Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan legacy? Wins, controversy and an unforgettable nine years
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Legacy.
These days, that word feels like it carries a different meaning when it comes to the lexicon of college football. OK, during these strangest of college football times, every word feels like it carries an altered definition from the one it was assigned oh so many years ago. Like, I dunno, 2019?
As Jim Harbaugh departs the college game for the NFL Cinematic Universe, completing his trilogy of transitions from campus to the big leagues — Michigan to the Chicago Bears as a QB in 1987, Stanford to the San Francisco 49ers as a head coach in 2011 and now Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers, also as head coach — we find ourselves tasked with characterizing the legacy of a decidedly different sort of college football character.
Earlier this month, that was an easy task when it came to Nick Saban (the GOAT!) and even Jerry Kill (the scrappy program reviver!). But when it comes to the Michigan Man who just left Michigan, it’s not that simple. Nothing about Jim Harbaugh ever is.
He is as befuddling as he is beloved. Misunderstood by at least as many people as he is revered. If the college football world were a Facebook page, we would all — Wolverines and otherwise — have to click on the relationship status line that reads, “It’s complicated.”
I’m willing to wager that most people reading these words right now might think Harbaugh’s tenure in Ann Arbor was a relatively short one. But it was not. He spent nine full seasons on the sidelines of The Big House. That is three times longer than his first head-coaching stint at San Diego and more than twice as long as his four year terms on The Farm and up the road with the Niners.
Those same people might believe he struggled mightily during the first half of his near-decade at Michigan. Again, he did not. His teams posted three 10-3 records and averaged more than nine wins per year over his first five seasons, earning five straight New Year’s bowl berths.
That perception of failure comes from that handful of games in which Harbaugh did struggle, the 18 losses that countered those 48 wins, most of which came in the only games anyone dressed in blue truly cares about, a pile of defeats against Michigan State and Ohio State and a 1-4 record in those postseason games through 2019. His 2020 pandemic season brought an abysmal and abbreviated 2-4 mark.
But the three years since represent what might very well be the greatest multiple-season run in the Wolverines’ 145-year history: a record of 40-3 with three straight wins over Ohio State, three consecutive Big Ten championships, three College Football Playoff appearances in a row and, this year, and the program’s first unanimous national title since 1948.
All of that time, all nine years, was punctuated with a seemingly endless litany of stories that felt bizarre as they happened; but with the benefit of even some short hindsight, we can now view them as images of a man with willingness to buck the college football system.
Call it pioneering. Call it wild. Just as long as you wind up calling it all unique.
Since June 2015, his first year on the job, our brains have been seared with the vision of shirtless 51-year-old Harbaugh slinging passes during his coaching staff’s “Summer Swarm” barnstorming football camp tour. But what you might have forgotten since is the mission behind that road trip, holding workouts in Florida, California, Pennsylvania and — gulp — Alabama. His QB skins game was held in Prattville, about 90 minutes from Tuscaloosa. Even now, the Yellowhammer State message boards are crimson with anger.
It was two years later that he led his team into Rome. The one in Italy — not the ones in Alabama or Ohio — where Harbaugh sang opera and gifted Pope Francis with a maize and blue helmet.
There is no word to describe the inner beauty that shines through the eyes of our Holy Father and his words… “Pray for me” pic.twitter.com/doUpeajuRp
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) April 26, 2017
In the years that followed, the Wolverines walked alongside their coach onto the beaches of Normandy and through the streets of Paris and South Africa. The trips were pricey (the tabs were picked up by Michigan donors) and were criticized by non-Wolverines as grandstanding. But at worst, they were unconventional, and as Harbaugh himself pointed out, college basketball programs had made similar trips for decades.
Then, as we all remember, there were the wacky recruiting tales. Harbaugh mimicking DJ Khaled’s “How’s business? Boomin’!” to try to lure a California defensive back. Harbaugh climbing a tree in a recruit’s front yard to prove his own NFL-honed upper-body strength. Harbaugh sleeping on the couch of top-ranked kicker Quinn Nordin so they could have a conversation the moment the recruiting dead period ended at midnight that night, only the first of a slew of sleepovers he’d planned for that winter.
And we haven’t even mentioned the khakis.
But while we were all cracking jokes about the coach’s quirkiness, all of those goofy stories proved to be building blocks for what was to come. The barnstorming into the Deep South and out West? This year’s national championship roster included eight players from Georgia, seven from Florida, five from Tennessee and at least one representative from Louisiana, South Carolina and even one from Alabama. Those overseas trips resulted in days of live coverage on SportsCenter and, in the words of assistant coach Mike Hart, “So many recruits asking us, ‘Where are we going next year?”‘ And as for those kooky social-media-saturating tales from the recruiting trail, Harbaugh’s inaugural 2015 Michigan haul was ranked 40th by ESPN. But 2019, it was up to eighth, having finally made a run through the SEC talent blockade. The next year’s group included Blake Corum, Roman Wilson and the core of this year’s CFP-winning roster.
Then again, that class came with an accompanying NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that ran afoul of the restrictions implemented because of the pandemic. This is also the part where Harbaugh critics will remind us of his two separate three-game suspensions this season, with investigations ongoing into both the recruiting violations and, of course, the sign-stealing mess that doesn’t show any, ahem, signs of going away anytime soon. Even now, after the man who was CEO of the program accused of implementing a way-too-nuanced signal-deciphering network, has packed up his khakis and headed back to the pros, the cloud hangs over the program.
So, we find ourselves once again staring at that trisyllabic word that, these days, carries so much more heft and complication than its six little letters would suggest.
Legacy.
If you rise and fall each day humming “Hail to the Victors,” then the Jim Harbaugh legacy might very well be simple to you. He came home pledging to return his alma mater to college football’s top rung and he did just that. There’s a big ol’ silver-and-gold trophy they just put in Schembechler Hall to prove it. But the reality is there won’t be a period at the end of his block-M chapter until the investigators are done and their final reports are read aloud. When that will happen, no one knows. When it does, it might all prove to be much ado about nothing. But it could also go in a very different, very destructive direction.
Then, and only then, will we truly know what the Jim Harbaugh legacy will be. All we know for certain right now is that he will not be in Ann Arbor when that happens.
See? Complicated.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe in his left foot during an off-the-field incident and missed the opener of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ highly anticipated series against the New York Yankees on Friday.
Betts is not expected to go on the injured list, according to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, but he will not start against the Yankees on Saturday or Sunday. Roberts said the hope is that Betts will return to the lineup shortly thereafter.
“For me, right now, it’s just day-to-day,” Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 8-5, come-from-behind win.
The incident, which affected the tip of Betts’ second toe, was believed to have occurred late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip, when Betts banged his toe against a piece of furniture at his house. Betts called Roberts to inform him about his toe on Friday morning, then underwent X-rays at Dodger Stadium later that afternoon.
Those X-rays revealed a fracture, a source told ESPN, confirming what Betts told the Los Angeles Times after Friday’s game. The Dodgers’ training staff will spend the weekend attempting to get the swelling down on his toe. At this point, the Dodgers don’t believe he can make the injury any worse by playing on it.
Said Roberts: “It’s going to be one of those situations per his [pain] tolerance.”
Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.
Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.
But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.
“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.” The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.
The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Arizona.
The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.
The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.
Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with eight home runs and five stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proved to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.
The hope is that the toe injury doesn’t set him back much longer than the rest of this weekend.
In the meantime, Miguel Rojas will continue to get starts at shortstop.
“It’s a good part about having depth,” Gomes said. “Keep the train moving.”
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.
Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.
“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”
The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.
“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”
Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.
Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.
But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.
“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”
The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.
The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.
The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.
The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.
Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.
But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.
At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.
“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”
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