Wolverine Digest

Column: Michigan Football facing harsh truth of its post-Jim Harbaugh reality

Matt Lounsberry

Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
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Losing one of the best head coaches in all of football is never easy at any level, but it's hard to imagine a much worse start to Michigan's post-Jim Harbaugh era than what we've witnessed this fall.

There was near universal agreement among college football analysts and talking heads, Michigan's athletic department and the football team's remaining players, and much of the fanbase that Sherrone Moore, Harbaugh's second-in-command, was the right choice to be the next head coach of the Wolverines. It was viewed as the best and easiest way to continue what Harbaugh had built in Ann Arbor.

The problem is, outside of Moore and a handful of returning veteran stars on the roster, everything else that Harbaugh had established was gone by February.

The defensive coordinator from his brother's coaching tree? Gone. The quarterback who got the Wolverines over the hump in the biggest games and most crucial moments? Gone. The defensive backs coach to helped turn Michigan's secondary in arguably the best in the country? Gone. The strength and conditioning coach largely credited with changing the culture in Michigan's locker room? Gone.

Jesse Minter, J.J. McCarthy, Steve Clinkscale and Ben Herbert only make up a portion of what the Wolverines lost this offseason. Moore was hired largely with the idea of continuity in mind, yet everything else around Michigan's new head coach changed immediately after he was hired. In hindsight, no one should be surprised by the result.

In many ways, it's unfair to judge Moore based on seven games, four wins and three losses, following the best three-year run of Michigan football in modern memory, maybe ever. Instead of continuity, Moore largely had to start from scratch with less than two months between Harbaugh's departure (Jan. 24) and the start of spring practice (March 18).

At the same time, given the disaster that's been Michigan's offense and quarterback situation, and a defense that has regressed and largely disappointed this season, it's hard not to question whether U-M athletic director Warde Manual made a mistake in not finding an experienced and established head coach to replace Harbaugh. The fear was that hiring someone outside the program would wipe away everything Harbaugh built. It happened anyway.

Bad coaching hires — whether Moore eventually proves to be one or not — have devastating effects for college programs. Michigan should know that better than most. It stacked two such hires back-to-back with Rich Rodriguez (2008-10) and Brady Hoke (2011-14), and the Wolverines became a national afterthought and a relic of the past as a result.

Those hires also allowed Michigan's two biggest rivals — Ohio State and Michigan State — to establish a dominance in those respective series. Even Harbaugh, as good of a coach as he is, took years to get over the hump against the Buckeyes and never truly owned the Spartans the way many thought he would during his tenure.

Ohio State isn't going anywhere. Barring some catastrophic, unforeseen circumstance, the Buckeyes will remain one of the best programs in the sport each and every year. Michigan State, meanwhile, is already seeing positive results from its decision to hire Jonathan Smith away from Oregon State. If Smith's track record is any indication, the Spartans will only continue to get better.

That puts more pressure and urgency on Michigan to be sure it has the right guy leading it's football program. Manuel will almost assuredly give Moore another year, at minimum, to establish himself and rebuild the program according to his vision.

However, the path ahead is strenuous, to say the least. Michigan will lose more key pieces to its 2023 national championship again this offseason in cornerback Will Johnson, defensive tackles Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, and tight end Colston Loveland. Players of that caliber are not easy to replace.

If Manuel and Michigan were wrong about Moore, the 2024 season won't be the only year that feels like a return to the Rich Rod and Hoke era in Ann Arbor.

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Matt Lounsberry
MATT LOUNSBERRY

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