5 reasons Jim Harbaugh to Michigan would be good for all of college football

For years, Alabama fans were mocked throughout the SEC for living in the past. The criticism went something like this:

You guys think that it's your birthright to dominate college football, but in reality, you just happened to have Bear Bryant, one of the best coaches of all time, for a two-decade stretch. Otherwise, you're just another program, one that is located in a state with average talent relative to the rest of the SEC and has to share at least some of that in-state talent with a bitter rival. Just accept reality. You're no better than at least five programs in the conference.

Faced with a streak of four straight botched coaching hires, Mal Moore made a godfather offer to lure Nick Saban from the NFL and in so doing, validated the feelings of exceptionalism for which Tide fans had been mocked. Eight years later, Alabama has added three national titles to its trophy case. Bama fans' rejoinder to the sentiment expressed above is "see, we really are better than the rest."

In 2014, Michigan finds itself in much the same place that Alabama occupied in 2006. Just like Tide fans, Michigan fans get ribbed for living in the past, for worshiping Bo Schembechler, an iconic coach from the 1970s who benefited from massive rosters of scholarship players, and for thinking that they are exceptional when recent results show that they are anything but. Like Bama firing former Tide QB Mike Shula, Michigan has just fired an underqualified head coach, Brady Hoke, whose primary credential was his connection to the program.

In December 2006, Alabama had won one SEC title in the past 14 seasons. In 2014, Michigan has not won a single Big Ten title in 11 seasons. In December 2006, Alabama had lost five in a row to Auburn and 10 of 12 to Tennessee. In December 2014, Michigan has lost six of seven to Michigan State and 10 of 11 to Ohio State.

And like Moore in December 2006,* Jim Hackett has taken stock of Michigan's declining position, made an assessment that the school should take advantage of the financial advantages that its massive fan support affords, and is reportedly bringing back from the NFL a coach with outstanding credentials for $8 million per year.

The major differences between Michigan hiring Jim Harbaugh now and Alabama hiring Saban eight years ago are that Harbaugh is a Michigan grad, which creates an additional layer of validation for Wolverine fans ("see, there is something special about what Bo built and about coming back to Ann Arbor"); and that Harbaugh, unlike Saban, was a success in the NFL.

* - One other connection between Alabama and Michigan: Moore came close to hiring Rich Rodriguez, only to have RichRod change his mind and return to West Virginia. Michigan hired Rodriguez one year later. As Napoleon said, "All great events hang by a hair, I believe in luck, and the wise man neglects nothing which contributes to his destiny."

So, thinking about how Saban has validated the irrational beliefs of Alabama fans and made many of them insufferable all over again, why should any college football fan relish the prospect of the same happening with Michigan fans? Here are a few reasons:

1. Because college football is better when its traditional powers are good.

How much fun is Alabama-Ohio State going to be in a way that TCU-Oregon would not have been? The teams have massive fan bases, which will make New Orleans a zoo and the Superdome a packed-to-the-gills venue full of fans who broke the bank to see the game. The programs have a history that includes a famous meeting between the Bear and Woody in this very venue, wearing the same uniforms that they'll be sporting on Thursday night.

College football games between excellent teams are fun no matter who is playing, but there's a little something extra when the game includes a call-back to something called by Keith Jackson.

2. Because Michigan-Ohio State will be awesome again.

Any argument that starts with "this rivalry is better than that one" is dumb. There is no good way to compare Alabama-Auburn to Florida-Georgia, Oklahoma-Texas, UCLA-USC, or Michigan-Ohio State. It ought to be enough to say, "These teams have a shared history, the fans are proximate and don't like one another, and they play for big stakes," without comparison.

That last part has been missing for Michigan-Ohio State for the better part of eight years as the Wolverines have wandered the wilderness. And honestly, how excited can Ohio State fans be about repeatedly desecrating a corpse? Their dominance over a fallen program in recent years has said as much or more about the state of their rivals as it has about the Buckeyes themselves. Simply put, college football is great in part because of its rivalries, Michigan-Ohio State is a terrific rivalry, and invigorating that contest will be fun.

3. Because Jim Harbaugh and Mark Dantonio will be perfect foils for one another.

Harbaugh has a mouth on him. Michigan State's Dantonio can find disrespect from something so small as a tent spike, especially when that spike comes from Ann Arbor. These two will inevitably butt heads. The rest of us can just eat our popcorn and enjoy the show.

4. Because the Big Ten needs the help.

The Big Ten was not good this year. It hasn't been in the top tier of power conferences since 2005.

Jim Delany's league has just seen Nebraska replace Bo Pelini with Mike Riley, a coach sporting an inferior record, and Wisconsin lose a second straight coach, Gary Andersen, because of friction with athletic director and quasi-retired football coach Barry Alvarez. Penn State's return lost steam in the second half of the year as the Nittany Lions' offense descended into unwatchable status and James Franklin has had to fight to hold together a top recruiting class. The league's two new additions, Maryland and Rutgers, did not exactly set the world on fire on the field in their first seasons.

With that context, the league needs some sort of good news. The hiring by a cornerstone program of Harbaugh -- a head coach who took Stanford from 1-11 in the year before he joined to 12-1 in the year he left, then took the 49ers to three straight conference title games after they had not reached that stage in 14 years -- is exactly that good news.

5. Because it allows us to laugh at arrogant NFL insiders.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Michigan's pursuit of Harbaugh has been the juxtaposition between the increasing confidence of journalists with sources on the Michigan side and the out-of-touch denials of NFL writers, many of whom simply could not countenance the notion that a successful NFL coach would choose to betray The Shield by taking a college job.

Brian Cook recorded in detail the dissonance between the two camps.  And now, we get to watch NFL reporters scrub their Twitter feeds in an exercise of negationism, claim that things changed when they previously claimed that there was no way that Harbaugh would go to Michigan, and otherwise make excuses (there were no good NFL jobs! Michigan got too much of a head start! Harbaugh is crazy!) for an event that is a repudiation of their worldview that no one would opt to coach in college over the NFL.

You may not be thrilled about the arrogance of Michigan fans being validated, but you can at least crack a smile at the arrogance of Roger Goodell acolytes getting their comeuppance.