Forget COVID-19: Michigan Is Scared Of Ohio State As Jim Harbaugh And Others Around Big Ten Try To Get Paid

More than a few folks are barely a punt away from embarrassing themselves after Michigan pulled out of its slaughter-in-waiting Saturday at Ohio State for (ahem) COVID-19 reasons.

Let’s start there, and remember: In late November, Mississippi State ignored how the pandemic zapped its roster and traveled to Georgia anyway with 36 scholarship players below the NCAA limit of 85. Those Bulldogs gave then-13th ranked Georgia fits before losing down the stretch.

Which brings us to three things . . .

(1) The Michigan Wolverines should change their nickname for the next several days to the Michigan Football Team (as in the Washington Football Team) That Doesn’t Want To Drop To 0-6 Against Its Biggest Rival With Jim Harbaugh As Its Overmatched Head Coach.

Nevertheless, the Wolverines keep trying to spin this into something else.

It sort of works.

Michigan athletics director Warde Manuel and other university officials blamed the cancellation on the advice of doctors since coronavirus continues to have its way with student-athletes around Ann Arbor.

Duck No. 4 Ohio State (5-0)?

Us? The Wolverine Nation, with a 2-4 football team that was upset by instate rival Michigan State in a rebuilding year with a new coach, and that was beaten by Indiana for the first time in 33 seasons, and that was clobbered during its worse home loss since 1935 after Wisconsin left town with a 49-11 victory?

Nah.

The Ohio State game was canceled by our benevolent administrators due to other stuff.

Just last week, Michigan axed its home game against Maryland after a bunch of COVID-19 cases on campus, and according to Wolverines insiders, their football team had even fewer healthy players available this week for Ohio State.

Harbaugh said none of that has anything to do with the hearts of Michigan coaches and players regarding the Buckeyes.

Yeah, well. The whole thing looks odd with the world about to anoint Kirk Herbstreit as its soothsayer for the ages.

Or at least for the moment.

Nearly everybody from the state of Michigan watched and hissed last week, when Herbstreit used his right as an ESPN college football analyst to say during the cable network’s College Football Playoff ranking show that the Wolverines would back out of their Ohio State game by “waving the white flag.”

The maize-and-blue bashing afterward forced Herbstreit to apologize, especially since he’s a former Ohio State quarterback, but you know the rest.

Herbstreit deserved the apologies.

(2) Even though Lou Gehrig considered himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” in the summer of 1939, Jim Harbaugh now holds that distinction.

Yeah, there was The Good Jim Harbaugh as a football coach through 2014 or so, but in sports, it’s about what have you done for me a few milliseconds ago?

This is the sixth season for The Bad Jim Harbaugh as a football coach at Michigan, where he starred at quarterback during the 1980s under Bo Schembechler, the inferno who turned his coaching and the Wolverines into legend.

The following isn’t “legend” for Harbaugh’s coaching or for his tenure at his alma mater: 0-5 against Ohio State, 3-3 against Michigan State, 1-4 in bowl games and 1-8 against top 10 teams.

That said, Harbaugh’s $8 million salary this season is higher than any college coach not named Nick Saban ($9.1 million at Alabama) and Ed Orgeron ($8.7 million), all winners of at least one national championship to Harbaugh’s zero.

Harbaugh hasn’t even won the Big Ten.

His 2018 Wolverines did tie for first in the East Division, but they were crushed 41-15 after that by Florida in the Peach Bowl.

So this was interesting: Even though Manuel told media members Tuesday he’ll decide Harbaugh’s fate after Michigan’s season, the Detroit Free Press is among those reporting the Wolverines already wish to extend Harbaugh’s contract.

Extend Harbaugh’s contract?

For what?

Don’t ask.

The same goes for this: NBC’s Mike Florio said NFL teams are “doing their homework on Harbaugh” regarding their head coaching positions.

No question, Harbaugh had a nice resume before his Michigan career went from promising (10-3 during three of his first four seasons) to pathetic. He closed his four years coaching Stanford by smashing Virginia Tech in the 2011 Orange Bowl along the way to a productive four NFL seasons in San Francisco.

Harbaugh took the 49ers to three consecutive NFC Championship Games, with a trip to the Super Bowl in between.

Even so, Harbaugh was fired after the 2014 season, mostly because of his constant battles with management over control.

Dictators work in college, but not in the NFL beyond the guy wearing six Super Bowl rings and hoodies in New England.

(3) Um, $6 million.

That’s a lot of pennies to ignore, especially when you’re the Big Ten, and you and your universities are hurting like everybody else from the pandemic.

According to Forbes, each of the four teams that made the College Football Playoff last year received $6 million for their conferences..

So, um, after Big Ten officials basically said during the start of this pandemic-affected season that teams couldn’t play in the conference title game with fewer than six games, they’re seeing Ohio State as their only chance to get that loot, and they’re also seeing Michigan forcing the Buckeyes to finish their regular season with five games.

Guess rules are made to be broken . . .

With something like $6 million on the line.

See what I mean?

What an embarrassment.

Neither Big Ten bosses (including those at Ohio State and Michigan) nor Harbaugh couldn’t care less.