Jim Harbaugh's Best Offseason Move Is Downplaying Michigan's 2015 Expectations

Through his first four months as Michigan's head coach, you'd be hard-pressed to find a day in which Jim Harbaugh wasn't responsible for a headline.

He's (allegedly) sub-tweeted Urban Meyer. He's helped victims in a car crash. He's interacted with Judge Judy. He's issued an open challenge to the entire SEC. He's taken a selfie with the First Lady of the United States.

But while the Wolverines' new head coach's first offseason in Ann Arbor has played itself out in front of the public eye, perhaps Harbaugh's smartest move came in front of a crowd of about 280 people at Monday night's Ufer Quarterback Club Banquet.

It was there that Harbaugh, serving as the keynote speaker at an event he took part in as a student-athlete 28 years ago, tempered expectations for his first season as the head coach of the Maize and Blue. Despite Michigan's dominating the headlines of the college football landscape for the past four months thanks to its new head coach, the former Wolverines quarterback issued a reminder that he has yet to coach a game at his alma mater.

"I can't stand up here and talk like [Michigan swimming coach] Mike Bottom does, I haven't won the championships, I haven't done a darn thing," Harbaugh said, via Nick Baumgardner of MLive.com. "You heard some of the youngsters talk about adversity, and trying to find a way to be successful by working—that's what we're doing. That's where we're at right now."

Tony Ding/Associated Press

It's not the first time Harbaugh has attempted to downplay the success that is expected in his first season in Ann Arbor. In March, he told Fox 2 in Detroit's Charlie LeDuff that he didn't believe he was worthy of his $5 million salary, which is actually lower than the $8 million per year he was initially expected to receive at Michigan.

But while Harbaugh's tempering of expectations is based in honesty—he's right, his team does have a lot of work to do—it's one of the wiser PR strategies he's adopted this offseason. Unlike Urban Meyer at Ohio State in 2012, Harbaugh is hardly taking over a roster capable of competing for a championship, after the Wolverines endured a 5-7 season in Brady Hoke's final year in Ann Arbor in 2014.

Harbaugh has managed to already put his own spin on things at his new job, adding Iowa graduate transfer Jake Rudock, who is expected to compete with Shane Morris for the starting quarterback job this fall. But his late arrival after wrapping up his fourth and final season at the helm of the San Francisco 49ers didn't allow him to make much of an impact in his first recruiting cycle with the Wolverines, who signed the nation's 38th-ranked recruiting class in February.

Harbaugh's track record of developing players—both at the college and pro level—speaks for itself, and he's managed to turn around San Diego and Stanford programs that were each in worse shape than the one he's inheriting at Michigan. But to think that the 51-year-old head coach would be capable of doing so in just one season is probably unrealistic, and Harbaugh would likely admit as much.

"We're going to keep working," Harbaugh said at Monday's banquet. "And I vow to give you our very best."

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

It's going to take that—and then some—for the Wolverines to make some noise in Harbaugh's first season, especially in a Big Ten East division loaded with the reigning national champion Buckeyes, a strong Michigan State squad and an on-the-rise Penn State program. Michigan's schedule doesn't do the Wolverines any favors in 2015 either, as they'll start it on the road playing at Utah before taking on Oregon State, UNLV and BYU in the run up to the Big Ten season.

If Rudock thrives under Harbaugh or Morris makes a jump in his junior season, it's possible Michigan could be undefeated heading into its Oct. 17 showdown with the Spartans. But the Wolverines are hardly in a position to be getting that far ahead of themselves.

Which is just fine when you consider what Harbaugh is taking over and the promise his arrival has brought to Ann Arbor. All of his offseason stunts wouldn't carry nearly as much weight if there wasn't a strong belief that he'll be able to bring his alma mater back to college football prominence behind them.

But there will be only one way for Harbaugh to keep his team in that discussion come fall, and that will have to happen on the field. That doesn't mean Michigan couldn't exceed expectations or be competing for championships as soon as 2016, but for now, Harbaugh is wise to downplay the expectations for his debut campaign.

"I've got no answers for you. Only a lot of questions," Harbaugh said. "And we're going to keep asking them."

He's not alone. And at this point in time, rightfully so.

Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of CFBStats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.