By The Numbers: How Harbaugh’s Teams Have Fared After Double-Digit Losses
Saturday's 35-14 loss at Wisconsin was the seventh double-digit setback since Jim Harbaugh took over as the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines' football program prior to the 2015 campaign.
The chatter that has ensued this week from both the players and coaches has surrounded how the team will respond from the blowout, with senior linebacker Josh Uche perhaps summing it up best on Tuesday night:
“You have to respond to adversity; everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, like Mike Tyson said," he explained. "We got punched in the mouth — what are we going to do about it? Are we going to lay down? No. I'm going to get up and keep fighting and keep swinging — that’s what this team is going to do.
"Winning cures everything."
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In his first two and a half years at the helm, Harbaugh did an outstanding job of not letting one loss turn into two, with the club dropping consecutive games only once (the 2016 defeat at Ohio State and then the setback to Florida State in the Orange Bowl).
The U-M head man coined the phrase "Putting steel in your spine" following the 2015 heartbreaking loss to Michigan State, and that mantra has seemed to work perfectly early in his tenure.
A three-game skid to close out the 2017 campaign (at Wisconsin, Ohio State and then to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl) marked the longest losing stretch of Harbaugh's tenure at Michigan, however, and double-digit setbacks to the Badgers and Buckeyes during that span were just the second and third defeats by such a margin under the 55-year-old's tutelage.
Two straight losses occurred once again to conclude the 2018 season, with the Wolverines dropping each of their final two contests in blowout fashion to Ohio State and Florida, respectively.
| Year | Game (Score) | Ensuing Game (Result) |
|---|---|---|
|
2019 |
at Wisconsin (L, 35-14) |
Rutgers (?) |
|
2018 |
vs. Florida* (L, 41-15) |
Middle Tennessee State (W, 40-21, the following season) |
|
2018 |
at Ohio State (L, 62-39) |
vs. Florida* (L, 41-15) |
|
2017 |
Ohio State (L, 31-20) |
vs. South Carolina* (L, 26-19) |
|
2017 |
at Wisconsin (L, 24-10) |
Ohio State (L, 31-20) |
|
2017 |
at Penn State (L, 42-13) |
Rutgers (W, 35-14) |
|
2015 |
Ohio State (L, 42-13) |
vs. Florida* (W, 41-7) |
After losing just one game by 10 or more points in Harbaugh's first two years on the job (a 42-13 setback to Ohio State in 2015), U-M has now done so six times since the 2017 season began.
Granted, all six of those were against Associated Press top-15 teams, but it also needs to be noted that Michigan suffered just one defeat by 10 or more points against a combined six AP top-15 clubs from 2015-16.
The Maize and Blue bounced back from their blowout loss to the Buckeyes in 2015 in impressive fashion, taking out their anger on the Florida Gators in a 41-7 Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl destruction.
U-M also rebounded nicely from a 42-13 setback at Penn State in 2017 by handling Rutgers 35-14 the following week at The Big House, and they'll have the opportunity for a similar bounce back against the same foe this weekend.
The aforementioned three-game skid to close out 2017 clearly mars the table above a bit, as do the back-to-back blowout losses to Ohio State and Florida to end the 2018 season.
A triumph over Rutgers on Saturday would improve Michigan's record to 4-3 following double-digit defeats under Harbaugh, with the three previous victories having occurred by an average of 24.6 points.
Granted, two of those triumphs were against Rutgers in 2017 and Middle Tennessee State in 2019, but the 41-7 Outback Bowl destruction of a 10-win Florida squad on Jan. 1, 2016, was no small feat.
The fact of the matter remains that when Michigan wins its games immediately following double-digit defeats, it comes out on top by a wide margin.
By The Numbers: Rutgers at Michigan
5 Players on Michigan's roster who hail from New Jersey, which has been a state the U-M staff has targeted heavily on the recruiting trail under Harbaugh — redshirt junior defensive tackle Michael Dwumfour, junior safety Brad Hawkins, redshirt sophomore defensive back Hunter Reynolds, junior center Cesar Ruiz and fifth-year senior left tackle Jon Runyan Jr.
9 Turnovers committed by the U-M offense this season (seven fumbles and two interceptions), which is tied for 118th (out of 130 teams) nationally. The Maize and Blue only coughed the ball up 12 times all of last year, which was the eighth-best mark in the country.
11.3 Tackles per game for senior viper Khaleke Hudson, which is the second most in the Big Ten (behind only Purdue fifth-year senior linebacker Ben Holt's 11.6) and the ninth most nationally. His 34 total tackles are seven more than any other Wolverine defender.
47.6 Yards per punt for redshirt junior punter Will Hart this season, which leads the Big Ten and is the sixth-best mark in the entire country. Hart averaged 46.9 yards per boot in 2018 and took home the Big Ten Punter of the Year award.
50 Percent chance of precipitation on Saturday in Ann Arbor, including scattered thunderstorms, a high of 70 degrees and maximum wind gusts of nine miles-per-hour.
204-37 Is the combined margin U-M has outscored Rutgers by since Harbaugh took over prior to the 2015 season. Perhaps the most famous of those meetings was the 78-0 shellacking in Piscataway in 2016, which marked the Wolverines' biggest margin of victory in any game since they defeated Chicago 85-0 in 1939.
233 Passing yards per contest Rutgers is averaging this season, which is 100.8 more than it tallied last year (132.2). Michigan's pass defense, on the other hand, currently ranks fourth in the nation, yielding just 135 yards through the air per game.
1869 and 1879 Is when Rutgers and Michigan played their first-ever football games, respectively, making the Scarlet Knights the oldest Football Bowl Subdivision program in the country, while the Maize and Blue are tied with Navy and Massachusetts for the third oldest. Rutgers defeated Princeton, 6-4, in the first-ever college football game on Nov. 6, 1869, while Michigan took down Racine, 1-0, in its debut contest on May 30, 1879.
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