Joel Klatt on how Michigan transitions after Jim Harbaugh: ‘Nothing has changed, everybody is different’

It’s tough enough to defend a national championship, but Michigan football faces the task of doing so in 2024 without the coach that got it there. Jim Harbaugh is off to the NFL after taking his alma mater to its first title since 1997 and offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore is ready to take over for him.

Harbaugh isn’t the only coach gone, as he took several assistants with him including defensive coordinator Jesse Minter and strength coach Ben Herbert. Yet, if you walk into the practice facilities at Ann Arbor, you’ll get a sense that nothing has changed despite the obvious differences.

FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt took a visit to Michigan recently and discussed the atmosphere surrounding the program on his radio show Tuesday.

“How do you make sure that nothing has changed when everything is different?” he said. “That’s what they’re charged to do and what’s going to be so difficult and why next season is going to be so fascinating from a Michigan perspective. Everything is changing at Michigan and around Michigan. Got a new conference in the Big Ten. Got a new 12-team College Football Playoff. They also are now trying to defend a national championship with all new faces. Yet when you go into the building there is this sense within the group that nothing has changed. It’s wild because everybody’s different. How has nothing changed?

“They will tell you that their culture, their philosophy, their structure, the mentality of how they practice, their systems both offensively and defensively, the development — none of that is changing. This is status quo for the Michigan Wolverines. Yet everybody doing those things is different. You look around and it’s basically a completely new coaching staff, new strength staff. The only way that everyone’s different and nothing changes is if they’re all kind of promoted from within. Are you part of that family? Were you part of that structure? Did you help build everything that we talk about when we walk about the Michigan culture? That’s the sense that I got around their team.”

Michigan is not only losing a large number of coaches, but many of the players that helped lead it to the championship this past season as well. That includes starting quarterback JJ McCarthy and leading rusher Blake Corum.

Ultimately, what Klatt believes will determine the success of the new coaching staff comes down to what type of leader Harbaugh was the past nine seasons. He pointed to other example of coaches who stepped down only to have their successors carry on the legacy.

If Harbaugh made sure to teach Moore and others what it takes to run the program the way he did, it’s likely the team will be in good shape.

“We’ve seen this happen and we’ve seen it work,” Klatt said. “Lincoln Riley did it at Oklahoma when he took over for Bob Stoops. Ryan Day did it when he took over for Urban Meyer at Ohio State. Frank Solich had a lot of success after Tom Osborne and then it kind of waned after a few years. David Shaw had a lot of success after he took over for Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. I started to think to myself, ‘What is it that allows you to have success even when somebody like Jim Harbaugh leaves?’ …If you study leadership, you’ll see that there are people that can have success and loads of it. Lots of different types of people. It’s interesting to see those programs that they lead when they leave. Some of them fail and some of them continue to succeed. So what’s the difference between the ones that fail and the ones that succeed? The difference is the type of leader that those people are.

“Generally speaking in the research, it showed that they have a lot of personal humility. That personal humility comes in because what they are is fiercely loyal and steadfast to the goals and purpose of the organization. Let’s face it, whatever you think of Jim Harbaugh, that’s kind of what Jim Harbaugh is. Guy didn’t really care if he got any credit. He was fiercely steadfast and had a fierce will toward the success of the organization as something bigger than himself. So when those type of people are leading, they teach and they delegate. When people delegate, then other people learn how to do it as well. Some people can do it all themselves and have a lot of success, but when they leave everything falls off a cliff. When the people that really care about the organization leave, they leave the organization in a better spot than when they got there.”

Michigan is set to kick off the 2024 season on Aug. 31 against Fresno State.