SALT LAKE CITY – It gets a little easier now for Michigan.
No, seriously, it does.
The climb back to respectability isn't any less steep — especially following a sloppy seven-point, season-opening loss. But the Wolverines no longer are a national obsession. There won't be a covey of television cameras chronicling Jim Harbaugh's every move, as there was when he stepped off the team bus as it arrived at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
And reporters won't be hovering around him and his wife, Sarah, as there were when they stood outside the Michigan locker room conversing nearly an hour after the game, hoping he might offer a tiny peak beneath the cloak of secrecy, a glimpse at how he interacts with players and fellow coaches.