Michigan Football: Jim Harbaugh ranked among top 20 college coaches

CBS Sports and 247Sports came out with a list of the top 25 Power Five college football coaches entering the 2019 season and Michigan football’s Jim Harbaugh made the top 20 in both.

CBS Sports

CBS Sports created the list ranking the top 25 Power Five college football coaches with the help of their college football writers who voted on the top coaches. Michigan football‘s Jim Harbaugh made the list at No. 15.

"Jim Harbaugh’s reputation has taken some hits the last few years, but he has a slight rebound in these rankings after a steep drop last year. Harbaugh had been ranked at No. 5 in 2017 before dropping 15 spots last year. Now, after his third 10-win campaign in four season at Michigan, he’s back in the top 15. Still, the one thing that will define Harbaugh both as a coach and at Michigan is his ability to beat Ohio State and win Big Ten titles. He’s done neither to this point. 2018 rank: 18 (+3)"

Harsh but true words spoken from the CBS Sports writers who put Harbaugh smack dab in between Chip Kelly from UCLA and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald who rank 14 and 15 respectively.

247Sports

247Sports also put out their rankings a few days ago which listed Jim at No. 17, again just one spot behind UCLA’s Kelly.

"Is Harbaugh worthy of his sizable paycheck in Ann Arbor? One of the nation’s highest-paid coaches, he reportedly made $7.5 million during the 2018 season after receiving a 10 percent raise on both his base salary of $500,000 and additional compensation of $4.5M. His total salary also include $2M in premium advances — all for a coach who is 38-14 overall with the Wolverines and hasn’t played in a Big Ten Championship Game nor beaten Ohio State over four seasons … Shaw is 82-26 at Stanford with three Pac-12 titles during a coaching tenure which began in 2012."

Both writers are really jabbing that conference title knife right into Harbaugh’s neck. Regardless, Harbaugh has brought three ten win seasons to Michigan Football and everything is trending in their favor.

Trending toward Michigan football

This is the first time since 2007 that Michigan football has led the Big Ten in recruiting and aside from the injuries in the backfield, the Wolverines are set at every position offensively.

While there were several departures on defense, Don Brown has gone on record saying this is the most depth he’s had as a defensive coordinator. Brown went one step further by saying defensive lineman Kwity Paye might be the best football player in the country.

In other good news, the No. 1 in-state recruit just announced his top five schools and Michigan made the list. Justin Rogers is a 6-foot-2.5-inch 311-pound guard who 247Sports ranks as the No.1 guard in the county and the 30th best football player out of the entire 2020 class.

It was also announced that 2020 four-star running back recruit Blake Corum placed Michigan in his top four schools. Michigan is competing with LSU, Kentucky, and USC for the Baltimore superstar. Corum is currently ranked as the No. 17 running back and the No. 8 ranked football player coming out of Maryland.