Even before Jim Harbaugh accepted Michigan’s offer to become the Wolverine’s 19th head coach last December, the buzz was deafening.
It was the Saturday after Christmas, and I spent the afternoon on the phone with insiders about the search for a coach. Once I heard the Harbaughs had a flight scheduled for Monday, and a hotel reservation, I was done wondering if the deal was for real.
But it was 10:30 at night, so I thought there was no point in tweeting the news at that hour. My wife told me I might as well, so she could stop hearing me talk about it. So – fine, I tweeted it.
“It’s done. Jim Harbaugh is coming to Michigan – and his friends are flying in Monday.”
I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed, then checked my twitter account one last time – and almost spit out my toothpaste. The thing was exploding. I gained a few thousand followers before I was done with my molars, and did phone interviews until 1:30 in the morning.
And that was just the beginning.
The Harbaugh hype hasn’t stopped. Fox Sports decked out a bus in Harbaugh’s trademark khaki. Yes, a bus, fitted top to bottom in actual cloth, and drove it from New York to Utah for Michigan’s first game last week.
Now, Utah’s a solid team. The Utes beat Michigan’s two previous coaches, and were favored to beat Michigan again last week.
When people ask me to predict Michigan’s record this season, I say probably 8-4. Remember, last year’s team was 5-7 – and they got all those losses the old-fashioned way: They earned them.
But more important, Michigan fans are going to see serious, hard-nosed football on both sides of the ball — 60 minutes of honest-to-goodness blocking and tackling — for the first time in years.
And that’s what they did Thursday night: a flawed team that still has a lot to learn played 60 minutes of old school football, every play.
But their longest run was seven yards, and quarterback Jake Rudock, who transferred from Iowa, missed some wide open receivers, and threw three interceptions. Michigan lost 24-17 – as expected.
So the Harbaugh hype has died down a little – and perhaps that’s not a bad thing. It’s hard to imagine it getting much crazier – but if the Wolverines had managed to pull it off, the hype would have soared to even more unrealistic heights.
So what’s next? Harbaugh’s old coach, Bo Schembechler, always said teams improve the most from the first game to the second – and that’s good news for the Wolverines. They’ve got Oregon State coming in this weekend, followed by UNLV and Brigham Young, which just beat Nebraska on a Hail Mary pass.
But as former athletic Director Bill Martin once said to one of his coaches: We don’t expect you to win right away. And if you did, it would worry us, because that means you’re probably not doing it the right way.
Harbaugh will do it the right way, and that is going to take some time. Not what Michigan fans want to hear, but after everything Michigan’s football program has been through the past decade, that might be the best news they could get.
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My latest book, “ENDZONE: The Rise, Fall and Return of Michigan Football,” will debut at #6 on the New York Times’ Bestseller List this Sunday. THANK YOU!
Thanks also for packing Michigan’s Rackham Auditorium last Tuesday, and the events at M-Den, Grand Rapids and Flint.
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After 12 years, I’ve handed over my “Off the Field” slot on WTKA to my good friend Jamie Morris, who launched his new two-hour show, “A View From the Backfield,” last year. He’s returning this fall, and I’ll be joining him Sunday, August 30, to talk about my next book, “ENDZONE.”
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I was watching TV, this week and Warren Buffett shared his personal motto, when trying to turn around a flailing company, “Do it right. Do it fast, but do it right first.”
That would be my feedback to Michigan Football. Do it right. Do it fast, but most importantly do it right. I know Bo would have stood by that and I’m pleased to see that Harbaugh is going to do it that way. It doesn’t make this season fun, but just like what Beilien built it will be worth the wait.
Thank you for the comments.
Jb
Smart approach, Jason, and thank you for your kind words.
I see you’re predicting 8-4. I was looking at 7-5 figuring there are 3 games that would take a minor miracle to win and concerns over the games AT Maryland, AT Minnesota and AT Penn State, figure 1-2 in those 3 games. With PSU getting their heads handed to them by Temple last week – TEMPLE?!?! Does Temple have a football team? – I am looking more at 8-4 as well. GO BLUE!
Penn State’s loss to Temple was one of the biggest surprises for me in the first quarter of the season, and Maryland’s loss to BGSU right up there, too. Like you, I though Michigan might struggle on the road against Minnesota, Penn State and Maryland, but perhaps those games are not as perilous for Michigan as I had first believed.
-JUB
Look forward to seeing you in Cleveland on 9/30. Great book! Loved it. Who would have thought Hagerup would end up being a main character?
I know this is way down the list of current topics, but with respect to the Gibbons case am always curious about how the DOE can change the burden of proof in a sexual assault case retroactively. There is such a thing as ex post facto and even Hammurabi had it in his code, along with an earned income tax credit.
It could be that I am delusional, but I did write the “can” for the Constitutional Law class at UM Law in 1961 and I’m curious as to why it is not at least mentioned by those writing about it.
Great thanks, Jerry, and good question. The entire manner with which the Dept. of Education has handled sexual assault on campuses, including retroactively changing the burden of proof, is a bit of a mystery to me. It’s clearly as serious a subject as any university faces, yet I think it’s rarely been handled with the care it deserves.
You were clearly ahead of the curve in 1961!
-JUB
John,
“Endzone” is not only your best book, but the best sports book I have ever read! Congratulations on the great reviews from everyone and on your debut near the top of the New York Times bestseller list! Your success is well-deserved!
Best regards and Go Blue!
Bennie
Great thanks, Bennie!
Harbaugh expects to win now, so I am with him! I was a freshman when he was a Senior at U of M. It is time for people to remember why Michigan Football has been revered over time!
It is time to have Great Expectations and not for tomorrow, but right now! Seems to be the time to bring in high character, hard working and team oriented recruits. We need young men who sacrifice for “The Team, The Team, The Team”.
Tell it like it is and will be.
When Bo was our coach (1969- 1989), I expected Michigan would win every time I entered Michigan Stadium. I have the same expectation for Jim Harbaugh. Michigan is back !
I know all too well the “struggle” JUB had with the “info”… The reality is that JUB wanted “any other” media member to break the story. I contacted Joe Schad of ESPN and Tim Rohan of the New York Times. Schad tried to get the story through his editorial staff at ESPN and they refused to run it because Adam Schefter had better information then us (hardly since we already knew). Tim Rohan never called me back.. Adam Schefter went 0-11 predicting the Jim Harbaugh destination.. i could have gone to Vegas and made a few bucks , but in the end, that is “way bad karma” to profit off inside info. I would have never made it on Wall St…
That left JUB, who was the ONLY media guy(on the single largest sports story of 2014) that had a clue. JUB knew he had a responsibility to release the story and did.. Like I have said all along, move over Mitch Albom, you have a new contemporary on the march to Papa..
Great thanks, John! Many of you readers will recognize John as the captain of the 1979 team, and one of the leaders of the movement to recruit Harbaugh back to Michigan, mentioned in the book, Endzone.
Thanks for your note!
-JUB
The sources of all Harbaugh related info , as JUB described in the book ENDZONE, were John “Hoss” Ghindia and Todd Anson, both close friends of coach.. Their story is profiled correctly in JUB’s masrepiece.. If you have not yet got a copy, the time is now.. GO BLUE
John,
Thank you for writing “Endzone.”
Such a sad story, with, however, what we hope will be a happy going-forward. I have so many comments on the book I don’t know where to begin. So I’ll just say,
Go Blue.
Fred Barrett U-M 1958
Great thanks, Fred!