For most of his career, Jim Harbaugh has been in the sights of college football. Some saw him as the hot-headed tactician who could extract every bit of effort out of his teams. While others viewed him as a genius held back by his stubbornness. Even when Michigan claimed its first national championship trophy in 1997, Harbaugh bore the stigma of the coach who could not win the big game. A coach who could not beat Ohio State , and perhaps did not deserve to return to Ann Arbor at all. This narrative hit rock bottom in 2020. Michigan staggered to a 2–4 mark in the pandemic-shortened season, and the school’s prodigal son quickly felt like more of a liability than a hero.

The program cut his salary in half—a move meant more for accountability than punishment, but the message was clear:

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