NEW ORLEANS — You better believe it was planned, better believe Michigan knew exactly what it was doing at the exact moment the decision was made.
There, in the middle of Ohio State parading itself through the College Football Playoff Media Day, and a little more than 1,000 miles north, was Michigan’s introductory press conference to announce new coach Jim Harbaugh.
The moment in Ann Arbor was so big, that Press Conference Up North was so significant, it sucked the very life from the Media Day.
Round 1 winner: Michigan.
Buckle up, folks. It’s a long, ugly, bloody fight.
“This is Michigan,” Harbaugh said. “There are no turnarounds at Michigan. There is greatness.”
Before we get all maized and confused about what this all means, let me introduce the man responsible for Harbaugh leaving the NFL — the holy land and highest level of competition for a coach — to return to college football: Urban Meyer.
When Meyer builds a program; when he wins championships and draws the line in the sand no one will cross, the collateral damage is real and it is revealing. It happened at Utah, at Florida and now is happening at Ohio State.
If you want your program to change; if you want the culture of who you are and what you’re all about completely gutted and reshaped, better hope Urban Meyer is hired by your biggest rival.
Urb moves in, and all hope is lost. Then the search for answers begins.
It happened at BYU in 2005, after Meyer arrived at Utah in 2003 and took an underachieving Utes program and won back-to-back Mountain West Conference championships. He beat bitter rival BYU twice, so badly the last time (52-21) that the Cougars made a coaching change (Bronco Mendenhall) and a commitment to upgrading facilities.
Meyer arrived at Florida in 2005, and by his second season in Gainesville had won the national championship and beaten bitter rival Florida State twice by a combined 55-21. Soon after, Bobby Bowden’s untouchable security in Tallahassee eroded away.
By the time Meyer won his second national title in 2008 and had gained absolute control of recruiting in the state, FSU was forced into a painfully awkward forced retirement (see: firing) of Bowden after the 2009 season — and fifth straight loss to Meyer’s Gators.
Jimbo Fisher arrived, FSU committed to building the first indoor practice facility in the state of Florida, and Meyer quit for health reasons a year later.
“He makes you completely rethink the way you operate,” Utah athletic director Chris Hill told me years ago about Meyer.
There is no gray area with Meyer; it’s his way and forget about any other way. Everyone is on board, or they’re useless to him.
And that leaves everyone outside his program searching for answers — including Michigan.
You didn’t really think Michigan was going to compete with and beat Ohio State with Brady Hoke, did you? You didn’t think Michigan was going to stop the bleeding on the recruiting trail with Hoke or any other guy who doesn’t have the charismatic charm and football fortitude to stand toe to toe with Meyer, did you?
Say this much for Michigan: they had seen enough of Urb, and knew the only answer was Harbaugh — no matter the cost. While other major programs are concerned with big-name coaches turning down offers and making programs look bad, Michigan went right after the biggest coaching fish available and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
This is what happens when Urb moves in next door, when his team wins three straight in the only game that matters and loses once in three years in the Big Ten. You rethink everything, throw millions of dollars at it and hope for the best.
When asked during the Media Day what he thought of Harbaugh entering the fray, Meyer smirked and said, “it’s great for college football and great for the Big Ten.”
Meanwhile, back in Ann Arbor, the coach they were throwing frankincense and myrrh at was setting the tone for what it means to play for Michigan. As he walked into the press conference, he tripped on the carpet.
“A lesser athlete would have fallen down,” he said.
A lesser program wouldn’t have had the stones to do everything it could to hire the one man who can stand up to Meyer and not back down. The one coach who won’t talk a big game, won’t use gimmicks to score points (see: Hoke’s “Ohio” reference), and embrace all that is Maize and Blue.
When asked about selling Michigan to recruits, something that used to be so easy at Michigan but has since become so laborious, Harbaugh said, “You’re selling something you believe in your core. Like you know your name, you know Michigan football, you believe in Michigan football.”
Eight years ago, Harbaugh arrived at a moribund Stanford program and told anyone who would listen the Cardinal were going to win with “character and cruelty” — then went out and did just that. Five games into his first season with a team that won a single game the year before, Harbaugh took his 40-point underdog Cardinal into the L.A. Coliseum and beat college football king USC.
With a walk-on quarterback.
All hope is not lost at Michigan anymore, but it has a helluva fight on its hands with a coach named Meyer.
It’s a long, bloody, ugly fight. And we can thank Urb for it.