Michigan Star Has Tough Words For Jim Harbaugh
Michigan Star Has Tough Words For Jim Harbaugh
Michigan Star Has Tough Words For Jim Harbaugh
A Michigan star had tough words for Jim Harbaugh this week.
Harbaugh has had something of a rough year. Coming into this season, many expected him to ascend to the top of the Big Ten in Urban Meyer’s absence.
That did not end up happening.
Michigan ultimately went 9-4 on the year, including two memorably big losses to Ohio State at the end of the regular season and Alabama in the Citrus Bowl.
As a result of his seemingly endless string of losses to big name programs and coaches, Harbaugh has found himself in a tough position.
He is too good to be fired, but not good enough to be elite.
This week, former Michigan football star Jake Long sent out a brutal message to Harbaugh. Essentially, the former No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft said that Harbaugh could learn a thing or two from Michigan head basketball coach, Juwan Howard.
I love this. @JuwanHoward is everything you want in a leader and coach. Great job coach! Our football program should take some notes. https://t.co/Mji0EvCdXz
— Jake Long (@JakeLong77) January 4, 2020
“You gotta humble yourself every now and then, eat a little humble pie. I’ve done that. But I’m not scared of anyone,” Howard said after a recent loss to Tom Izzo’s Michigan State.
Long endorsed that message wholeheartedly.
“Great job coach! Our football program should take some notes,” Long said.
Harbaugh is 0-5 against Ohio State as the head coach of Michigan, so it is unclear how much humbler he could get in that regard.
Nevertheless, it is somewhat interesting that after spending the better part of the last decade at Michigan, some alums seem to have less respect for him than the relatively new Howard.
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Michael Kyaw, initially a PR Manager, built up a valuable network of connections in the sports world that he then utilized to become an influential sports business reporter. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, Fansided, ESPN and the Wall Street Journal.
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This is such a crock. Love Jake Long and his words aren’t tough on anyone. He merely stated his feelings of frustration. You guys really need to get to know Jake Long before you decide what his words actually mean. It’s just blowing off frustration at the situation where Michigan is in competition with a juggernaut that has been in double digit wins (except for just 2 seasons!) over the last 20 years. There is a slim but non-zero chance that a team that was on a 3 year linear slide from 8 wins to under .500 and 7 of 8 years of disappointing seasons, to be able to compete with that juggernaut in the first 5 years after a linear slide like that. As for Harbaugh, he loses the games he’s “supposed to lose”. Is that somehow worse than losing games your not supposed to??? You know the last time Michigan had 3 double digit win seasons in 4 years was last century? One has to remember after his first year, it was “Harbaugh can’t beat MSU. OSU, “a big game”, or a top 10 team. Since then, Michigan has shown dominance over MSU winning 3 of 5 under Harbaugh by 130-81 and removed MSU from the convenient definitions of can’t win “big game” and “rival”, beat #8 in his second year (Wisconsin removed from convenient “Big game” definition), beat #8 Notre Dame. So, that’s not bad for a team 5 years from a 3 year linear slide from 8 wins to under .500. MSU, Wisconsin, PSU, and Notre Dame have been removed from “rival” AND “big game” apparently. Now we’re just down to “top 10 team on the road” and OSU. Isn’t that’s how a team’s supposed to climb out of an under .500 hole?