As he returns to the NFL, Jim Harbaugh leaves college football with a legacy

<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5933609596155858" crossorigin="anonymous"></script> Hoisting the College Football Playoff trophy after Michigan's first outright national championship in 75 years is the most memorable image in Jim Harbaugh's college coaching career. Mentioning how he can "sit at the big person's table now" with his championship-winning father and brother, all that was missing from his postgame press conference following the Wolverines' win against Washington earlier this month was a wall-to-wall “mission accomplished” banner. 

.As he heads back to the NFL, this indelible moment should end up as his last in the college game.

"That'll check the biggest box," he said.

Harbaugh agreed Wednesday to become the next head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, the team announced.

Achieving what he set out to achieve — bringing a national championship back to Ann Arbor — scratched his itch as a college coach. Given the added possibility of further sanctions because of this season’s sign-stealing scandal and with his stock soaring, this was a predictable moment for Harbaugh to take a second run at the Super Bowl following his earlier stint with the San Francisco 49ers.

After winning big at Stanford and with the Wolverines, the legacy he leaves behind is complicated, unique, underappreciated and destined to land him in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with defensive back Mike Sainristil (0) after winning the Big Ten championship game against Iowa at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Like Harbaugh himself, and much like the sport at large, his college career was imperfectly perfect.

Harbaugh was suspended for six games during this historic season for two separate violations, the first as a result of NCAA violations that occurred during the COVID-19 season was for the first three games of the season and then a second punishment for the final three games of the regular season was handed down after school's involvement in a sign-stealing scandal went public and led to the resignation of analyst Connor Stalions. He remade his program and reached new heights in the wake of that year; before then, however, he found his job security on the rocks and his reputation at an all-time low.

Even against that backdrop, Harbaugh's college career will be remembered most for three separate rebuilding projects, none more impressive than the last, and for being one of the precious few coaches whose arrival would guarantee success.

He arrived at Stanford in 2007 and inherited a one-win team that sat at the bottom of the conference standings. In his first year, he scored one of the biggest upsets in Bowl Subdivision history against Southern California. He had Stanford in the postseason in 2009, and one season later scored a program-record 12 wins and a victory in the Orange