The University of Michigan is about to spend a lot of money to hire Jim Harbaugh.

John Feinstein of the Washington Post reports.

Why Jim Harbaugh is worth $40 million to the University of Michigan’s football team

The University of Michigan’s decision this week to commit at least $40 million to Jim Harbaugh over the next seven years raised quite a few eyebrows. Forty million dollars — $5 million a year to start, along with a $2 million signing bonus — for a football coach?

Can jock-Armageddon, when the entire bloated-with-corporate-dollars sports world explodes, be far behind?

Actually, Armageddon has already pretty much come and gone in college athletics. The attitude of many players at the most visible schools was summed up by a tweet sent two years ago by Cardale Jones, who will start at quarterback for Ohio State in the national championship game on Jan. 12: “Why should we go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL,” he tweeted shortly after arriving at Ohio State. “We ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”

To paraphrase “A Chorus Line”: Honesty 10, grammar 3.

Harbaugh won’t be the highest-paid coach in college football in 2015, even if you calculate his first-year salary at $7 million (bonus included). Alabama Coach Nick Saban will make $7.2 million. In fact, at least a dozen football coaches will make at least $4 million in the coming year. According to USA Today’s annual report on coaching compensation, almost every football coach among the 65 schools in the “power-five” conferences makes seven figures, and, as Harbaugh’s deal proves, there’s no sign of that trend reversing itself anytime soon.

To wring one’s hands and — correctly — point out the absurdity of a football or basketball coach making 10 times as much as the university president and more than perhaps 20 or 30 tenured professors combined is a waste of time. That ship sailed long ago. What’s more, if Harbaugh is successful, he will be worth every penny he’s paid — and more.