What is your favorite victory from the Harbaugh era?

Submitted by Ricky Spanish on

What is your favorite victory from the Harbaugh era?

I am going to go with the 2016 Capital One Bowl victory over Florida. Although many might say this was just a meaningless exhibition, I would argue against that. 

41-7 over the SEC East champion, and paving the road for our future meeting versus the Gators this season. Harbaugh and staff had the team clicking on all cylinders in a very decisive blowout victory. 

Although there may be more meaningful victories, this was by far my favorite game to watch, 

My runners up 

2015: Michigan 31 BYU 0

Michigan 38 Northwestern 0

2016: Michigan 14 Wisconsin 7

Michigan 49 Penn State 10

Michigan 78 Rutgers 0

Michigan 32 MSU 23  

DCGrad

April 22nd, 2017 at 8:17 PM ^

78-0 thrashing of Rutgers. I drove up to the game with my MGoGF and walked through the rain to watch RU fans leave in the first quarter and many more bitch about the 2 pt conversion. I had to keep reminding myself this was a B1G game.

lawlright

April 22nd, 2017 at 11:25 PM ^

It's so funny that when I watched that game live from home I was excited almost to the point of bordem by the thrashing. The game was never in doubt. But looking back on it 78-0 is pretty awesome anytime against any team.

corundum

April 22nd, 2017 at 8:19 PM ^

MSU last year. Really needed that after how the first meeting went down. Team showed resilience after giving up the first score, and then Peppers housed a two point conversion to put an extra nail in the coffin. Felt so good, man.

TrueBlue2003

April 23rd, 2017 at 2:30 AM ^

question it was the most satisfying and only big game/rivalry game we've won over the last two years, unless you count Wisconsin as a big game due to where they were ranked.

The Florida bowl game was the one in which we played the best, but as OP mentioned, mostly meaningless.

LSAClassOf2000

April 22nd, 2017 at 8:25 PM ^

I don't know that the victory over Florida is the most meaningful or favorite really, but it is the first era of the Harbaugh victory I saw after I was allowed to come home from the hospital after my little viral scare (well, another week and I would have been in deep shit, so they told me). It was a great way to take one's mind off what had been a less than ideal - often scary - previous 10 days. 

Impact_Panda

April 22nd, 2017 at 8:45 PM ^

Michigan State last year is a great choice, but a close one for me is Wisconsin last year. I was there, and Darboh's TD reception happened right in front of me. It was fantastic to see UM defeat a top 10 foe for the first time since I became a fan.

Despite the youth, Michigan really needs to break through and win a conference road game against a ranked opponent next year. I don't think it's happened for quite a while

Ricky Spanish

April 22nd, 2017 at 8:48 PM ^

The Wisconsin game was very entertaining, and it shouldn't have been nearly as close as it was. Jourdan Lewis' interception will always be embedded into my mind. Michigan truly needs to win @ PSU this season. I can imagine the momentum it will give the squad for the rest of the season, and beating PSU is tradition. 

Ty Butterfield

April 22nd, 2017 at 9:04 PM ^

Really hasn't happened yet. Need to beat OSU. For the time being Michigan absolutely dominating BYU on my wedding day is my favorite followed closely by the win over Florida in the bowl game.

AA Forever

April 22nd, 2017 at 9:14 PM ^

Harbaugh does not have a signature win yet.  0-2 vs Ohio State, absent from the Big Ten championship and the playoffs so far.  MSU last year doesn't qualify.  A 1 TD win over a 3-9 team does not impress.  The Florida win was nice, but that was a pretty screwed up team by the time we got to them, and a game of really no significance in the larger picture.

SpikeFan2016

April 23rd, 2017 at 4:33 AM ^

With half their defense injured/ejected and well before they were playing up to their ultimate form. 

 

Still would've beaten them that day at full strength, but the magnitude/weight of the victory is definitely a little dimished given the timing/circumstances. None of us thought that was a big deal at the time, as everyone expected PSU to go 7-5/6-6 again (they had just lost to Pittsburgh before that game). 

M-Dog

April 22nd, 2017 at 10:57 PM ^

Yeah, unfortunately the "Worst losses from the Harbaugh era thread" is going to be a lot easier to comment on at this point.  

The dude's been snakebit a little in close big games . . 2015 MSU, 2016 OSU and Iowa, the Orange Bowl.

Gotta learn to finish.  In 4 of his 6 losses, he had the lead with less than a minute reamining in the game but still lost.

He'll get there   

M-Dog

April 23rd, 2017 at 10:06 AM ^

It sucked, but the 2016 OSU loss is very encouraging versus the 2015 loss.  

After 2015 it did not look like Mcihigan had any answers for OSU and would not for a looong time.

Yet in 2016 it was all even, game came down to a "coinflip" bad call.  Michigan is good enough now for luck to take over.  That's tremendous progress.

This is the progression of turning a losing program around into a winning program:

- Lose big,

- Lose small,

- Win small,

- Win big.

Michigan is on track versus our rivals.  

We are up to step 3 for MSU and I expect to hit step 4 this year.  We are at step 2 for OSU and you could even make the case we are de-facto at step 3.

 

SpikeFan2016

April 23rd, 2017 at 1:38 PM ^

It is encouraging a little bit...however, given all of our veteran talent last year, plus the fact Penn State was able to beat OSU and Clemson was able to DEMOLISHHHHHHHHHH OSU, we really should've won last year. The refs cost us the game, but we should've been up by enough to not have the refs within reach of stealing it. 

 

That was a game we needed. 

Yooper

April 22nd, 2017 at 9:08 PM ^

He has changed everything. It is fun to be a Michigan fan again and being confident and excited about the future comes easily.

DD

April 22nd, 2017 at 9:23 PM ^

I feared a loss when I got to the stadium. Sat next to a bunch of byu folks that were very confident. Had a great time us both being very wrong