Jim Harbaugh among top 20 coaches in 247Sports rankings

Every college football fan base in America, outside of Clemson and Alabama, are looking at their team in hopes of competing for the 2020 College Football Playoff. The trend to everyone else is not going in the right direction because both of those programs don’t seem to be taking their foot off the gas anytime soon. While a few have found coaches succeed the last few seasons, no two other coaches are close to Dabo Swinner and Nick Saban.

Brad Crawford from 247Sports released his top-25 Power 5 coaches and the Big Ten as a conference had seven listed.

No. 23 - Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

No. 22- Scott Frost, Nebraska

No. 21- Paul Cryst, Wisconsin

No. 17- Jim Harbaugh, Michigan

No. 14- Mark Dantonio, Michigan State

No. 11- James Franklin, Penn State

No. 7- Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern

View the full list, here.

Brad’s explanation for Jim Harbaugh:

“Is Harbaugh worthy of his sizable paycheck in Ann Arbor? One of the nation’s highest-paid coaches, he reportedly made $7.5 million during the 2018 season after receiving a 10 percent raise on both his base salary of $500,000 and additional compensation of $4.5M. His total salary also include $2M in premium advances — all for a coach who is 38-14 overall with the Wolverines and hasn’t played in a Big Ten Championship Game nor beaten Ohio State over four seasons.”

While you may scratch your head on a few of those coaches in front of Harbaugh, it’s a fair position overall. James Franklin and Mark Dantonio have won the Big Ten Conference Championship, but the ranking for Pat Fitzgerald seems a bit high in my opinion. Here are their overall records the last four years:

Franklin (38-15)

Dantonio (32-20)

Harbaugh (38-14)

Fitzgerald (36-18)

Harbaugh has increased the amount of season wins since taking over, created more consistency, but hasn’t beat Ohio State or took his team to Indianapolis. He has a lot to prove still and 2019 could be that year.

What do you think?

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