The main difference between Jim Harbaugh and Juwan Howard

When Jim Harbaugh was first hired as Michigan football coach, Wolverines fans around the country and globe rejoiced. It seemed like finally, a Michigan Man would take us to the promised land.

Harbaugh’s first few years went relatively well, but Michigan football fans were always holding on for even more success. Fast forward into Harbaugh’s seventh year at Michigan, and his program is slowly eroding.

To us U-M football fans who want the program to be successful, it is extremely disheartening that this is happening. We all criticize Harbaugh from time to time (there’s plenty of times when it’s deserved) but at the end of the day, we are all fans of the program and just want to see consistent winning seasons with playoff appearances.

Heck, I’m sure now if Michigan made the playoffs every three seasons with a win over OSU squeezed in every three, fans would be fine with that. That would mean the series is so much more competitive, and U-M actually makes the playoffs every few seasons. We as fans just need something to grab on to and hope for at this point in Harbaugh’s tenure.

That’s also another reason why a lot of these hyped players and team expectations get blown out of proportion. It is not because we necessarily truly believe it deep down 100%, but it is because we just need something to hold on to and hope for.

It’s sad what has happened to the Michigan football program. The only reason U-M fans aren’t just downright depressed completely right now is because Juwan Howard and the Michigan basketball program bring us joy and relief during the basketball season. At least we have one sport we can root for without feeling super disappointed every season.

When Juwan Howard came to U-M, his welcome party was almost the complete opposite of Jim Harbaugh’s.

Yes, Michigan fans and players welcomed him with open arms, but there were many more questions about how his coaching would translate to the college level. He’d never been a college head coach before, having come from the NBA, unlike Harbaugh, and that was seen as a potential red flag to many around the college basketball world.

The main difference to me in the results for both programs and why one is doing so well and the other is trending down is the difference in philosophy and circumstances.

Jim Harbaugh came to Michigan with fame and national prominence. Harbaugh was a true bonafide celebrity in his respective sport before he even set foot at Michigan.

I don’t know if some of the fame started getting to Harbaugh’s head, but it seems like he’s started to become a little lackadaisical with his coaching performances, and recruiting the past few years. Harbaugh can’t rely on his assistant coaches to do everything for him. He needs to be as hands-on as much as possible from here on out in his coaching and his recruiting.

This is probably the first time in Harbaugh’s head coaching career that he’s gone through this much adversity. We don’t know if Harbaugh can truly handle it. He hasn’t been tested to this level before. Well, he has been tested, and he’s failed multiple times already.

The difference between Howard and Harbaugh is culture

With Juwan Howard, as mentioned, he didn’t have even close to as much fanfare coming in. Harbaugh overall is a lot more of an outspoken coach than Howard is. Howard is more calm, calculating, and collected, while Harbaugh is more outspoken. But the thing that separates the two right now is the hands-on stuff like I mentioned, and also distractions.

Sometimes, the cooler heads in the room prevail. You don’t always need a shiny new toy to be successful at a school. Jim Harbaugh was that shiny new toy. We all hear the stories. Juwan Howard is very hands-on. Juwan will talk to a recruit’s family, he will talk to a recruit, he will pull a player aside during practice and work with him one-on-one. This all helps the program grow.

Juwan Howard actually gets involved and interacts with his players and treats them like his own kids. Juwan does the same thing with recruits. Every recruit that Howard has ever recruited has mad respect for him (and not all of them even chose UM!). They only have good things to say about Juwan. And when it comes to the film room, players love to dissect Juwan’s brain (just ask incoming transfer guard DeVante Jones).

Juwan always has his guys truly prepared for any situation. He really hammers home the fundamentals of the game of basketball and is always hands-on. He takes nothing for granted. Juwan always has a chip on his shoulder too, just because people didn’t want to believe that he could be a college head coach and be successful.

With Juwan Howard, it’s humbleness, gratefulness, and togetherness (a family). We heard that so much last basketball season.

Juwan talked about it all the time. The players echoed his words. With COVID, and the team getting shut down for three weeks last year, it was very hard on the players. They got through it though and ended up having a very successful season.

With Jim Harbaugh, we’ve heard horror stories in the past about him alienating his recruits. The Isaiah Wilson and Rashad Weaver stories come to mind. Now, we can’t always believe every single thing these recruits say, but nonetheless, it’s still a bad look for the Michigan football program for these recruits to bad-mouth the program.

All in all, it just seems like Juwan Howard takes his job much more seriously than Jim Harbaugh.  Harbaugh’s in his seventh season at Michigan already, and it’s fair to wonder if he’s just growing bored with it, even a little bit.

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Juwan seems to have a chip on his shoulder and is much more hands-on with everything, with his coaching, and his recruiting.

Howard takes nothing for granted, helps out his assistant coaches whenever possible (and shouts them out a lot too), and just actually coaches. Harbaugh seems more laid back and not as engaged with his players and coaching staff (and that’s unacceptable at this point in his UM tenure). No wonder the results haven’t been great on the gridiron lately.

Juwan Howard respects every opponent and takes every opponent very seriously. Also, when something isn’t working, he’s very flexible and adaptive, and willing to mix it up (he has position-less basketball for Pete’s sake and is following the current trends of how the game is going).

Harbaugh seems indifferent at times and seems like he could honestly care less about certain games (The Game comes to mind). He’s often very stubborn (and unwilling to make adjustments when something isn’t working) and isn’t very adaptive or creative at all.

It took him forever to adjust to the modern game of football and how it’s much more of a pass-oriented league (the days of the ground-and-pound is slowly getting weeded out).

So the question is: will Harbaugh act more like Juwan Howard and have that chip on his shoulder, or will he keep up with his same old ways? I know one thing is for sure: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.