Not only is the honeymoon over at Michigan for Jim Harbaugh, the marriage could be veering toward “we should meet with a counselor” territory.

Harbaugh’s tenure at his alma mater has not been as successful as most pundits predicted and fans expected. What’s worse, it is starting to look eerily familiar.

That familiarity got worse Wednesday, when several other college programs closed the 2018 recruiting cycle stronger than the Wolverines, and Michigan dropped to No. 21 in the 247sports composite rankings on national signing day. Harbaugh’s four recruiting classes have now been ranked 37th, eighth, fifth and 21st by the 247sports composite.

His predecessor, Brady Hoke, followed the exact same pattern: a sluggish start after the coaching change (30th in 2011), followed by two big years (sixth and fourth), followed by a big fade (20th in 2014). The Wolverines also faded on the field, dropping to 5-7 in Hoke’s fourth year. He did not get a fifth.

Harbaugh’s on-field results also have been similar to Hoke’s. The Wolverines slipped from back-to-back 10-3 seasons to 8-5 in 2017. Harbaugh has won two more games than Hoke did through three seasons, but Hoke also finished higher than third in his division — twice, in fact.

Nothing causes consternation in a college football fan base like losing to rivals and poor recruiting rankings. Harbaugh is 0-3 on the field against Ohio State (and 1-2 against Michigan State), and Urban Meyer continues to rule the recruiting trail.

The Buckeyes have a higher-ranked class than the Wolverines for the eighth straight cycle, and the gap might be getting wider. Ohio State has finished seventh, fourth, second and second in the 247composite rankings during Harbaugh’s four seasons. The Buckeyes are clearly in the nation’s top recruiting tier, a place reserved only for them, Alabama, Georgia and maybe Clemson. The Wolverines have been a second-tier program the previous two seasons, but fell a couple of notches below that for 2018.

What’s worse — Penn State might be passing Michigan as Ohio State’s biggest threat. The Nittany Lions have won the Big Ten and won a New Year’s Six bowl game in the past two seasons. Now, they just landed the No. 4-ranked class in the nation, just behind the Buckeyes in the battle for Big Ten supremacy.

James Franklin’s club has an average finish of 13.25 in the past four recruiting cycles. Michigan’s average in that span is 17.75, and it’s still 13.0 if Harbaugh gets a break for the first year, when he had limited time to cobble together a class. Michigan fans do not expect to see Penn State on equal footing, let alone clearly having more momentum moving forward.

The 2018 season was always going to be big for Harbaugh. After having one of the youngest teams in the nation in 2017, this was supposed to be the year he delivers in Ann Arbor.

The ride to this point has gotten bumpier than expected, though. Harbaugh has climbed trees and held sleepovers and taken his team all over the globe, but if he doesn’t win more games, beat some rivals and recruit better players, his time as coach might not last longer than Hoke’s.