Yesterday, the Michigan Wolverines held their annual post-season awards banquet at Laurel Manor. At the end of the night and before the banquet concluded, head coach Jim Harbaugh had one final message to deliver to the players, their families, and program supporters who were in attendance.
From MLive:
“We can do better as a football team,” Harbaugh said. “We welcome the judgment from you- I know you just want the best for us, and we’ve got to improve. We’ve got to improve. We want to win- we want to win all of our games. That’s what we’re striving for.”
The Wolverines finished the season at 8-4, but failed to beat a team with a record above .500 and lost both of their rivalry games to Michigan State and Ohio State. They were also blown out at Penn State, and lost by double-digits at Wisconsin.
Now the Wolverines find themselves in the Outback Bowl, where they will take on South Carolina. The Outback Bowl would be a pretty good destination for most teams but, not so much for a Michigan team that has been expected to compete for national championships nearly every season since Harbaugh’s arrival in Ann Arbor back in 2015.
Harbaugh has been trying to send this message to his team ever since they lost their season finale to Ohio State. He did it again earlier in the month, during an Outback Bowl conference call with the media, reiterating the need for improvement.
“They talk about social media, they talk about the ending of the world, basically,” Harbaugh said. “I don’t see it that way. I really don’t.”
It remains to be seen how his players will respond to this message, but it certainly appears that Harbaugh is doing his best to try to get this point across.
