Jim Harbaugh has the backing of one of his predecessors at Michigan, but it’s not a name likely to be taken seriously by Wolverine fans.
Former Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez assessed Harbaugh’s tenure at Michigan so far, saying the current issues are “not a coach problem.” Instead, Rodriguez said Harbaugh’s struggles reflected issues with the school’s culture and expectations. In particular, he cited Michigan’s high academic standards, which at times made it difficult to get top recruits accepted to the university.
“There were some guys we fought to get in,” Rodriguez said on his “Hard Edge Podcast,” via Isaiah Hole of Michigan Wire. “Our thought was, if they’re NCAA eligible, we should be able to get them in if we can vouch for their work ethic. Sometimes guys didn’t get the same kind of high school education because of where they lived, but they’re gonna have success in college with all the help they can have and the type of mentality — you know who they are. And we had to fight for a lot of guys. And there were some guys — I’m not gonna mention their names — there was no way that Michigan was gonna let them in. They met the NCAA standard, but they didn’t meet the so-called Michigan standard.”
Rodriguez also cited Michigan’s tradition as a problem, and said minor things like gameday captains and jersey numbers were met with resistance. That seems unlikely to be a problem for Harbaugh, who played his college football at Michigan and is deeply entrenched in the program’s history and tradition.
Rodriguez’s points don’t really hold water when you consider what Harbaugh has done at Michigan. He’s beaten plenty of bad teams, but has struggled in rivalry games. He has yet to beat Ohio State, and his loss to a Michigan State team that had just lost to Rutgers only raised the pressure. It’s bad enough that he may be looking elsewhere for a new job already.
