Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt has defended Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh several times this season. Klatt did that again in his latest appearance on FS1’s The Herd on Wednesday.

Harbaugh became the first coach in the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry to lose his first five games in the series on Saturday. It wasn’t close either, as the Buckeyes stomped the Wolverines, 56-27, in Ann Arbor.

Klatt was willing to admit that the criticism Harbaugh receives because of his failures against Ohio State are probably warranted, but he also argued that there was such a wide gap between the two programs when Harbaugh took over Michigan at the end of the 2014 season that he’s been understandably slow to closing the margin between the Wolverines and Buckeyes.

“Ohio State is the best team I’ve ever covered in the booth. I have never covered a better team than this Ohio State team in the booth,” Klatt claimed. “This is the wrong year to evaluate Jim Harbaugh based upon what he does against that particular Buckeye team.”

In theory, Ohio State winning the B1G championship and then performing well in the College Football Playoff will reflect well on Harbaugh and Michigan, but rarely does anyone see it that way.

One of Michigan’s other rivals, Notre Dame, received harsh criticism for again “failing to show up in a big game” when the Irish lost to Clemson in the semifinals last year. But no one took back their criticism when Clemson proved to be the best team in the country and went on to rout Alabama in the National Championship.

Besides, it’s not as though this is Harbaugh’s first blowout loss to Ohio State. Again, he’s 0-5 versus the Buckeyes.

Klatt can remain in Harbaugh’s corner if he wants, but the only way Harbaugh silences his critics is if he beats Ohio State and wins the B1G East.