College Football

Jim Harbaugh, Michigan have a plan to reverse bowl woes

Published Dec. 19, 2023 10:15 p.m. ET

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Michael Cohen

College Football and College Basketball Writer

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Now that Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has successfully shed the Ohio State-shaped monkey on his back by beating the Buckeyes three consecutive times, the section of his résumé still ripe for criticism is a dreary postseason record while in charge of his alma mater. Harbaugh defeated Florida in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1, 2016, to punctuate his first year in Ann Arbor with a win, but he's dropped six consecutive bowl games since.

There was a 33-32 loss to Florida State in 2016 and a 26-19 loss to South Carolina the following season. There was a 41-15 shellacking against Florida in 2018 and a 35-16 drubbing from Alabama one year later. Michigan failed to qualify for a bowl game during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign that called Harbaugh's job security into question, and the Wolverines came up empty in subsequent trips to the CFP, falling first to eventual national champion Georgia in 2021 and then upstart TCU last season. To avoid a third straight semifinal loss, Harbaugh will need to outduel arguably the greatest coach in college football history: Alabama's Nick Saban.

"Obviously you're not gonna want to lose three bowl games in a row," defensive tackle Kris Jenkins said this week. "I don't think anybody in this room has [won] a bowl game, so that's definitely sitting at the front of our mind."

In a broader sense, it was easy to characterize Harbaugh's unsightly 1-6 record in bowl games at Michigan as either an inability to match wits with opposing coaches when both sides have a month to prepare, or, given his fondness for former coach Bo Schembechler, an apathetic attitude toward bowl games relative to chasing Big Ten Championships and beating Ohio State. Schembechler, who coached Harbaugh in Ann Arbor from 1982-86, lost his first seven bowl games and ended his career with a 5-12 postseason record. Michigan was 1-4 in bowls during Harbaugh's time on the roster.

With Harbaugh as coach, the exterior notion that Michigan has prepared for the postseason with something less than maximum effort was exacerbated by the nature of its semifinal losses the last two years. A generationally talented Georgia team was simply too good for the 2021 Wolverines even if they had played well, which they didn't, but the eventual admission from quarterback J.J. McCarthy that players had been distracted by South Florida's beaches wasn't what most fans wanted to hear. Veteran linebacker Michael Barrett acknowledged that the team was "just happy to be there," after a fairytale season. A year later, the Wolverines lost to TCU after entering the game as 7.5-point favorites in what felt like an underestimation of the Horned Frogs.

But media sessions at Schembechler Hall this week have bathed the stumbles against Georgia and TCU in a different light when it comes to Michigan's level of preparedness. Rather than Harbaugh wishing he'd done more to chase the school's first national title since 1997, players and coordinators said one of Harbaugh's biggest takeaways from those games was that the Wolverines should be doing less ahead of next month's showdown with Alabama. 

"I felt like the last couple years we fell victim to paralysis by over-analysis," McCarthy said this week, "and just kind of getting over-detailed with too many things and overthinking things. I feel like this first couple weeks, we really just took things kind of light, easing into things and it's been kind of fresh every single day. I think that's gonna be the biggest difference of keeping it balanced."

McCarthy explained that Harbaugh, who hasn't spoken with reporters since the day after winning the Big Ten Championship earlier this month, contacted coaches around the country to pick their brains about different ways of preparing for bowl games. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter described Harbaugh as having a "win or learn" mentality in football and life alike, and subpar performances in back-to-back CFP semifinals meant the Wolverines had plenty to learn.

Breaking down Michigan-Alabama, Washington-Texas

What followed were significant adjustments to the team's December practice schedule that Harbaugh believes will keep the Wolverines physically and mentally fresh between now and New Year's Day. To preserve their bodies, Harbaugh slashed the number of padded practices and allowed for more rest between the ones he kept. Sessions were divided into competitive days and walk-through days with an emphasis on tempo for both. The amount of time players are spending at Schembechler Hall remains unchanged; only the toll on their bodies is different. 

"I think it's easy to look back and be like, ‘Well, we must not have prepared well,'" Minter said this week. "I think that's a nonsense thing to say. That would discredit our players last year and their mentality. But we certainly didn't play at our best, so you look at it and you try to figure out why. You try to figure out the things you can do leading up to the game."

There have also been changes to Michigan's scouting and game-planning operation in an attempt to streamline the volume of information communicated to players. Inside linebacker Junior Colson recalled the Wolverines studying film from as far back as 2012 when preparing to face Georgia two years ago, with former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald hunting and searching for any possible wrinkle the Bulldogs might summon. It began to feel like an information overload. "We were looking too deep," Colson said earlier this week.

Though Minter had yet to join Harbaugh's staff when the Wolverines were trounced by Georgia in 2021, he too came away from last year's loss to TCU hoping to strike a better balance between preparing for the necessary contingencies and unburdening his players' minds. He's been reminding himself that Saban and Alabama offensive coordinator Tommy Rees have the same amount of prep time as he does, which means they'll be studying tendencies and adding new wrinkles, too. The challenge is to be ready for anything, even though it's impossible to cover everything.

"You never really, truly know if you overthink a game until the game is done," Colson said. "But you've just got to prepare to the best of your ability, the best way that you can, and see how it goes."

Does hiring former Michigan LBs coach give Alabama an edge?

Saban's quest to leave no stone unturned meant adding Colson's former position coach, George Helow, to the Alabama staff last week. Helow broke into the profession as a defensive intern for Saban in 2012, a year the Crimson Tide won the national title. He went on to coach at Florida State, Georgia, Colorado State and Maryland before joining the Wolverines in 2021, the same time Macdonald arrived from the Baltimore Ravens. Helow worked with Michigan's inside linebackers the last two seasons before he and the program mutually parted ways earlier this year, clearing a path for Harbaugh to re-hire Chris Partridge instead. (Partridge would later be fired for allegedly discussing the ongoing NCAA investigation into Michigan's sign-stealing operation with other members of the program.) 

While the exact nature of Helow's role with the Crimson Tide remains unclear, it was reported that he joined the team immediately in preparation for the Rose Bowl. Helow had been unemployed prior to joining Saban's staff. 

"The guy is looking for a place to work," Minter said. "[He] had worked with Coach Saban before, so I wasn't totally surprised by it. Happy for him that that's what he's able to do. I think I've been here now for 27 games of film of our defense, so I don't put a ton of stock in [it]."

There's no need for more paralysis by over-analysis. 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter at @Michael_Cohen13.

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Michael Cohen