In the interest of full disclosure, I’m compelled to reveal that I’ve been a passionate fan of Michigan football ever since 1973, when I arrived at the Ann Arbor campus to enroll in law school. As a result, I came to veteran journalist John U. Bacon’s book with much more curiosity than the average reviewer. But for all its attention to the highs and lows of the Wolverines’ 2018 season --- one that was at once exhilarating and deeply disappointing --- OVERTIME is essential reading for anyone who has ever wanted an inside look at a major college football program, a frank assessment of both the passions and the pitfalls that surround this uniquely American sport.

The author of four previous books about Michigan football in the past dozen years, Bacon, an Ann Arbor native, Michigan alumnus and part-time faculty member at the university, confesses that he approached this project with some reluctance, unsure if, after all he’s written about the team’s recent fortunes, he had anything to say that was new. In OVERTIME, he chooses to focus, not on 2018’s roughly 60 hours of game action, but instead on the “remaining 8,700 hours, which Michigan’s players spend working in the weight room, the classroom, and the community, where they have achieved uncommon levels of success.”

"OVERTIME is essential reading for anyone who has ever wanted an inside look at a major college football program, a frank assessment of both the passions and the pitfalls that surround this uniquely American sport."

As a result, Bacon devotes a relatively small number of pages to Michigan’s on-field performance in 2018, a season that saw the team reel off 10 consecutive victories after an opening road loss to fifth-ranked Notre Dame, before routs by archrival Ohio State and Florida in the Peach Bowl ended the year on a deeply disappointing note. The streak’s highlight was a three-game stretch of decisive victories against Wisconsin, Michigan State and Penn State that outspoken defensive end Chase Winovich dubbed the “Revenge Tour,” to avenge defeats those teams had inflicted on the Wolverines in 2017, when they finished with a disappointing 8-5 record.

Instead of detailed play-by-play accounts, Bacon ventures behind the scenes at Schembechler Hall, home to the football program, to describe the work of people like Ben Herbert, the team’s strength and conditioning coach; Abigail O’Connor, its nutritionist; and Phil Bromley, who oversees the critical video operation. They are only three of the 67 employees who devote more than 100 hours weekly to their work during the “season” (late July through early January), and easily half that the rest of the year to support the efforts of 140 players.

But at the heart of Bacon’s story is the outsized personality of Jim Harbaugh, the former Michigan All-American quarterback, who was hired in 2014 to resurrect the program after an undistinguished decade that saw the team’s winning percentage slip below 58 percent, a respectable number for many schools, but unacceptable by Michigan’s demanding standards. Even after he has delivered 42 wins in his first 57 games, Harbaugh’s 0-4 record against Ohio State, and the team’s less than impressive performance against ranked opponents, is a source of deep discontent in the massive Michigan fan base, where some of those most enthusiastic about his hiring now are grumbling loudly.

Without deifying Harbaugh, Bacon lauds the coach’s emphasis on maintaining high academic standards (the team ranks ahead of Stanford and Northwestern on the NCAA’s measurement of academic performance) and his refusal to engage in the rampant cheating (including cash payments to recruits) that fuels the success of other elite programs. Though not without controversy, Harbaugh’s decision to take his players on off-season trips to France and Italy (where he presented the iconic Michigan winged helmet to Pope Francis), is consistent with his belief that he’s helping prepare them for a life beyond football.

And while Bacon doesn’t ignore the stars of the 2018 season, like current NFL players Rashan Gary, Devin Bush and Chase Winovich, he’s equally intrigued by the experiences of some of the lesser known names on the roster. Among them was Jared Wangler, the son of ex-Michigan quarterback John Wangler, and one of 10 sons of former players on the 2018 team, who scored the only touchdown of his five-year career that season. There’s also the heartbreaking story of Grant Newsome, a starting offensive lineman whose football career ended when he suffered a catastrophic leg injury in 2016, but who’s now pursuing a master’s degree in public policy on the scholarship he retained despite the end of his playing days.

Bacon isn’t blind to the major controversies surrounding big time college football, including the risks from concussions and the debate over whether players should be paid in a system that rewards coaches like Harbaugh with a salary in excess of $7 million, in a program that took in $125 million in operating revenue in 2017-18. While he’s no apologist for the current system, like Harbaugh he’s convinced, supported by substantial evidence he draws from the experience of the 2018 Michigan team, that at this elite level, “the sport’s rewards outweighed the risks to those young men.”

In passing at least a tentative judgment on the state of Michigan football in 2018, Bacon quotes an observation former Michigan assistant coach Jerry Hanlon made to Harbaugh in 1986, as the future coach was about to enter his final season as a Michigan player, wondering how good the team would be:

“Jim, come back in twenty years, and I’ll tell you. Only then will we know how you and your classmates turned out. Did you get good jobs? Are you hardworking and honest? Were you good husbands and fathers? Did you contribute to your community? Did you make the world a better place?”

Bacon leaves little doubt that by that measure, he believes the Michigan football program is in capable hands. And as long as Jim Harbaugh remains at the top, it will remain so. But for all his accomplishments, whether fans starved for a victory over the hated Buckeyes will be willing to wait indefinitely for that win is very much an open question.