Is College Gameday a curse for Michigan and Jim Harbaugh?

Michigan football will host College Gameday this week with Ohio State coming to Ann Arbor but is that really a good thing for the Wolverines? 

Ever since College Gameday started traveling to locations in 1993, Michigan football has been among the programs featured the most (6th all-time) on the college football pre-game show.

Ohio State tops the list and will add to its total on Saturday as the Buckeyes will be showcased on College Gameday in Week 13 along with U-M.

It’s time for “The Game” and for the fourth time in the Jim Harbaugh era, College Gameday will be at the Michigan-Ohio State game.

However, as we all know, things haven’t gone well for Michigan and Jim Harbaugh on this kind of big stage.

There was the heartbreaking 2016 loss that featured the controversial ruling about JT Barrett getting a first down when Michigan felt he was short and had he been ruled short, Michigan would have won the game.

The College Gameday crew was there for that.

College Gameday was also there in 2018 for the 62-39 disaster — the last time Michigan was in College Football Playoff contention.

The Gameday crew was also there for the brutal losses to Michigan State in 2015 (trouble with the snap) and this past October when the Wolverines blew a 16-point lead and suffered the ill of Big Ten officials who later admitted making a mistake taking away a defensive touchdown.

There was also the Ronnie Bell drop in 2019 — sorry Michigan fans, I know it’s been rough.

Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines are 0-3 against Ohio State when College Gameday is in town and as you can guess, the record isn’t much better against other teams.

In Harbaugh’s seven seasons, this will be the 11th time that Michigan has been featured on College Gameday, and right now, the Wolverines record is just 2-8. Michigan lost twice to Michigan State and Penn State while being featured, as well as once at Wisconsin.

The two wins were at home against Wisconsin in 2018, as well as at Minnesota in 2020.

So while Michigan fans were surely excited to have College Gameday in Ann Arbor, U-M has yet to win one of these really significant clashes under Harbaugh, with the two wins coming over Wisconsin, which wasn’t ranked in the top 10 when it came to Ann Arbor and neither was Minnesota.

This is a winner-take-all game for the Big Ten East title and it’s fitting that College Gameday will be in Ann Arbor. Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff will be too.

And every media outlet covering the game will have the same question: Can Harbaugh and Michigan finally win the big one? Can the Wolverines finally beat Ohio State?

There’s only one way to find out.