‘All Or Nothing: The Michigan Wolverines’ on Amazon Prime: 5 Maxims That Drive College Football’s All-Time Winningest Program

Coach Jim Harbaugh’s catchphrase is “Who’s got it better than us?” (Answer: “NOOOO-BODY!”) He used it when he was coaching the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, and he brought it with him to Ann Arbor. (It even got turned into a rap video.) It emphasizes and reinforces the “team first” mentality that he instills in his program, and is repeated, like a mantra, over and over and over again throughout the series.

A bit about Harbaugh: He is the star of the show, both literally and figuratively. Literally, in the sense that the camera spends more time with him and his family than any other subject on the show. Figuratively, in the sense that he’s among the top 5 highest paid college football coaches (making over $9MM/year) and among the most recognizable figures in all of collegiate athletics. Everything orbits around Harbaugh —the team’s spirit, the press corp, the expectations of the alumni— and All Or Nothing does a good job showing the effects that this pressure has on both him and his family.

It’s right there on the wall of the team’s film room. I don’t need to tell you about the physical violence inherent in football, but one of the insights that you get from watching All Or Nothing (as well from shows like Hard Knocks) is how this mentality manifests itself on the battlefield of play. Take junior defensive end Chase Winovich, for example. Off the field, he’s a fun-loving goof —albeit an extremly humble and hard-working one!— from the suburbs of Pittsburgh, who spends a good chunk of one episode getting his hair bleached in an effort to look like Thor. On the field, though, saying he takes this maxim to heart is the understatement of the century.

One of the hallmarks of Jim Harbaugh’s coaching philosophy is his relentless focus on competition. Complacency is not a word that is in Harbaugh’s vocabulary, and everyone on the team is fully cognizant that their roles on the team are never assured; jobs are won and lost day in and day out on the practice field. This is embodied in the quarterback competition between senior John O’Korn and junior Wilton Speight, former roommates and best friends now locked in an intense battle for the starting job on the team. Even after Speight is named the starter in the hours leading up to the team’s first game, the feisty competition between the two continues to escalate with every passing day.

Coach Don Brown is the leader of Michigan’s defensive unit, a fearsome bunch that finished third in the nation last season. He’s an incredible character and master motivator, the kind of coaching lifer who spews out a relentless string of F-bombs while screaming at the top of his lungs while also maximizing the potential of everyone who plays for him. He’s well-poised to be the breakout character of this series, giving both Bruce Boudreau and Al Swearengen a run for their money for the most creative cussing in modern pop culture history.

Okay, this one isn’t something that the coaches frequently repeat, but it stood out to this viewer as one of the most important lessons of the whole series. As mentioned previously, prior seasons of All Or Nothing have focused on professional athletes, but these are college kids we’re talking about. It’s sometimes difficult to remember that the gladiators you watch take gridiron on Saturdays are, at the end of the day, 18 to 23-year-old college student-athletes, living in cramped, 200 sq. ft dorm rooms (with a roommate!) and trying to learn how to be men.

Take Rashan Gary, for instance. This 6 ft 5 inch, 281 lb defensive end is a first team All Big Ten player, one of the fastest and strongest players in all of college football, but one that still talks to his mom —she’s listed as “Mommy” on his iPhone— on an almost daily basis. She reminds him to wear his retainer, and as soon as he hangs up with her, it’s off to a study session with his academic counselor, who challenges him to sit in the first row of class instead of the back.

We, as fans, clap and cheer (and sometimes boo and hiss) these players for 3 hours for 11 Saturdays a year, but this show is a sobering reminder that these are real kids living real lives with real stakes, not just avatars of athletic prowess we view on our flatscreens from the comfort of our couches. That, dear reader, is the real lesson you’ll take away from watching this season of All Or Nothing: The Michigan Wolverines.

Watch All Or Nothing: The Michigan Wolverines on Amazon Prime