Hell to the victors

Dreary days right now for the kids in the yellowjacket-striped helmets. This is not at all the Big they were counting on when they came to play in the Big House, with the ghosts of Fielding Yost and Bo and all the other leges looking on.

No, they are not the Champions of the West or any other point on the compass, these Michigan Wolverines. What they are is grist for the likes of Wisconsin, which ground them like hamburger last night, 49-11, in the aforementioned Big House. The only upside for Michigan is the Bastard Plague guaranteed there weren't 110,000 witnesses there to see it.

So it's an empty Big House playing home to an empty program these days, and that must unavoidably fall on the head of the presumptive savior, Jim Harbaugh. Michigan threw a bank vault at him to lure him from the NFL, and the sense was the Wolverines finally got it right.

Harbaugh was the hottest of commodities, after all. And he was a Michigan Man. He had smarts and he had swagger and, OK, so he was a trifle on the odd side -- but didja see what he did with the 49ers?

Jim Harbaugh would beat those cocky degenerates from Columbus, by God. He would humble Ohio State and all their dopey buckeye-wearing fans. He would ...

He would go 0-5 against the Buckeyes, as of this fall.

He would lose 62-39 and 56-27 in their two most recent meetings.

He would go 37-5 against unranked teams. 9-3 against teams ranked outside the top 10 -- and, after last night, 2-13 against teams ranked in the top ten.

In other words, Michigan under Harbaugh can still whip the schlubs and the sorta-goods. But it gets its lunch money stolen by the marquee programs.

That would appear to now include unbeaten, top-ten-ranked Indiana, which thrashed the Wolverines 38-21 last week and, in doing so, demonstrated it now has better athletes than Michigan at some positions. It's even better up front, which is where Michigan has traditionally separated itself from the Indianas.

Play that back in your head again: Indiana is now better up front than Michigan. And up is down, left is right, the moon and the stars are green cheese with sprinkles.

Jim Harbaugh, meanwhile, has gone from savior and the Right Hire to making some folks wonder why they ever dumped Brady Hoke for him. Hoke's teams were not up to Michigan standards, either, but at least they'd put up a fight for him. Harbaugh's Wolverines flat-out quit on him last night.

So where do you go from here, if you're Michigan?

The easy answer is to admit that Harbaugh was another failed experiment, and you ship him back to the NFL, where he frankly seems a better fit anyway in retrospect. That's easier said than done, though, especially in the Plague economy. These things will happen when you throw major green at a guy and now face a major buyout as a result.

Still, you've got to figure that if Michigan keeps circling the bowl, Harbaugh will be gone.

The bad news about that?

Brady Hoke's gainfully employed back at San Diego State now.