Harbaugh's arrival makes it big day for Big Ten

Michigan's announcement on Tuesday that Jim Harbaugh is the new Wolverines' coach is the greatest occurrence for Big Ten football since Jan. 3, 2003. That was the night that the officials on the scene at the Fiesta Bowl decided to give Ohio State a 31-24 victory over Miami and provide the Big Ten with a BCS national title.

Four years later, an allegedly invincible Ohio State team – with Heisman winner Troy Smith at quarterback – was humiliated 41-14 by Florida in the BCS title game, and it has been downhill ever since.

Mostly.

There was that 2011 day in late November that Ohio State introduced Urban Meyer as its coach. Meyer had been the Florida coach in the aforementioned BCS game, had won another title with the Gators, and then stepped away for a season due to burnout.

Now, he was coming to Columbus to rescue the Buckeyes from The Great Tattoo Scandal of 2010-11 that led Jim Tressel to be fired. Three years later, the Buckeyes are 24-0 in regular-season conference games since then, and now get a chance to lose to Alabama in Thursday's playoff semifinal in the Sugar Bowl.

Ohio State's perfection in the Big Ten standings has been taken more nationally as a reflection of the non-strength of the rest of the conference rather than the might of the Buckeyes.

Michigan State has been strong with Mark Dantonio lately, and Wisconsin has had its moments, but in this new era of the "Power Five'' conferences, the Big Ten (top-to-middle) is looked at as being in a battle for fourth with the ACC, behind the SEC, the Pac-12 and the Big 12.

Penn State still has some work to do, but it might not take long for the Nittany Lions to become a force again – with the NCAA's ludicrous, over-the-top sanctions having ended and with the aggressive recruiter, James Franklin, one season into what Penn State fans would hope is a long tenure.

On Tuesday, the Michigan problem was solved, with the hiring of Harbaugh for the kingly sum of $8 million per year for six years. You wouldn't bet on him finishing the deal – he's going to take another shot at winning a Super Bowl – but Harbaugh will be there long enough to straighten out the Wolverines.

He's volatile, he's a bit loony, but he's a tremendous coach, he's going to attract hellacious recruits, and … well, Jim Delany, the Big Ten commissioner, has to be happier than your average multi-millionaire Michigan booster with this announcement.

Jim Harbaugh vs. Urban Meyer.

They called it the 10-Year War, when Michigan's Bo Schembechler and his mentor, Ohio State's Woody Hayes, went after one another with powerful teams from 1969 through 1978.

When the Woody-Bo rivalry was its zenith, the Big Ten was referred to as the "Big Two and the Little Eight.''

I did a long piece on the subject for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I asked Murray Warmath, at the end of the Gophers' coaching tenure, about the Michigan/OSU domination, and the old coach had this explanation:

"They are sitting right there in the middle of the cabbage patch.''

By that, Murray meant that those two great schools were surrounded by some of the nation's great recruiting grounds in western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

That's no longer the case. The population has moved south, and so have the football players.

Throw in what Franklin is going to bring to Penn State and what Dantonio has put together at Michigan State, and this becomes a real possibility in a couple of years: