Harbaugh, Michigan may be stuck in mediocrity

Early last Saturday, a pair of football games unfolded on my television, and each took wildly divergent paths. One, Cal’s win at Ole Miss, an SEC school, was surprising. The other was shocking. That, of course, was Wisconsin’s 35-14 blowout of Michigan. And for a brief moment, I began to wonder: What if colleges were able to trade coaches, and what if Cal’s Justin Wilcox — who has led the Bears to a 4-0 start — were traded to Michigan straight up for Jim Harbaugh? Which program would feel like it got the rawer end of that deal? 

It has been five years since Harbaugh departed the Bay Area for Ann Arbor, and it would appear the worst-case scenario I’ve long speculated about has unfolded: The Michigan coach is too good (and perhaps too high-profile) to fire, but his teams aren’t good enough to compete physically with the upper-echelon programs in the Big Ten. 

Just like the Wolverines got overrun by Ohio State last November, they got trampled by Wisconsin’s run game and physicality, and that points to a fundamental weakness that even Harbaugh admitted traces back to him.  How is that fixed? That’s the frightening part. I’m not sure Harbaugh knows. I’m not sure anyone knows. 

Harbaugh already made changes heading into this season, ceding the playcalling duties to new offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. I'm sure he tried to build up this team’s mental fortitude in the offseason, but it sure as hell didn’t show up last Saturday. 

On the surface, this stasis makes little sense. Harbaugh has recruited well, in part because his comic bluster has raised the national profile of the program. He finally has a talented quarterback in Shea Patterson, and while there are always growing pains in installing a more wide-open offense — as Gattis has attempted to do — that doesn’t account for the yawning gap of last weekend: The Badgers ran for 359 yards to Michigan’s 40.  Is that something that can be fixed on the fly heading deeper into Big Ten play? Because this feels like something more than merely a program adjusting to new schemes. 

The 20th-ranked Wolverines (2-1), who barely beat Army, are 91st in the country in scoring offense and 75th in passing offense. Defensive coordinator Don Brown’s normally aggressive and physical unit is 114th in rushing defense and 68th in scoring defense. Everything, in other words, is mediocre. And this now feels less like a team that was waiting for the right quarterback to come along and more like a team that can’t seem to catch up with modernity — and isn’t ever going to be able to keep pace with an offense like Ohio State has. 

The season is not a lost cause; it’s possible No. 8 Wisconsin (3-0) is the best team Michigan will face this season. The Wolverines get Rutgers (1-2) at home this weekend, which might be a perfect way to right their equilibrium. If they can beat Iowa the following week, they could build some momentum before back-to-back road games against Illinois and Penn State. But those home games against Notre Dame and Ohio State are looking increasingly formidable, and I’m not sure how long any Michigan coach can survive without beating Ohio State a single time, even he is a beloved alum who’s getting paid rafts of cash and regularly draws national headlines. 

So imagine, then, that you could make the trade I mentioned above. Harbaugh would get a soft landing back in the Bay Area at a program with far lower expectations and far fewer moving parts. Wilcox, a defense-oriented coach, would get a chance to prove that his methods could rebuild Michigan into a tougher, more Big Ten-ready team. 

It’s not going to happen, which, weirdly enough, may be too bad for Michigan. Because short of Harbaugh himself deciding that he’s done all he can and moves on, I don’t know what else can happen here. Michigan is officially stuck, and I’m not sure if anyone knows the way out.