HOUSTON — Nine years ago, Jim Harbaugh left the NFL and returned to college football with a single focus — to restore a then-struggling Michigan program.
He immediately began throwing elbows and inviting controversies. He set up satellite recruiting camps. He accused the SEC of cheating. He held sleepovers at prospects' houses. He feuded with coaches and scraped with officials. He walked around asking, “Who’s got it better than us?” even when he was losing three games a year, including to Ohio State.
He was unlike anything the sport had seen, because Jim Harbaugh is unlike anything the world has seen — a millionaire who once refused to wear anything but khaki pants, who would work youth camps shirtless, who once decried chickens as “nervous birds” only to begin raising them himself.