Another recruit has a funny/weird Harbaugh take: "I'll grow on you".

You don’t have to join every thread to defend Harbaugh.  From what I read above, it’s strange.  To the recruit feeding information to the reporter, it was strange.

I'm disappointed that he seems to have given up the tree climbing and sleepovers!

The recruit didn’t say Harbaugh was “different”…he said Harbaugh was “weird”.  Massive difference.  
 

Isn’t it Harbaugh’s job to do more than literally anyone on the planet to make Michigan football succeed?

"Hasn't received a fair shake"   . This is a joke right?? Right!?!

Those are all correct, except limitations on who he can recruit.  But that is for any M coach.  

No other Michigan coach has had to coach in the B1G East and play a 9 conference game schedule. Had Michigan been playing in the older Legends/Leaders division's, Harbaugh would have had trips to Indy. All things equal, it would still probably be the same team with no wins against Ohio State but the program would look better. 

Michigan State was able to put together a great run with 4 out of conference games and ducking Ohio State. Suddenly when they couldn't do that any more their program came back down to earth. 

First, it's not the same Harbaugh. 2015-2016 looked like Stanford/49ers Harbaugh--fiery, passionate, explosive--and in 2015-2016 he seemed well on his way to building a program commensurate with what he had at Stanford and San Francisco. From 2017 on, he's been an emotionless zombie, 180 degrees from the reputation he came in with, and too often the team seemed to play the same way. How many time since then, especially on the road, has the team come out of the gate completely flat? That's one example.

There are other things, too, that have seemed to change with him as well. He came in with a reputation as a relentless competitor, determined to outwork his opponents and explore every potential advantage he might be able to use. We saw this with hiring analysts, hosting satellite camps, restructuring practices to maximize efficiency and reduce player down time, etc. Then all of a sudden the creativity stopped. We've heard reports that recruiting was an understaffed, unorganized cluster. Nobody seemed on the same page with respect to game plans or scheme. And it goes on. That doesn't sound like a man who was so relentless to win that he'd outwork you at every step. The passion/emotion is clear for anyone to see, and I'm tempted to say that here, too, he's just not the same person. But maybe at least on this point the creativity was never actually him. That he supplied the work ethic, but the ideas came from others. Some from his earlier stops never came here to begin with, like Greg Roman, who has at times been credited as the true driver of Harbaugh's previous innovative offenses. And of those that did follow him to Michigan, I'm not sure any are left, so it's possible that his more recent hires haven't picked up the innovation slack.

But whether it's solely due to him changing, or is coupled with losing the assistants that truly drove his reputation, it seems clear that the ingredients to his prior success just aren't here anymore.

I like Harbaugh, too. At Stanford he had Andrew Luck, which helped. The schedule, on whole, was also a bit lighter. But I still have optimism. 

Not sure if a coincidence he began to slide the moment he had his father nearby, and then another "elder" in Brown...wonder how much he deferred to them on things.  Now he's the elder again.

It has been clearly covered, repeatedly here, even on the main page. We were absolutely crippled this year by the few opt outs, and injuries early on. Combine that with a covid year with limited practice time, constant back and forth about what's the protocol, and so forth. The defense was being restructured in a not insignificant way. We lost almost all of our best players. Shit happens. Sure some teams did fine through it, but everything should be taken in context, and I don't think that's really happening here. Harbaugh, IMO, has showed everywhere else, and his first four years here that he is a first rate coach, and I don't see how anyone can dispute that. He is a first rate human being, as far as I can tell, he cares about the well being of his players. He graduates players. He prepares them well for the NFL, for those that make it. 

I understand frustration, I feel a lot of that. But I try to look at everything, and weigh it as fairly as I can, removing emotion to the extent that I can. Still can't help but feel for the guy. I maintain that with a stable, cohesive staff (we'll see I guess), and a QB, O line, solid defense... he will prove a lot of folks wrong. I hope he does that.