Is 2020 A Make Or Break Year For Harbaugh?

Success has been plentiful for Michigan football under Jim Harbaugh, but significance has been elusive.

Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports

When Jim Harbaugh was hired, not even Paul Finebaum would've predicted the Wolverines would head into year six of their distinguished alum's tenure still chasing a win over Ohio State and a Big Ten championship. Let alone not have a single quarterback recruited by Harbaugh, renowned quarterback whisperer, drafted into the NFL.

Yet that is precisely the situation Michigan finds itself in with the 2020 season about to begin.

On the other hand, Michigan has already spent more weeks ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press Poll under Harbaugh than it did total the decade before he arrived. The Wolverines have also become am NFL farm team once more. And Harbaugh has not only ended Michigan State's dominance of the instate rivalry, he has so decimated the Spartans they are now rebuilding from ground zero.

There's a lot to like there, on top of how well he's lead the program off the field and used his bully pulpit to take stands on issues most other coaches shy away from. Oh, and lest we forget, he's still one of the most decorated quarterbacks in the program's illustrious history.

Nevertheless, the trophy case at Schembechler Hall hasn't needed any extra space added to it for quite some time now – 15 long years and counting. To the point that history has become every Michigan fan's favorite subject. And with no signs the juggernaut in Columbus is slowing day any time soon, the maize-and-blue faithful are losing hope that grueling title drought is going to end in the near future.

In other words, Michigan is mired in college football's friend zone. Too close to the hot chick/guy to cut bait and move on, but with waning optimism the relationship will ever progress from there. An old saying goes "there's no such thing as a lukewarm hell." But that is exactly where the Wolverines reside these days.

Listen to much of the college football punditry talk and you'd think Michigan is a losing program. Except the Wolverines are one of the 10 winningest Power Five programs in the country during Harbaugh’s tenure. The perception says one thing, the actual numbers another. But this is what happens when you achieve success while significance eludes you.

Bowl games aren’t the reward they used to be. Now every team with a pulse goes to one. And you don’t get to share conference titles like Bo Schembechler, Gary Moeller, and Lloyd Carr did a dozen times from 1969-2004, either. There’s only one champion every year now, and the Wolverines are the most decorated program in the country to never even make their conference’s title game. For fanbases of top programs in this playoff era, it’s pretty much conference championship or bust these days. The only acceptable consolation prize is making/winning a New Year’s Six bowl. Anything less feels like the football equivalent to playing in the NIT.

So is this a make-or-break year for Harbaugh?

I hate even having this conversation. Harbaugh is one of my all-time favorite players. I’ve loved the guy since childhood. At the same time, I’ve lost my faith as a fan things will change if I’m being honest.

Still, if I looked at this question objectively and not as a heartbroken fan, I would answer no that it’s not a make-or-break year. Given the young talent on this year’s roster, how loaded the 2021 team looks like it could be, and how good recruiting has and is going, it just seems silly to eject now and start over given those circumstances.

But that is the tantalizing temptation of the friend zone. That this time when they call you in the middle of the night it’s not just because they need a sounding board, but something more. Unfortunately, they rarely do. Once you’re in the friend zone, you almost never get out. Then again, Harbaugh became the first Michigan quarterback to ever throw a touchdown pass in the NFL, thus there’s precedent when it comes to him bucking the trend.

So are the Wolverines closer than ever, or so close yet so far away? Depends on whom you ask.

Only Harbaugh can truly answer.