Why Jim Harbaugh's return to his shirtless, steak-eating self is key for Michigan
Jim Harbaugh is listening. He’s also pulling sleds. Or, more accurately, pulled a sled in practice recently.
If that’s a sign he’s returning to his shirtless, sleepover-having self from half a decade ago, then the Michigan football program might just be back where it was when Harbaugh took over almost seven years ago.
You remember those days, right?
When the former Michigan quarterback was the hottest coaching candidate in the country? When he won 10 games his first year? When his team played with the sort of ferocity that he also displayed on the sideline? When this journey began with so much promise?
Of all the reasons the program fell off the last several seasons, none are as hard to quantify as the obvious change in Harbaugh’s pre-game, sideline and post-game demeanor. Something wasn’t quite right. And while struggling to find consistency at quarterback may be the most important on-field reason for Harbaugh’s struggles, his struggle to find himself wasn’t far behind.
He didn’t look happy. Nor did his team. Winning two games — even in a Covid-19-shortened season of just six games — will do that.
Yet the doldrums weren’t solely the result of last year’s losing. Harbaugh reworked his staff a few seasons ago without the results he’d wanted.
The question was: Now what?
It’s a question he and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel discussed in the winter during contract negotiations. Harbaugh wanted another crack. Manuel wanted to give it to him, but with a pay cut and a lower buyout.
Though Harbaugh started revamping his staff before the contract negotiations — most notably by replacing defensive coordinator Don Brown with Baltimore Ravens linebackers coach Mike Macdonald — Harbaugh followed that move with five others. He changed the recruiting coordinator, an acknowledgement he was losing too many of the state's prep stars. He also brought in a couple of fellow Michigan men in Mike Hart and Ron Bellamy.
Both played for the Wolverines. Both are under 40 (as are a couple of the other new hires). Hart, in particular, represents Harbaugh’s willingness to rethink how he does things. The two had a public spat when Harbaugh, then coaching Stanford, accused the program of steering players to easy majors.
Hart was heated, telling reporters in 2007 that Harbaugh wasn’t a “Michigan man” and that he wished Harbaugh had never played there. He was young when he said it. He was also angry. Eventually, as Hart moved onto coaching after a short NFL career, the two connected and here Hart is.
“I’ve said a lot of things in my life,” Hart said recently. “Youth. Inexperience. I think people say things when they’re angry. I learned not to say things when I’m angry, I’ll say that. Me and Jim are great. It didn’t just start with the hiring.”
That he is here, bringing “spice” to practice, as running back Blake Corum said last month, suggests Harbaugh was open to whatever he thought would make a difference. Hart doesn’t want to say he has changed the energy, but it’s noticeable in players' comments that the energy around the team is different.
Reports from fall camp are surely what Manuel hoped he would hear when he agreed to extend Harbaugh, giving him at least another season to fix things — though Harbaugh signed a four-year contract. He knows, though, that optimism this time of year goes only so far, and that wins must come or even bigger changes will follow.
“He’s always … thinking about how the team can be better no matter what the outcome of the seasons and so I think you saw some of the changes in staff and some of the changes he’s doing there,” Manuel said in March. “Very proud of the work he’s been doing with the staff he’s put together, some new and some consistent. I’m excited about it."
Harbaugh has sounded excited, too. He likes this team. He named a starting quarterback — Cade McNamara — and actually shared it with the public. He has said the new staff allows him to do what he loves the most: To coach, to roam from position group to position group, dropping knowledge and, occasionally, pushing sleds.
Will it make a difference?
Who knows? We’ve heard about change before. But this is still a coach who rebuilt Stanford and took San Francisco to a Super Bowl and invigorated Michigan the moment he stepped back on campus.
Yes, it feels like a long time ago. But it’s not as long ago as you think.
He hasn’t forgotten how to coach. Rather, he forgot how to be himself.
Surrounding himself with young coaches and getting back into shape — he said he’s down to his “playing weight” — and participating in drills, he looks a lot more like the man who took over his alma mater in December 2014.
Are the Wolverines getting the guy who once said: “I take a vitamin every day. It’s called a steak.”
Or are they getting the guy who appeared subdued a year ago?
Maybe you don’t care. Or lost interest during the pandemic. Or stopped believing before that. If you did, it's hard to blame you.
Harbaugh rode into town on an impossibly high wave, buoyed by the kind of hope and optimism and faith normally reserved for Sunday revival meetings. That faith was rewarded the first couple of seasons. Not so much the last few.
After a wheelbarrow of change, Harbaugh takes the sideline this Saturday with as much to prove as ever. His team is young in spots and led by new voices and faces, but there's a few familiar faces, too. If it works, and the team surprises and eventually rises, we’ll look back and celebrate the journey.
If not?
The next changes will be made without him.
Follow Shawn Windsor on Twitter @shawnwindsor.