Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Michigan has tried the breaking the bank route already.

Honestly, Harbaugh was as good a bet as anyone, particularly if you were going to spend big money.

So if that didn't work, what now?

Presumably you go through a normal coach hiring process where you look at the best folks coming up right now, rather than trying to poach someone with as much money as can be scrimped together. Because unless you think you can get Saban or Sweeney, there really isn't any point in breaking any more banks.

BUT, it's 2020, so does this season even count? Maybe Harbaugh gets a pass on that basis alone.

The results Michigan is getting is about the best they can hope for, but their fans can’t get past the inevitable losses to Ohio State, similarly to how SEC fanbases start unfairly holding losses to Alabama against their coach. The reality is that the SEC has little current solution for beating Bama and the ACC and Big Ten have no solution for expecting to beat Clemson and Ohio State. With Michigan splitting even Vs rivals Penn St, Michigan St, and Wisconsin, keep Harbaugh and learn to live with losing to the Buckeyes every year. At this point, firing Harbaugh because he can’t beat Ohio State shows as little understanding of reality as Jack N the Box firing their new CEO for failing to sell as many burgers as McDonalds.

To this point, ESPN has a story today about the 25th anniversary of Northwestern's 1995 Purple to Pasadena team.

The byline says "The 1995 Wildcats didn't win a title or even a bowl game, but their sudden rise from league laughingstock to Big Ten champs occupies a special sliver of college football history."

Didn't win a title?  A national title?  OK.  That could not have been farther from the narrative at the time

That's not the byline. And if I'm looking at it correctly, it's not something to read too much into editorially. Basically, whoever wrote that didn't do it for the sake of imparting meaning to one point or another. 

It has to do with the SEO of the story. I could get into the nitty-gritty if you want, but sufficed to say, it's a set of throwaway words for the most part. 

Northwestern won a game like that against Michigan, about ten years before that. 

The results Michigan is getting is about the best they can hope for, but their fans can’t get past the inevitable losses to Ohio State, similarly to how SEC fanbases start unfairly holding losses to Alabama against their coach. The reality is that the SEC has little current solution for beating Bama and the ACC and Big Ten have no solution for expecting to beat Clemson and Ohio State. With Michigan splitting even Vs rivals Penn St, Michigan St, and Wisconsin, keep Harbaugh and learn to live with losing to the Buckeyes every year. At this point, firing Harbaugh because he can’t beat Ohio State shows as little understanding of reality as Jack N the Box firing their new CEO for failing to sell as many burgers as McDonalds.

Disagree. On a lot of this. 

Alabama was a dumpster before Saban got there. He turned it into what it is now. Florida was wandering in the wilderness post Spurrier. Until they landed Urban. And he took that program up to another level that even Spurrier didn’t reach. And then they went right back into the wilderness after Urban left. USC and Texas are the biggest glaring examples of why this game is all about the coach. They should be dominating every year just based on recruiting grounds. And they don’t. They both struggle as programs. Why? The coach.

This game is all about the coach. 

Harbaugh is a really good coach. He’s just not an elite one. I think maybe we were all duped by his stunning upset of USC and his one year of big success at Stanford. Looking back- upsets happen. Maybe he got too much credit for that. And let’s be honest- he went 12-1 with a veteran Andrew Luck. A guy that to this day is still the best NFL QB prospect since Elway. As good as Burrows was and Lawerence is- both pale in comparison as NFL Draft prospects. And Andrew Luck was for the most part living up to that billing until a rash of serious injuries ended his career prematurely. 

Then Jim went to the NFL and coached a team that had a loaded roster. He benched Alex Smith and inserted Kapernick- who had an amazing 2 year run- but looking back the league caught up to Kapernick and figured him out- and he never got any better. Kapernick regressed every year and starting stinking up the joint before he ever knelt- and now he’s out of the NFL and probably never coming back. He was a gimmick player in a gimmick offense- and as always the nfl defenses catch up to these tricks. 

We all thought Harbaugh was some QB whisperer- he isn’t. I think it was ELA who said it best- Harbaugh is a QB maximizer- not a developer. There’s a huge difference. Jim’s a pretty good coach, not a great one, and certainly not an elite one. 

You put Meyer at Michigan in 2011 instead of Hoke or Saban at Michigan in 2007 instead of RichRod and they’d have built juggernauts there too.

Disagree. On a lot of this.

Alabama was a dumpster before Saban got there. He turned it into what it is now. Florida was wandering in the wilderness post Spurrier. Until they landed Urban. And he took that program up to another level that even Spurrier didn’t reach. And then they went right back into the wilderness after Urban left. USC and Texas are the biggest glaring examples of why this game is all about the coach. They should be dominating every year just based on recruiting grounds. And they don’t. They both struggle as programs. Why? The coach.

Alabama was 10-2 and a top 10 team two years before Saban arrived. Florida was three years removed from finishing No. 3 in the country. That's not much of a dumpster fire and not much of a wilderness. 

The game is about the coach, but some places are easier and some places are not. At points, historically, Michigan has been that school, but it's less so now. It can still get to 10-2. The elite coach can get it better.

But the elite coach mostly has better options, so Michigan has to go find a coach it thinks can be elite and get him early. 

Alabama was 10-2 and a top 10 team two years before Saban arrived. Florida was three years removed from finishing No. 3 in the country. That's not much of a dumpster fire and not much of a wilderness.

The game is about the coach, but some places are easier and some places are not. At points, historically, Michigan has been that school, but it's less so now. It can still get to 10-2. The elite coach can get it better.

But the elite coach mostly has better options, so Michigan has to go find a coach it thinks can be elite and get him early.

Michigan was 11-2 and a top 7 team two years before RichRod arrived. Your point is....what? 

Alabama was a dumpster fire under Shula minus one lucky ass year. No different than Hoke who got incredibly lucky one season and went 11-2. Shula was 4-9, 6-6, 10-2, 6-6. I'd consider that record a dumpster fire- and so did the Alabama brass- and it's what got him fired. 

Florida was in the wilderness under Zook. They were 8-5, 8-5, 7-4 under Zook. That's what got him fired. Spurrier was at Florida for 12 years. He won 10 or more games in 10 of those 12 years. The two times he didn't win 10 or more games- he went 9-4. He never won less than 9 games in 12 years. Zook couldn't even get to 9 wins. They were in the wilderness compared to what they had been under Spurrier.

There aren't very many better options than Michigan. Still. They can go into any state in the country and land 5* kids. A recruiter like Meyer or Saban would clean up there.

This is an excellent example of my "consistently good" metric when it comes to coaches.

Zook was above .500, and I'm assuming in bowl games every one of those three years. But they weren't "consistently good" enough for him to keep his job, because the recruiting and expectations at Florida are high enough that those records are not good enough.

The thing is, Florida wasn't some powerhouse before Spurrier though. A decade plus of dominance, and Spurrier turned them into a power. Florida wasn't going to be OK with 7 or 8 wins, after what Spurrier had just did the previous 12 years. Zook's biggest problem is probably that he just wasn't Steve Spurrier.

They rectified that situation fast though, because in came Urban Meyer who immediately turned it around and won 2 National Titles and 80+% of his games coached at Florida.