Jim Harbaugh owns the Big Ten after Michigan transformation nobody saw coming | Opinion
albeit with a pay cut and a contract that made it easier for the school to fire him. Adding it all up, the 2021 season was pretty much do-or-die.
But even the most optimistic vision of how Harbaugh’s last charge up the hill might play out didn’t account for this. In a mere two years, Harbaugh has flipped everything on its head. Michigan isn’t just back to being really good, after Saturday’s 45-23 destruction of No. 2 Ohio State — this time in Columbus — he suddenly owns the entire Big Ten.
How do you like him now?
On paper, this Harbaugh resurgence doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sure, the Wolverines put it all together last year, finally breaking through against Ohio State for the first time. But that was in Ann Arbor on a bad weather day when Michigan had the best player on the field in Aidan Hutchinson. There were rumors that Ohio State was stricken by a team-wide flu bug. Maybe it was a fluke.
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Surely things would flip back in 2022. Ohio State was bringing back more offensive talent than any team in the country and overhauled its defense to emphasize the toughness and physicality the Buckeyes lacked in last year’s matchup. Michigan, meanwhile, was still projected to be a good team but had lost other big-time playmakers on defense like Daxton Hill, Josh Ross and David Ojabo in addition to leading rusher Hassan Haskins and two key offensive linemen.
speaking at a fundraiser for a pro-life political group in Michigan.