Michigan Football: What Jim Harbaugh is missing about bowl games

Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh addressed players skipping bowl games in a podcast and said skipping them hurts legacies. Is he right?

Jim Harbaugh is a firm believer in offering up his opinion and this week, the Michigan football coach once again offered his thoughts on a hotly-debated issue: Bowl games and players skipping them.

Of course, this wasn’t even an issue five or 10 years ago. But over the past few years, more and more players have started to skip out on bowl games. Last season, Michigan football had four starters sit out against Florida as Devin Bush Jr., Rashan Gary, Karan Higdon and Juwann Bushell-Beatty all skipped the Peach Bowl.

Bush did have a legitimate injury, one that he suffered against Ohio State. Thus, he wasn’t 100 percent and you can see why he skipped. But Gary, Higdon and Bushell-Beatty could have played but decided not too. They each had their NFL draft stock in mind and wanted to avoid getting hurt.

While that’s understandable, it also rubs many fans and coaches the wrong way, Harbaugh included. Here’s what the Michigan head coach said on the Pardon My Take podcast:

"“I think it hurts somebody’s actual legacy, too, just what they’re about. A competitor is going to compete. They’re going to go out there and compete. Everybody talks about it. They’re a competitor, I’m a competitor, ‘I’ll compete at everything. I’ll compete at golf or I’ll compete at Tiddlywinks.’ You hear people say that all the time, but then they don’t go actually play in a football game. To me, now you have a problem with who you are as a competitor and your legacy.”"

It’s hard to disagree with what Harbaugh says. Players often talk about how competitive they are and yes, Gary was one of those guys.  But Higdon was too and he also balked at playing, even though a solid performance against Florida would have helped his draft stock.

That point is valid and if you want to say players aren’t living up to their word, that’s legitimate. But if you also want to question how much bowl games impact legacy, that’s also a valid debate.

Take Rashan Gary. Would Michigan football fans celebrate him more if he played in the Peach Bowl and helped the Wolverines win? Possibly but I doubt it. It would have helped, but it wouldn’t wipe away the losses to Ohio State. It wouldn’t have changed 62-39.

Bowl games are glorified exhibitions, preseason games if you will. Some still matter such as the playoff games or the Rose Bowl, but outside of that, the New Year’s Six is a flop.

If bowl games still meant something, players wouldn’t skip them. Do you think Gary or Bush or Higdon would skip the Big Ten title game? No. Why? Because those players came to Michigan football to play for championships, not to try and win the whatever-sponsor-is-next Bowl.

So until bowl games are made important again, players will continue to skip them. No one cares about being Sugar Bowl champion or Orange Bowl champion anymore. 20 years ago, winning the Sugar Bowl meant something to SEC teams and rightfully so.

That was the goal, win the SEC title and play for the Sugar Bowl. If it all worked out, maybe you could win the national title. The Big Ten and the Pac-12 were the same way with the Rose Bowl. It was a destination and a goal all in itself, remember the run for the roses?

Everyone had a tie-in and that made those games really important. Now, any bowl outside of the playoff feels like a cheap consolation prize.

Therefore, the solution isn’t to criticize players or to try and make them feel guilty for skipping these games. Instead, we need to make bowl games matter, by making them part of an expanded playoff or drastically reducing the number to make qualifying for one mean something.

But unless the system is changed, top-flight players like Devin Bush and Rashan Gary will keep skipping these games, not because they aren’t competitive, but because the majority of bowls are utterly meaningless.