Through four seasons at Michigan, Jim Harbaugh has gained his fair share of detractors in the national media.
Winless against Ohio State, they say. No Big Ten championships. No appearances in the College Football Playoff.
All valid points.
But he's gained some supporters, too, perhaps none more adamant than Joel Klatt of Fox Sports.
Klatt, who will be on the call for Michigan-Army Saturday on FS1, joined the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 The Ticket and disputed the notion that Harbaugh hasn't met expectations, especially locally.
"I think those opinions are too close to it," he said. "If you actually just step back for a moment and look at where the program was even at the very end under Lloyd Carr, and then you take the seven years between Carr and Jim Harbaugh … you guys were winning 6.5 games per year during those seven years. You know how bad that what was? He's wining 9.5 games per year so far in his tenure."
Furthermore, Klatt said, the Harbaugh narrative has been marred by a couple freak plays.
"This a completely moot point if the officials spot the ball correctly against Ohio State (in 2016)," he said. "J.T. Barrett did not get the first down. I'm just telling you right now, this is a totally different conversation. They likely win that Big Ten championship game and go to the Playoff. Do you think that you're asking this question if that spot was correct? And you've got the dropped punt snap (against Michigan State in 2015). Crazy things happened, so those are totally out of his control. Now what is in his control is the fact that they laid a giant egg at Ohio State last year and ran into a bit of a buzzsaw, in particular with the matchup with Ohio State's speed on the outside when they were trying to run that man coverage. They were banged up in the secondary and Ryan Day took them apart with that game plan.
"Defensively, I thought you saw some weird yardage gained against them in Week 1. That will clean itself up. I actually really liked the way their defense played ... This is a defense that I think can be really good. As dominant as last year's? Maybe not ... What I saw against Middle Tennessee, is they had an ability to get into zone coverage more frequently and that ultimately is going to help them.
"But when you go through their schedule, obviously they're going to have some really tough tests. At Wisconsin is a really tough test, at Penn State, with the way that Penn State looked, even though it was against Idaho, that's a tough test. Notre Dame's going to be off a bye. I'm worried about the seven straight games that they have on consecutive weeks against Power Five opponents or Notre Dame. All of those things can give me concern, and yet I can still sit there and say, the only team that I would actually take over Michigan, roster wise, that's on their schedule would be Ohio State. That's why I rate them so high."
