Harbaugh era sees its worst loss
We’ve always sort of known how college football programs game the system to make things look better than they are. Between a couple non-conference patsies that get paid big appearance fees and expanded conferences that allow some of the better programs to avoid playing each other, you don’t necessarily have to beat a bunch of good teams to pull together a 9- or 10-win season and call it a big success.
At a program like Michigan, all you have to do is win all the games you’re supposed to win to have a good season. Jim Harbaugh has generally been pretty good that. Though notoriously bad as an underdog – Michigan’s win over Notre Dame last October was his first in five seasons – Harbaugh has only had two losses to a teams that didn’t finish in the top 25 (one was to 9-win South Carolina in a bowl game, the other on the road to 8-win Iowa by a point in 2016).
In other words, Harbaugh didn’t have any real head-scratchers on his résumé. Until Saturday.
Despite entering the game as a threetouchdown favorite over rival Michigan State, Michigan got out-played at home in a 27-24 loss.
Though the result might not look as bad because it happened against a name-brand opponent in a rivalry game, it’s by far the worst and most surprising loss of the Harbaugh era based on the circumstances. This isn’t Mark Dantonio heyday Michigan State; it’s Mel Tucker scrapping and clawing to rebuild a roster that was left bereft of talent and lost to Rutgers a week earlier.
And for Michigan, there’s no Middle Tennessee or Akron this year to inflate their record and give them a chance to figure things out. The Wolverines are jumping right back into the fray with Indiana, Wisconsin and Penn State all coming up this month.
“The team is going to own this,” Harbaugh said Saturday, promising that Michigan would look inward and find
ways to improve.
Given how poorly Michigan played on Saturday and how little opportunity the Wolverines have to paper over their holes with easy wins, this feels like a real turning point into how Harbaugh is perceived. That’s why Michigan is No. 1 in this week’s Misery Index, a weekly measurement of knee-jerk reactions based on what each fan base just watched.
Four more in misery
LSU: The great thing about winning national championships is that nobody can take that away. But they’re also remembered within the context of that championship. In LSU’S case there’s a building fear their 2019 title is going to be hit with the “f” word: Fluke. Not because LSU wasn’t a great team last year. It undeniably was. But never has a program won a national championship and then fallen off a cliff like this LSU team from one season to the next. The Tigers haven’t just receded from championship quality – they’re downright bad. Saturday’s 48-11 loss to Auburn wasn’t so much a wake-up call as it was all of LSU fans’ worst fears coming to fruition.
East Carolina: For the most part,
complaints about officiating are for losers. But sometimes bitterness is totally warranted, and in ECU’S case it’s hard to argue. The Pirates should have beaten Tulsa on Friday night. In fact, if not for a botched review that overturned a fumble, a questionable pass interference call and a replay that somehow didn’t detect an incomplete pass on fourth down – all on the final drive – they would have won. Instead, a ball that clearly bounced off the turf was ruled complete and Tulsa scored with 29 seconds left for a 34-30 win.
Iowa: Iowa is 0-2 and has scored 20 points in both of those games, which just doesn’t get the job done anymore. Both losses were close – a combined five points – but when you hold your opponent to 143 rushing yards and 130 passing yards as the Hawkeyes did Saturday, you have to win that game. Instead, Iowa lost 21-20 because its outdated, clunky offense did nothing in the second half, failing to put together any kind of scoring threat.
Mississippi State: The way Mike Leach talks about the program he took over this year, you’d think it had never won a game before he showed up. But the funny thing is, Mississippi State has actually been a pretty good program for quite some time. Even last year, when things weren’t great under Joe Moorhead, the Bulldogs managed to make their 10th straight bowl game. But through five games of the Leach experience, the yardage totals have declined steadily: 623 to 313 to 275 to 217 to 200, the last of which happened in a 41-0 loss to Alabama.
Trending toward misery
Minnesota: The darlings of college football last season might have the worst defense in the Power Five. After giving up nearly 500 yards in Week 1 to Michigan, which subsequently flopped against the Spartans, Maryland went for 675 in a 45-44 nailbiter that leaves the Gophers 0-2. The game will be remembered because it ended on a missed extra point in overtime when the better decision would have been going for two, especially given how bad the defense was.
Arkansas State: After pulling off one of the season’s truly surprising wins early on at Kansas State, the trends have gone in the wrong direction for one of the Sun Belt’s most consistent programs. Last month, head coach Blake Anderson fired two assistants, including the defensive coordinator, after a 59-52 win over Georgia State. But it’s not like the offense has been doing much lately, either. In the last two weeks Arkansas State has lost 45-17 to Appalachian State and 38-10 to Troy.
Baylor: You don’t get do-overs in college football, but the Bears would probably take one if they could. They’ve had three games postponed, COVID-19 outbreaks and contact tracing issues, players threatening to opt out before opting back in and have played generally mediocre football. Baylor made things somewhat interesting Saturday in a 33-23 loss to TCU but only after falling behind 30-0.
Southern Miss: For a small school that takes football seriously and generally punches above its weight, the events of the last week are pretty dispiriting. It’s not every a day a college coach will just up and leave in the middle of a season for a new job, but that’s exactly what happened when 30-year old Scotty Walden left for Fcs-level Austin Peay.