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Building on something @aria_gerson said, and some thoughts from a friend who probably needs to be anonymous out of professional discretion, it seems like Michigan’s biggest current problem with the Harbaugh Question is communication.
There’s said to be an internal belief among some people that Michigan’s football coach should be judged in large part on whether the program graduates players and represents the school well doesn’t have people getting in legal trouble and so forth.
Given the standards of major college football, I don’t think it’s too credulous to say he is successful on that front. (And seemingly w/o imposing a paternalistic version of what that means. Plenty of players who have big personalities, politically outspoken, etc.)
The problem is that the institution has never said in public that this is the standard, and in fact conveys almost the exact opposite, both directly and indirectly! They’re all about being the winningest program ever, goal is to win the Big Ten every year, etc.
Before every game they play a Bo Schembechler speech about being the best team _at playing football_ and show a video of Tom Brady. And they charge top dollar for tickets and make fans sit through four hour night games for national primetime TV purposes.
You can’t do all that stuff and then not expect your fans and alums and even former players not to be confused that you’re considering issuing a lucrative contract extension on the basis of Academic Progress Rate and staying out of the Daily police blotter.
In other words, if you want your identity to be 8.5 wins a year, program continuity, and the appearance of upstanding citizenship, fine—a fair number of programs operate more or less successfully that way—but tell your fans and donors that and charge them accordingly.
