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Jim Harbaugh: AP/PFF Coach of the Year Comment Count

Seth December 10th, 2021 at 2:09 PM

Harbaugh has been voted the year’s best coach in the country by the Associated Press.

Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell, who took the Bearcats to the playoffs and an undefeated regular season, finished second. Harbaugh received a plurality (22) first place votes of the 53 cast, with Fickell (16), Baylor's Dave Aranda (5) MSU's Mel Tucker (4), and Utah State's Blake Anderson (3) the others receiving more than one vote.

The Football Writers Association of America also named Harbaugh a finalist for their Coach of the Year award, which will be announced on December 20. The FWAA often, but not always, chooses the same winner as the AP. Harbaugh was also Pro Football Focus's choice for the award.

CoY awards usually go to coaches of small schools having historic seasons or coaches of blue blood programs bouncing back from historic lows. Performance relative to expectations is a (de facto) primary component. The last ten AP CoYs were Jamey Chadwell (Coastal Carolina), Ed Orgeron (LSU), Brian Kelly (Notre Dame), Scott Frost (UCF), Mike MacIntyre (Colorado), Dabo Swinney (Clemson), Garry Patterson (TCU), Gus Malzahn (Auburn), Brian Kelly again, and Les Miles (LSU). Harbaugh is the first Michigan head coach to win the AP’s designation, which they’ve been giving out since 1998 (Bill Snyder). The FWAA winners of those years were the same except they chose Bill Clark (UAB) over Kelly in 2018, Kirk Ferentz (Iowa) over Swinney in 2015, and Mike Gundy (Ok St) over Miles in 2011.

Clearly, Harbaugh falls in the latter category. After his 2-4 season in 2020, Harbaugh agreed to a restructured to make him easier to buy out. That also occurred well into January, IE after the NFL coaching carousel stopped spinning. Harbaugh jettisoned several longtime and grizzled assistants—including at OL coach and defensive coordinator—replacing them with guys in their 30s in the mold of his recently Broyles-winning OC Josh Gattis. Needless to say most of the fanbase, including this space, were not optimistic that the gambles would work out.

Harbaugh and his young staff are now Big Ten champions, ranked #2 in the country with a 42-27 win over Ohio State and a berth in the college football playoffs. They’re currently ranked 4th in SP+, with the #16 defense and #7 defense to Bill Connelly, plus the #1 special teams unit to Brian Fremeau’s FEI.

The new contract does have a clause that pays Harbaugh a $75,000 bonus for winning this award, but since he decided to donate all of his bonuses this year to those who took a paycut in the athletic department during last year’s COVID cutbacks, that’s just more good news for them. Harbaugh finished one vote behind MSU head coach Mel Tucker for Big Ten coach of the year.

Comments

ca_prophet

December 10th, 2021 at 7:29 PM ^

Well done!

I had hope that we'd get here, and was liking the way recruiting was going with the new coaches, but figured that it would take a year or two for everything to gel.  I was expecting this year to be on the upswing with next year being the real make-or-break ...

... but here we are.  The view is spectacular; let's stay a while!

 

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turtleboy

December 10th, 2021 at 8:30 PM ^

So the B1G COTY won just under 10% of the AP COTY vote. Sounds like the AP knows better. On a total side note its just so strange thing that 5 of the 10 winners have now been fired by their programs, two by LSU, not so strange that one is replacing another, even if it is only Brian Kelly. He'll probably make it 3 for LSU. They need to reevaluate things, it would seem. 

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waittilnextyear

December 10th, 2021 at 9:24 PM ^

I'm a sucker for a good redemption story, and this is really a WHOPPER of a redemption story. I'm not sure we can really even put how massive of a turnaround this has been into proper context. Yet.

I mean, for Harbaugh to win COY and Gattis to win the Broyles, Moody to win the Groza, Hutchinson to be a QB-bias away from the Heisman (along with his other hardware), the offensive line to be finalists for their collective award etc etc...this has to be some bizarro Al Borges fan fiction we are living now? Right?

Oh, and did I mention that Michigan beat Ohio State this season? No? Well, then I should really mention that Michigan beat Ohio State. It was the type of game a tough team plays against a finesse team sick with the flu.

Anyhow, mea culpa, I was originally not totally on board with Harbaugh's hire around Christmas of 2014. I knew we needed a change from Brady Hoke's missing headset letting a concussed Shane Morris run for his life against Minnesota. But, I also thought we suffered from structural and systemic issues (admissions too selective, weather too cold, program too clean, and all the variety of self-serving excuses one can make for Michigan; not that there aren't actual issues, mind you) such that no one man could just show up and be "the savior." I'm still not sold on the Great Man theory of college football, but being in the CFP does indicate that MICHIGAN can and has overcome any structural and systemic issues, even in modern college football.

Don't get me wrong, Harbaugh had an undeniably superlative record at various stops as a coach before Michigan. He also had a reputation as a gamer (and a bit of an asshole) as a player. But, I chalk that "asshole" part up more to me growing up a Packers fan when Harbaugh played for the Bears (I'm a little too young, by a handful of years or so, to clearly remember Harbaugh playing at UM).There was also the matter of his 49ers throttling my Packers a couple of years running (in much the same way that a tough Michigan team might physically dominate a finesse Ohio State team beset by the flu). "What's your deal?" is what I wanted to ask him at the time. Pete Carroll would agree there. And Pete's own reputation is unimpeachable.

Moral of this rambling and incoherent story? Monty Python get on with it voice... 

To go from savior/prodigal son to outcast and back to savior/prodigal son again is really an epic redemption story. I mean, he breezed into Ann Arbor back in 2014 after we thought that would never happen, and with the Michiganosphere fawning over everything he said/did. Things were really great for a couple of years. Then, J.T. was short. Then, times got tough and Harbaugh gained weight (seemed to have a change to his affect as well), times got a little tougher, and then the pandemic hits and we hit rock bottom along with it. But, then he comes back out guns blazing, 30 pounds lighter, as if he just got a breath of fresh air for the first time in years, and the man just gets the job done. It's truly incredible.

I now have egg on my face (and I'm nowhere near the rabidly vocal critic that some have been in calling for Harbaugh's job) and I really hope Coach Harbaugh gets to bask in this moment. Bask in it for a good, long while. I hope having success "going home again" is every bit as meaningful to him as we all think it might be. And, I also hope our AD takes the temperature of this situation and starts enhancing the man's contract yesterday!

Oh, and just in case I didn't already mention it, Michigan beat Ohio State this season.

Michigan - 42

Ohio State - 27

The Flu - 0

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