Pretty good ESPN article covering both angles of the turnaround discussion.

 

http://espn.go.com/college-football/stor...m-harbaugh

 

 

 

"Few coaches have taken over a traditional winner that had lost its way and then turned it around immediately: Gus Malzahn at Auburn, going from 3-9 in 2012 to the BCS National Championship in 2013. Brady Hoke, Harbaugh's predecessor, went 11-2 in 2011. His success had no staying power, and Malzahn's Tigers lost a string of five straight SEC games before Thursday night's win over Kentucky.

 

Yet Michigan feels different, permanent, an adjective that hasn't been applied to Harbaugh as he has jumped from the University of San Diego to Stanford to the San Francisco 49ers. But then Harbaugh had never returned home. He had never returned to a program where he didn't have to take the existing structure down to its foundation. The structure has been here since Schembechler built it in that feverish year of 1969. Ohio State was the defending national champion that year, too, with a team that featured so many returning starters that the Buckeyes were considered shoo-ins to win again."

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