Monday Musings: Feels like old times for Michigan football

“When was the last time you were this bullish on a Michigan football team heading into a season?”
We’d just finished a statewide radio show up north when one of our readers/listeners, intoxicated by the positive discussion that permeated the airwaves and giddy with anticipation for the 2023 season, shot an e-mail with that question. For three days straight, three hours of airtime each day, we’d sung the praises of Jim Harbaugh’s ninth team — the star power, the depth, the coaching staff — so much that it must have been nauseating for any Michigan State fans listening.

Call us homers if you want (we’re sure some of those Sparties did), but those who’ve followed the work here for the last 25 years know we always call ‘em like we see ‘em, in good times and bad. And when it was really bad, there were even times we were at the forefront.

But when Michigan football is at its best, it’s really, really good … special, really, for those who live vicariously through the program. As many of you know from personal experience, family traditions have even built around football Saturdays in Ann Arbor, some spanning decades. It got so good that for many of us, we didn’t even realize we were taking it for granted until 2008 (2010 for the optimists).

It’s taken a bit longer than expected, but Harbaugh has gotten Michigan back where most expected he would when he took the job. And after two years of flirting heavily with the NFL, it appears he might now realize what seems obvious to others on the outside looking in … that he’s right where he’s supposed to be. Harbaugh looked extremely relaxed and — no better way to put it — at home when he addressed campers at the recent Sound Mind Sound Body National College Showcase.

“I was really surprised after the 2021 season,” the ninth-year coach admitted. “You felt like, ‘Okay, this is as good as it can get with everybody pulling in the same direction.’ And then ‘22, there was that cultural momentum that seemed like, ‘Wow! It got even better.’

“Now, I’m kind of saying it to myself: ‘It’s got to be as good as it can get.’ Seeing our players, our staff, our coaches, it seems like there’s even more cultural momentum. It’s fun to be around.”
The hope among the fan base now is that he’s accepted Michigan really is as good as it gets. The NFL allure is sweet nectar to any coach — and yes, chasing the Lombardi Trophy has been his dream — but he’ll never be as revered as he is in Ann Arbor.

It’s not just the fans who adore him, either. He’s changing young lives. These aren’t just special players he’s producing, but incredible people, as down-to-earth a group as we might have seen in the last 25 years. From the stars, Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy and Blake Corum, and their charity work, to the walk-ons and their desire to play, graduation rates … it’s humming. Harbaugh will credit the parents first, as he should. But it also starts at the top, and his willingness to adapt.

“We love Coach Harbaugh,” Michigan grad student offensive guard Trevor Keegan said. “And I’d say from my freshman and sophomore year it was always, ‘work, work, work.’ I feel like he’s changed, stepped back a little bit in that sense … and I just really think the whole program in general has changed, seeing players super happy and excited all the time. I think he’s the same way. It’s just a culmination of things.

“We have practices with the music blasting now … we’re in there practicing, need something to keep the vibe up and stuff like that. It wasn’t always like that, but you can’t just play like robots all the time, go practice and all that. We do a good job of changing things up now. I’d say it’s changed a lot. It’s been great.”

The cautionary tale here — the last time we had such expectations for Michigan was probably 2007, a year after the Wolverines’ outstanding 2006 season. Again though, this group seems different, led by the veterans.
“We got everybody collectively on the same page,” Keegan said. “There were dudes here just for themselves, and it had been going on for a few years. They were trying to make it to the NFL, and that was their only goal.”

Not anymore, he insisted. It’s truly “The Team, The Team, The Team” — and, quite possibly, one championship for each of the last three if all goes well this fall. The Jim Harbaugh we all signed up for has made it feel like home once again at Michigan.

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