Some 25 million Americans watched with heavenly joy (or as the case may be, in Ohio, infernal dread) as the Michigan Wolverines defeated the Washington Huskies in the college football national championship on Monday. This was Michigan’s first national title since 1997, and only its second since 1948.
For Jim Harbaugh, the Wolverines’ head coach since 2015, Michigan football is a family affair. Celebrating on the field after his team’s victory, Harbaugh, who was a star quarterback for the Wolverines four decades ago, was joined by his mother, Jacqueline, and his father, Jack, a former assistant coach at Michigan; his oldest son, Jay, who coaches special teams for Michigan; and his brother, John, the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.
But for all the depth of his connection to the state and the team, Harbaugh’s first national championship victory may also be his last game as Michigan’s head coach. Widespread reports suggest that he will leave Michigan to return to the National Football League, prompted by his unsatisfied Super Bowl ambitions (he was a great success as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 through 2014 but never won the Lombardi Trophy) and his weariness with the state of the college game — especially its ersatz regulatory authorities, who twice suspended him this season for infractions of questionable severity.
If Harbaugh does leave Michigan, it will be a grievous loss not only for the Wolverines, but for all of college football. It would mean the departure of one of the sport’s most engaging and idiosyncratic personalities as well as one of the most vocal advocates for players who have long sought to benefit from the billions of dollars in revenue generated by college football. That Harbaugh has remained stalwart in this reformist crusade (and, notably, in his advocacy for racial justice) while remaining true to his traditionalist coaching style (and to his religiously inflected social conservatism) makes him even more remarkable — and the prospect of his departure even more lamentable.
To understand Harbaugh’s significance to college football, it is worth remembering how different the sport was a decade ago. The National Collegiate Athletic Association prohibited student athletes from being compensated in any manner. Players who transferred schools were forced to sit out for a year unless they were able to obtain waivers, which were rarely forthcoming. College football was dominated by Southern schools in the Southeastern and Atlantic Coast Conferences (until this year, SEC and A.C.C. teams accounted for 16 of the past 20 national championships), and the Big Ten, of which Michigan was a founding member in 1896, was a comparative backwater.
Fortunately, the hidebound and unjust world I have just described is now as obsolete as leather helmets. This year’s national championship game featured no schools from the SEC or the A.C.C. Student athletes (including in nonrevenue sports such as gymnastics) are now allowed to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses (and many do, with some earning more than N.F.L. rookies). Players today can switch schools almost effortlessly, which has increased the level of parity in the sport by preventing established programs from hoarding top talent on their benches. And with the imminent expansion of the college playoff system from four teams to 12, there is talk about the unionization of college players and increasing demand for them to receive a share of the gargantuan contracts the major conferences have signed with television networks and streaming services.
In all these areas, Harbaugh was often alone among coaches of his stature in aggressively pressing for change. Early in his tenure at Michigan he was criticized for hosting “satellite” camps at which he attempted to lure the South’s top high school football prospects away from the SEC. His support for allowing players to transfer schools easily was condemned by fellow coaches and others who insisted that such a rule change would amount to a de facto free agency system. His proposals for expanding the playoff system were dismissed by traditionalists. And his advocacy for paying players generated widespread outrage among self-styled defenders of amateur sports.
Needless to say, the suits in college football dislike Harbaugh. It always seemed as if, sooner or later, there were bound to be consequences for his persistent challenges to the established order of things.
Perhaps that expectation was unduly conspiratorial. Regardless, at the beginning of last year, it was reported that the N.C.A.A. was investigating Michigan for a potential violation of recruiting rules — in this case, making contact (including the sharing of a meal) with at least one recruit during a “dead” period for recruiting. Such low-level violations are not uncommon in college football, and far more serious ones often go unremarked. But the N.C.A.A. has insisted on treating Harbaugh’s purported purchase of a cheeseburger — and the no doubt equally serious ensuing procedural crime of failing to recall the incident — with a ludicrous, Javert-like stridency.
In the hope of appeasing the N.C.A.A., Michigan imposed a three-game suspension this season on Harbaugh, which he served from his home in Ann Arbor after dutifully surrendering his laptop and cellphone. Later in the season, he was again suspended for three games, this time by the Big Ten, after it was reported that Connor Stalions, a low-level member of the Michigan staff, had arranged for the filming of games played by future opponents for scouting purposes, in the hope of stealing sideline signals. Harbaugh has denied any knowledge of sign-stealing efforts.
Whatever shenanigans may have taken place involving Stalions, his conduct does not appear to have been unique. Indeed, leaked text messages have since revealed that in recent years Michigan’s opponents may have collaborated in the hope of decoding its sideline signals.
The N.C.A.A. has not abandoned its investigation of Harbaugh. Given a choice between serving another possible suspension for low-level procedural violations at Michigan and trying to become one of only a few coaches in history to win both a college national championship and a Super Bowl, he has every reason to consider leaving Michigan for the N.F.L. With the exception of his own players and their fans, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the sport who would not be happy to be rid of him.
But that is also why I suspect that this stubborn, delightful man will stay where he is, tending to the chickens he keeps in his backyard in Ann Arbor and leading his team in hearteningly earnest postgame renditions of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” In the words of a book from which he has quoted frequently at news conferences: “There is none so discreet and wise as thou art: Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled.”