Winners of three outright Big Ten championships in a row, something never before achieved in program history.
Three consecutive appearances in the College Football Playoff.
Win or lose in the Rose Bowl matchup on New Year’s Day against Alabama, three top-five finishes in a row for the first time in the poll era.
Even without a national championship on the ledger, it’s possible to view this as the most accomplished three-year run in the modern era of Michigan football.
And it was all expected eight seasons ago, when Jim Harbaugh returned to the program after a highly successful run at Stanford and in the NFL. Harbaugh was viewed as the perfect fit across multiple levels: As someone who knew the program and, more importantly, knew how to win.
But it wasn’t easy. Even with the Rich Rodriguez era nearby in the rearview mirror, the 2020 season stood as perhaps the low point in modern program history: Michigan lost four of six games while struggling to field a complete team amid the coronavirus pandemic, leaving Harbaugh’s future in serious doubt and coaching reputation at an all-time low.
‘If you did a poll of Michigan fans, I’m not sure if Harbaugh comes back,’ said John Bacon, an author and journalist who has written extensively about the program. ‘People forget that pretty quickly.’
In the wake of that season, Michigan hasn’t necessarily been reinvented but retooled and reimagined – younger, tougher, bruising, bullying and overflowing with confidence, the Wolverines have finally matched the expectations that came with Harbaugh’s arrival.
Three years after that low point, widespread coaching changes, the development of one of the top quarterbacks in program history and the evolution of Harbaugh himself could yield the program’s first national championship since 1997 – when it shared the title with Nebraska – and first outright title since 1948.
‘It was a pivotal point in 2021 for Michigan, for them to take an absolute trust fall and let it fly,’ said Big Ten Network analyst and former Michigan tight end Jake Butt. ‘It has paid absolute dividends.’
The coaching youth movement
Six assistant coaches were let go following the 2020 season, including well-regarded defensive coordinator Don Brown, and only two returning assistants remained in the same position.
While it’s not uncommon for programs to replace one, two or three assistants in a given offseason, the rash of moves reeked of desperation – decisions akin to shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, typically reserved for head coaches grasping at straws or given the ultimatum to make changes or else.
Rather than postponing the inevitable, the coaching changes are the biggest driver in Michigan’s return to national prominence.
Harbaugh’s first run of hires, beginning in 2015, leaned toward veteran and established coaches; this steadiness helped Michigan right the ship coming out of the Brady Hoke era but, by 2018 or 2019, seemed to cap the Wolverines’ progress.
That changed following the 2020 season. Of the six new hires, only one, co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs Steve Clinkscale, was over 39 years old. Clinkscale, then 42, was the oldest on-field assistant coach on Michigan’s staff.
‘That, to me, is the pivot point,’ Bacon said.
The youth movement sparked innovations on offense and defense as Harbaugh ceded some control over schematics to younger and less proven assistants; while some of these coaches have since been replaced, the variety of younger voices with fewer ingrained coaching concepts has helped Michigan blossom into one of the most complete teams in the Bowl Subdivision.
Going young has also helped build relationships that have reaped dividends in recruiting and the transfer portal.
While Michigan continues to rank second or third in the Big Ten in the annual team recruiting rankings, behind Ohio State and often Penn State, the Wolverines’ classes have fewer misses and enviable retention, with only one scholarship player currently in the portal. Michigan has also flourished with bringing in transfers, often pinpointing players at specific positions who are earmarked for starting roles.
‘I think there was a concerted effort on Michigan’s part to bring in assistant coaches who were not just great coaches but excellent recruiters,’ said Allen Trieu, who covers Midwest recruiting for 247Sports.com.
‘I think prior to that, they targeted assistant coaches who were more known for their coaching acumen. With this group of hires, it’s really paid off in recruiting.’
The development of J.J. McCarthy
Another factor has been the development of junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy, a two-time all-conference pick who completed 74.2% of his throws this season with 19 touchdowns and just four interceptions.
‘I think the big difference is at quarterback,’ Trieu said. ‘They haven’t had a guy in there who was a top recruit out of high school that they developed for several years. That’s the biggest difference. I think the rest of the roster makeup is pretty similar to other rosters at Michigan.’
McCarthy has 41 touchdowns and just nine interceptions since becoming the Wolverines’ full-time starter last year, building a case for being the first Michigan quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL draft since Harbaugh himself in 1987.
The Harbaugh-era quarterbacks who preceded McCarthy were steady, at least, and often better than that: Jake Rudock, Wilton Speight, Shea Patterson and Cade McNamara were reliable passers who protected the football and fit snugly into a less-than-innovative offensive scheme.
McCarthy is a different sort of quarterback: dynamic, explosive and oozing with next-level talent, he’s easily a match for the other three quarterbacks in this year’s playoff – Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., Texas’ Quinn Ewers and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe.
‘He checks every box,’ Butt said. ‘What you have with J.J. is a guy who has been in the same system for three years. So you can understand, naturally, you progress by learning the system, learning the calls.’
The evolution of the program can be seen in the Wolverines’ evolution in quarterback play. McCarthy isn’t a game manager or complementary piece; he’s the centerpiece of the offense and the driving force of a unit that has bulldozed every opponent on this season’s schedule.
‘His leadership is what sets him apart,’ Butt said. ‘Guys follow J.J., and when your best player is your best leader and he leads by example, that’s culture.’
A changed Jim Harbaugh
If almost imperceptible from the outside, Harbaugh has taken dramatic steps within the program to alter the ‘more is more’ ethos that helped Michigan quickly turn things around and win 38 games in his first four seasons.
He remains college football’s biggest lightning rod. Harbaugh stands in the middle of two stories that threatened to engulf Michigan’s regular season: one, allegations of rule violations committed during the COVID-19 year that saw him suspended for the first three games of the regular season, and two, the sign-stealing scandal focused on analyst Connor Stallions that resulted in him being suspended for three games before the Big Ten championship.
But amid all the noise, ownership of the program has shifted. Rather than control every aspect of the Wolverines’ day to day, Harbaugh has ceded much of these rights to his coaches and players. In a nearly night-and-day shift from those early seasons, Michigan represents more of a democracy than a dictatorship.
‘He has put the coaches more in charge and the players more in charge,’ said Bacon. ‘He’s delegated a lot more and trusted his people a lot more than before.’
If not necessarily Harbaugh 2.0, he’s been more willing than ever before to allow others to provide input and feedback, and adapt when needed. One example is his delegation of responsibility to current Charlotte coach Biff Poggi, who spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons as Harbaugh’s consigliere, counselor and conduit to the locker room.
Another can be seen in how he’s placed his absolute trust in strength coach Ben Herbert, whom Harbaugh has called the ‘X-factor in our entire football program.’
‘You can just see that the culture has completely changed,’ Butt said. ‘Harbaugh has completely changed. Their perception of themselves and the belief in their ceiling has completely changed.
‘Michigan knows very clearly who they are right now.’
There’s still a big piece missing from Michigan’s résumé: a national championship. The 2021 team was humbled by eventual national champion Georgia. Last year’s team took TCU lightly and was embarrassed. The next step is to beat Alabama and the winner of the Sugar Bowl between Washington and Texas to cement this stretch as the greatest in modern program history.
‘We’ve accomplished many of our goals, and now winning it all is what we had also put on the goal sheet,’ Harbaugh said.
‘That’s what we’ll turn our one-track mind to, to this next opponent and playing Alabama in the Final Four, and we’ll do what we always do. We’ll play, we’ll prepare, we’ll practice, and get ready to give it our very best.’