Sunday Column: Changing of the Coaching Guard at Upper Levels of CFB Could be Just What Penn State Ordered

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Admit it, Penn State fans — part of you will miss Jim Harbaugh.

Perhaps no other modern coach, at any level of any sport, is as histrionic along the gameday sideline or as unabashedly corny/arrogant with the media. It’s awful to watch your team lose to his, and see the smirks and fist pumps that are the spoils of victory, but it makes it that much sweeter when your team beats his and you can see the scowl and misery on his face.

The other parts of you, and the rest of the Big Ten, won’t miss the former Michigan coach, who led his team to a natty this season when he wasn’t serving suspensions for recruiting violations … and sign-stealing and is now back in the NFL with the Chargers. Harbaugh’s departure is only one of several big changes to the Big Ten in 2024, but many of those changes could be taken advantage of by James Franklin’s Nittany Lions.

Sherrone Moore, who guided the Wolverines to three wins in his role as “acting head coach” and is now Harbaugh’s full-time successor, is a terrific coach and deserves probably more credit than he’s getting for the championship season. But he’s not Harbaugh. Michigan has plenty of talent returning and should be able to keep much of its physical culture in place, but—especially with dynamic DC Jesse Minter following Harbaugh to L.A. — the chances of Moore being just another guy are a lot higher than the chances he’ll be as effective as his former boss.

Meanwhile, the team that Michigan beat to claim the title, the Washington Huskies, will play their first season in the Big Ten with a new coach as well, with Jedd Fisch stepping in to replace Kalen DeBoer, who is replacing Nick Saban at Alabama. Fisch has logged a number of short stints as an NFL assistant but was just 16-21 in three seasons as the head coach at Arizona, though he did take the Wildcats from 1-11 in his first year to 10-3 this past season. Could the Huskies, who visit Beaver Stadium in November, be formidable again this year? Certainly, but, as with Michigan, it’s a lot more likely they’ll take a step back than a step forward given the leadership change.

And then, of course, there’s ’Bama, which hasn’t (unfortunately for the Nittany Lions) been much of a concern for Penn State these last few years but has been the gold standard of college football for the better part of two decades. Had Saban lost a step? Maybe. Was that still good enough to make the Tide one of the best 2-3 teams in the country every year? Yup. DeBoer likely won’t allow Alabama to fall on its face, but staying at the top is a lot harder than getting there, and the guys that can do it are rare.

At Penn State, it hasn’t been about staying at the top under Franklin but about simply getting there. And while the best ways to get there involve making gradual and/or wholesale improvements to your own team, a just-as-effective way is waiting for the teams at the top to stumble and fall, with you standing there to take their place.

Yes, Ryan Day and Ohio State (who probably shed no tears at Harbaugh’s departure) are still very much in Penn State’s way. But having one team to go through is a lot easier than going through two, and while USC, Oregon and maybe even Washington and UCLA could be problems for Penn State (which does not play Michigan this fall) during the next few years, they could be problems for the Buckeyes and Wolverines as well.

What we are seeing this offseason — a coaching carousel among some of the nation’s top teams — is more likely to be the rule than the exception moving forward. Saban was a rarity in that he had already tasted the NFL by the time he arrived in Tuscaloosa, but the lure of Sundays is always going to be there for the best coaches in the college game, and the leashes of head coaches at the top levels of college are getting progressively shorter, creating vacancies that lead to games of musical chairs like we saw this month.

Yes, Kirby Smart, a Saban protégé, seems to have built a lasting power at Georgia, and Day has things cooking at Ohio State, even if Harbaugh took some shine off his apple the past few seasons. But with three 2023 playoff teams looking at new leadership this fall, there are opportunities for new programs to step forward in both the Big Ten title and the national title chases. Provided it can resolve some of its own issues, Penn State should be one of those programs.

Would beating Michigan and seeing Harbaugh in pain have been sweeter? Sure. But it’ll be easier to do with him gone.