Michigan Football: 3 reasons why it’s too early to panic

Harbaugh knows what he’s doing

In this day and age, honeymoon periods don’t last long and Harbaugh’s ended abruptly after the loss to Michigan State. But do people actually believe his job should be in jeopardy?

Certainly, fans aren’t the most rational people (I know from experience as one) but come on, we can do better than this. I ask you this question, without Harbaugh, where would Michigan football be? And think really hard before you answer.

Remember when Harbaugh took over, how everything was in shambles? Brady Hoke had one good year. One. The others were not so good and he never came close to making Michigan a national title contender.

In Jim’s first year, he had the Wolverines in the top 10. In 2016, Michigan football was near the top five until the very end. Yes, they have come up short. But, when he came on board, I remember hoping for eight wins seasons, now UM has had 10 wins, in 2015 and 2016. And that mark is reachable again, for a third straight year.

Harbaugh needs to win more rivalry games and the 1-4 mark isn’t good enough. He knows that, but what you should know, is that when Harbaugh drops a game, it usually to someone pretty good.

He has seven defeats as head coach, two to Michigan State, two to Ohio State, one to Iowa, one to Utah and one to Florida State. That’s all seven and in case you didn’t notice, those were all good teams. And all but one (the first Ohio State loss) was close.

Michigan needs to learn to win big games, but at least, it has never lost to a bad or mediocre team. So that should give us all hope down the stretch. Even if UM just wins the games its supposed to, it should go 8-4. That sounds bad to some, but given where the program was a few years ago, it’s still not bad, especially after losing 11 starters to the NFL.