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Jim Harbaugh joins elite group of football coaches with this latest impressive feat

There's no doubt he's one of the best coaches in all of football...

Matt Lounsberry

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Wherever Jim Harbaugh goes, winning closely follows.

In his first year as head coach in Los Angeles, Harbaugh has led the Chargers to a 6-3 start in the 2024 season, coming off a year in which L.A. had won just five games prior to Harbaugh's arrival.

With a 27-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, Harbaugh reached 50 wins as an NFL coach, making him just the fifth football coach all-time to reach the milestone in both the professional and collegiate ranks.

Of the five coaches to win 50 games in both college football and the NFL, only Harbaugh, Pete Carroll and Jimmy Johnson won a national championship in the collegiate ranks. Carroll, Johnson and Barry Switzer are the only coaches to win both a national title and a Super Bowl in their coaching careers, a list Harbaugh is striving to join in his second stint in the NFL ranks. Harbaugh reached the Super Bowl as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2012, falling short against his brother, John, and the Baltimore Ravens that season.

Harbaugh's head coaching career began at San Diego in 2004, just three seasons following his final season as an NFL quarterback. There, he led the Toreros to a 29-6 record and two Pioneer league championships across three seasons.

Hired by Stanford in 2007, Harbaugh led a remarkable turnaround of one of the worst power conference teams in the country. The Cardinal had gone 1-11 the year prior to Harbaugh's arrival, but improved ever year under his leadership with records of 4-8, 5-7 and 8-5 over the next three seasons. Harbaugh's tenure at Stanford ended with an 11-1 mark and a No. 4 ranking in the final Associated Press poll in 2010.

Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh
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Harbaugh's first foray into the NFL began in 2011, where his ability to quickly turnaround struggling franchises went on full display. Harbaugh took over a 49ers team which had gone 6-10 the year prior, and led San Francisco to a 13-3 record and an appearance in the NFC Championship Game. Harbaugh would go on to lead the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance the next season before another NFC title game in 2013.

Following a disappointing 8-8 campaign in 2014, Harbaugh was inexplicably fired by San Francisco. The head coach had his pick of NFL head coaching jobs that opened that offseason, but instead chose to return to his alma mater, the University of Michigan. In Harbaugh's first five seasons in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines finished with double-digit wins three times, and no fewer than eight victories in a season. However, his lack of success against archrival Ohio State (0-5) put his future at Michigan in question.

After Michigan went 2-4 in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Harbaugh took a significant pay cut, made wholesale changes to his coaching staff and whittled his roster down to players who were solely bought in to the program. The change was immediate, as the Wolverines would go on a 40-3 record with three Big Ten championships and a national title over the next three seasons.

After multiple inquiries with NFL franchises in the year's prior, Harbaugh finally made the leap back into the professional ranks this past offseason, hired by the Chargers. Harbaugh has a 144-52 record (.734 winning percentage) as a collegiate coach, and a 50-22-1 record (.692) as an NFL coach.

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Matt Lounsberry
MATT LOUNSBERRY

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