Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh has often been criticized for the way his clubs have performed on the road since he took over prior to the 2015 season, with his Maize and Blue squads compiling a 14-9 road record during his time on the job (since 2015).
While some of the criticisms have certainly been warranted, others have not.
Even though Harbaugh's teams have had a hard time picking up big wins on the road (just one over an AP top-25 team, occurring at No. 24 Michigan State last year), one positive is that they've done a nice job of consistently taking down the road opponents they've been expected to beat in recent years.
While there are no moral victories at a place like Michigan, the masses will hopefully be calmed a bit when presented with the following statistic:
In U-M's last seven road losses (dating back to the 2016 double-overtime setback at Ohio State), the winning team in each of those games has posted a combined home record of 46-0 in those respective seasons.
Not only was Michigan unable to go into the opposing venues and beat any of the aforementioned teams on the list above, but neither was anybody else.
The five teams on the chart whose seasons are complete (this year's Wisconsin and Penn State squads are still in progress) all won at least 11 games, with the 2019 versions of the Badgers and Nittany Lions potentially on their way to doing so as well.
National 'experts' who love to point out Harbaugh's struggles conveniently fail to mention statistics like these, ignoring the fact that five of the team's last seven road losses have come against top-10 foes; the lone two that didn't were in 2018 against a Notre Dame squad that made the College Football Playoff, and this year's 8-2 Wisconsin crew.
A continuation of this trend would signal a victory for Michigan tomorrow at Indiana, seeing as how the Hoosiers lost earlier this year to Ohio State in Bloomington.
If the 2016 defeat at Iowa and the 2015 setback at Utah are also added into the discussion, then all the home teams Harbaugh has lost to have posted a combined 56-4 record in their own stadiums each of the respective years they beat Michigan.
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Listen and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Sign up for our newsletter, The Wolverine Now
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @Balas_Wolverine, @EJHolland_TW, @AustinFox42, @JB_ Wolverine, Clayton Sayfie and @DrewCHallett
• Like us on Facebook
