Cooper was coaching at Ohio State. I was an Ohio State fan for all of that time and a student on campus for five of those seasons. In the five seasons that I was in Columbus the Buckeyes went 1-4 against Michigan. Additionally, they went 0-4-1 the five seasons prior to that (when I was a tOSU fan in HS and Jr High) and 1-2 in the three seasons after I left Columbus. I get it. I feel your pain.
In some ways Michigan's current futility against Ohio State is worse than Ohio State's futility against Michigan under Cooper. Chiefly this is because this streak is longer. In the 19 seasons since Cooper was dismissed the Wolverines have only beaten Ohio State twice and one of those was under Coach Carr way back in 2003. Since Lloyd Carr's last win over Ohio State the Wolverines have only beaten Ohio State once in 16 tries and that was in Ohio State's down year under Fickell in between Tressel and Meyer. Yeah, it is bad.
OTOH, Michigan's current futility against Ohio State is not as bad as Ohio State's futility against Michigan under Cooper in the sense that at least Michigan is losing to REALLY good teams. In the 19 years since Cooper was let go the Buckeyes have the best winning percentage in the country BY FAR. From 2001-2019 the Buckeyes went 199-39 for a winning percentage of 0.836. Michigan hasn't lost to an obviously inferior Ohio State team since 2004. Under Cooper, Ohio State lost as the superior team repeatedly. Trust me, that is incredibly frustrating. IMHO, losing to NC Contenders is a lot more forgivable than losing to mediocre teams like Cooper frequently did.
All of that said, I think it is unwise to base your HC hire/fire decision largely on "performance against rival". IMHO, it is too much of a moving target both ways:
- If your rival is REALLY, REALLY good (like Michigan's has been for the bulk of the last two decades) then losing to them is somewhat forgivable.
- OTOH, if your rival sucks then simply beating them isn't THAT big of an accomplishment and shouldn't be enough (by itself) for your HC to keep his job.
In the CFP era tOSU, Bama, and Clemson have basically been in a class by themselves. The three of them have, by far, the highest winning percentages in the nation for 2014-2019. Each of the three has won more than 90% of their games. Outside of those three, only Oklahoma has won more than 80% of their games (and only barely at that). Here is how their chief rivals have done against them over that time-frame:
- Auburn is 2-4 against Bama
- USCe is 0-6 against Clemson
- Michigan is 0-6 against tOSU
I don't think that means that the HC's at Auburn, USCe, and Michigan suck, I think it is simply a reflection of the fact that Bama, Clemson, and tOSU have been on an incredible tear.
All of Michigan's losses under Harbaugh (with opponent's final record and final AP ranking except this year's losses since those are not yet known)
- 2015 Utah, 10-3, #17
- 2015 MSU, 12-2, #6
- 2015 tOSU, 12-1, #4
- 2016 Iowa, 8-5, ORV
- 2016 tOSU, 11-2, #6
- 2016 FSU, 10-3, #8
- 2017 MSU, 10-3, #15
- 2017 PSU, 11-2, #8
- 2017 UW, 13-1, #7
- 2017 tOSU, 12-2, #5
- 2017 USCe, 9-4, ORV
- 2018 ND, 12-1, #5
- 2018 tOSU, 13-1, #3
- 2018 UF, 10-3, #7
- 2019 UW, 10-4, #11
- 2019 PSU, 11-2, #9
- 2019 tOSU, 13-1, #3
- 2019 Bama, 11-2, #8
- 2020 MSU (currently 1-2, unranked, and looking awful)
- 2020 IU (currently 3-0, #10, and looking great)
It is looking like the loss to MSU this year will be Harbaugh's first to a team that didn't even receive votes in the final poll. Of the 18 losses from 2015-2019:
- 2 were to teams that wound up almost ranked (ORV Iowa in 2016 and ORV USCe in 2017).
- 1 was to a team that finished ranked #17 and that was Harbaugh's very first game as HC.
- 2 were to teams that wound up ranked #11-#15 (#11 UW in 2019 and #15 MSU in 2017)
- 13 were to teams that wound up ranked in the top-10 including five in the top-5.
My point is that with the ONE exception of MSU this year, Harbaugh isn't losing to bad teams. In fact, he is even doing pretty well against good teams. The only place where he is NOT doing well is against great and elite teams and well, nobody does very well against great and elite teams.
