Nope. That’s a typo. There’s no way that’s true.

That was my first thought when I saw a stat that Chris “Bear” Fallica tweeted out on Monday night. It wasn’t meant as a knock against Bear, who many know from his College GameDay gambling advice. As I found out during a conversation I had with him a month ago, the dude works his tail off and a lot of his job at ESPN is coming up with good little nuggets like the one he pulled on Jim Harbaugh.

Oh. Here’s the stat:

Whaaaaaaaaat??????

That’s 4-plus seasons of playing 13 football games and Harbaugh has essentially never won a game that he wasn’t supposed to win. Granted, there were only 6 games in which Harbaugh had a chance to do that.

Here’s how they turned out:

  • 2015, Michigan (+5.5) at Utah: Utah 24, Michigan 17
  • 2015, Ohio State at Michigan (+1): Ohio State 42, Michigan 13
  • 2016, Michigan (+3.5) at Ohio State: Ohio State 30, Michigan 27 (2OT)
  • 2017: Michigan (+7.5) at Penn State: Penn State 42, Michigan 10
  • 2017: Michigan (+6.5) at Wisconsin: Wisconsin 24, Michigan 10
  • 2017: Ohio State at Michigan (+12.5): Ohio State 31, Michigan 20

(It’s amazing that Michigan was never an underdog during the entire 2018 season.)

So why do I bring this up? Well, Michigan is once again an underdog this weekend. It makes sense that the Wolverines are 3.5-point underdogs on the road against a Wisconsin team that has yet to allow a point this year.

In other words, if Michigan wins this weekend, it’ll mark that the first time that Harbaugh won a game he wasn’t supposed to. That says a lot about the public expectation of Michigan and why it’s been so difficult for the program to have that “silence the doubters” win.

I mean, goodness. Before this season, Harbaugh was favored to win 46 of the 52 games he coached. I bet during that same time, Mark Dantonio had at least twice as many occurrences (probably triple with how bad that 2016 season turned out). The opportunities for Harbaugh to rise above expectations have been few and far between.

And think about this. After that opening game against Utah in 2015, Michigan has played 49 games against non-Ohio State teams. The Wolverines were favored in 47 of them.

Don’t get it twisted. This isn’t my way of saying that we should all feel bad for Harbaugh’s program because they have so much pressure. He knew that’d be the case when he took the job. He’s paid handsomely to deal with said pressure.

But for a team that’s never even been to a B1G Championship, that’s unbelievable from an oddsmaker standpoint.

Theoretically, Michigan can lose on Saturday and still have a chance to win a B1G Championship and clinch a Playoff berth. It’s a crossover game against a Wisconsin team that could easily be en route to Indianapolis.

Having said that, this would be a major “how do you like me now” game for Harbaugh, especially after his team’s offensive struggles to start the year. It’s already been well-documented how big of a question mark that unit’s struggles are and how tall of a task it’ll be to score against that lights out Wisconsin defense.

By the way, here’s another amazing stat. Since Harbaugh arrived in 2015, Harbaugh is 1-5 against ranked teams on the road. That lone win was last year against No. 24 Michigan State, who was an offensive disaster and finished 7-6.

Against top-15* teams on the road, Michigan’s results under Harbaugh have been … not great:

  • 2016, No. 3 Michigan at No. 2 Ohio State: Ohio State 30, Michigan 27 (2OT)
  • 2017, No. 19 Michigan at No. 2 Penn State: Penn State 42, Michigan 13
  • 2017, No. 19 Michigan at No. 5 Wisconsin: Wisconsin 24, Michigan 10
  • 2018, No. 14 Michigan at No. 12 Notre Dame: Notre Dame 24, Michigan 17
  • 2018, No. 4 Michigan at No. 10 Ohio State: Ohio State 62, Michigan 39

That’s an average margin of defeat of 15 points in such matchups. Take away the Penn State game and it’s still an average margin of defeat of 12 points. Just for comparison’s sake, Ohio State is 4-0 against top-15 teams on the road during that stretch. Even Michigan State is 4-2.

So yes, it’s not just Michigan trying to win as an underdog for the first time in the Harbaugh era. It’s also Michigan trying to win against a top-15 team on the road for the first time in the Harbaugh era.

Here’s the good news.

The Wolverines had 2 weeks to prepare for this one (as did Wisconsin). And after the Army debacle, this is a rare instance in which Michigan can play up the “nobody believes in us” narrative. (Don’t you just love it when teams like Alabama say that? It’s like, man, if we don’t believe in you, who do you think we believe in?) There’s also a chance that Donovan Peoples-Jones and Jon Runyan return to a Michigan offense that doesn’t have much room for error.

Check that. This is a Michigan team* that doesn’t have much room for error. As much heat as the offense caught, this is still a defense that allowed 21 points to a pair of non-Power 5 teams at home. We haven’t seen a typical Don Brown defense show up yet, and it better against Jonathan Taylor, who made a strong early case as the best player in college football.

All of those reasons are why Michigan is a rare underdog in a non-Ohio State game. The public is still in wait-and-see mode with Harbaugh’s 2019 squad. You can bet it would be different if Harbaugh had a habit of winning as an underdog. So far, he doesn’t. At all.

Saturday would be a good time to start that habit.