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A lot of television analysts know a lot about a lot. Because they were former players and coaches at a high level. They’ve seen and experienced firsthand what the rest of us can only observe.

Then again, what they know and what they say for public consumption are usually two very different things. They’re great to talk with privately. But they have too many friends and former associates in the business to be too honest on-air.

But when something happens like Wisconsin’s 35-14 demolition of Michigan, then they feel as if they have permission to empty the vault. Because the evidence is so obvious that a complete explanation is necessary.

Even by their standards, full disclosure is then mandated. Otherwise, their networks will cut them free and somebody else will get that sweet studio gig.

And so, after the final whistle blew in Madison on Saturday afternoon, I listened very carefully to what former Michigan and NFL defensive back Charles Woodson and former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said on the FOX anchor desk. Granted, you need to filter what both say. One is an inflamed Michigan Man who uses “we” and “us” about the Wolverines. The other has used “them” his whole life and holds a deep-seated antipathy for Michigan for obvious reasons. But, taken together, I figured they could offer some perspective on what we’d just seen.

And, make no mistake, it was an annihilation. It wasn’t the win-loss result that was surprising but the manner with which it was executed. This was a referendum on the fifth-year Michigan coach, Jim Harbaugh.

Meyer: “The fan looks at that game and says: ‘Blame the players, blame the coaches.’ That’s not the case at all. … Every one of those guys on that field are highly recruited guys. Every one of those coaches knows how to coach.

“It’s easy to say, ‘That guy can’t play. That guy can’t play.’ That’s not true. Those guys can play. Or, ‘That guy can’t coach. That guy can’t coach.’ Sure, they can coach, or they wouldn’t be at that level.

“So, there’s a problem there, Charles. You lift up that hood and you’re not gonna like what you see. But you’d better get that fixed fast.”

Woodson: “This does not look good. I don’t even know how to talk right now. What I could say wouldn’t be the right thing to say because it would be my emotions. So, what I’m gonna tell you now is on the surface. And when I get home, I’m gonna say some different things.

“But right now, I’m sick about how Michigan football looks. I came here with high expectations of how my team was going to look in front of you guys. And I’ll be honest with you, man. I’m embarrassed.”

I’m well known around the Big Ten for being the one guy who never bought into the Harbaugh hype. I predicted in 2015 when he was hired that he would never win a Big Ten championship.

Why? Because I knew his intractability in a league with a wide diversity of coaches very good at winning in different ways. And I always believed he was basically a one-trick pony with a history of not wearing well with players and assistants. Staff members routinely bolted on him even before the huge money hit college football and made transience an occupational trend.

So, in sum, I doubted that he had the adaptability or could build the continuity necessary to beat all three other coaches in his division. These were men who did different things really well, as well or better than he did: Meyer’s (and now Ryan Day’s) offensive acumen with equal to superior talent; Mark Dantonio’s defensive acumen with slightly inferior but still good talent; and James Franklin’s salesmanship and motivational acumen with about equal talent.

And he hasn’t. He’s never been able to beat all three in one year. He’s never beaten Ohio State at all. He’s lost a lot of close games where he’s sphinctered up in tight moments. And worst of all, he hasn’t properly deployed and exploited all the athletes he’s signed.

Even with a new offensive mastermind in first-time coordinator Josh Gattis, Michigan still looks stilted and stiff and overly conservative. Its latest quarterback Shea Patterson is cautious and jittery just like those who preceded him. Nobody seems to be having any fun. They all play like Harbaugh’s face looks – grim and soulless.

And now, everyone is turning on a man who was supposed to be a savior for a program with more outsized institutional arrogance than any in college football. Why is this? He is exactly what you hired. A man who idolized his mentor Bo Schembechler with the same unfortunate strategic tendencies but none of the spiritual fire.

This is a guy who played a certain smash-mouth style with good-not-great athletes at Stanford and made it work thanks to a quarterback guru in offensive coordinator David Shaw and his star pupil Andrew Luck. He played the same style in San Francisco and, in spite of reaching the Super Bowl, he alienated everyone within the 49ers organization to the point that he had to eject.

And since arriving in Ann Arbor, he’s made everything about him. Not his players. Not his staff. It’s about him. Here he is sleeping over at a recruit’s house. Here he is with Michael Jordan. Here he is taking his team to the Vatican on a summer trip. It’s all photo ops and brand-building.

All of which recruited a ton of high-end talent. But that’s not necessarily the personnel his strategic style demands. Now, he’s suiting up a lot of high-maintenance 4- and 5-star sportscars and making them churn about on a grimy, quarter-mile oval.

Then on Saturday, the program his personality would seem to embody, the sort his late mentor would admire – Paul Chryst’s 3-star-heavy Wisconsin Badgers – offloaded a team full of monster trucks at Camp Randall and ran them over.

And all the while, you got the feeling one team was highly motivated and all-in behind their coach and teammates while the other was distracted and untaught. Wisconsin knew exactly what it wanted to do. It is the most Lombardi-esque throwback program of the current era. You know exactly what they’ll throw at you.

Yet, Michigan looked equal parts perplexed and disconnected. As if they’d not been properly briefed – after a bye week. It’s mind-boggling.

Which gets back to what Meyer said. I still think Harbaugh can save this season and have a successful year. But that glimpse into what’s wrong with the machine should start with him looking not under the hood, but in the mirror.

Something is spiritually wrong with this team. And that must revert to him, to his leadership. If he decides to have a come-to-Jesus moment with his team and his staff and admit even a small margin of personal failing, he could buy a lot of personal capital he very clearly lacks and desperately needs at the moment.

And if he tells Gattis and Patterson: ‘Look, you do what you do. This is your offense. I’m behind you, whatever happens,’ what might unfold then? Because Meyer is right. This team has a ton of talent. Unburdened and unleashed, it still could be formidable.

I don’t think it’s a lost cause. I just think the man in charge has some reaching out to do, to show his team he cares about them more than his own image. Only if they know that will they play for him, instead of just going through the motions.

They clearly aren’t motivated to do more than that right now.

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