That was a fairer way of deciding who goes to the Rose Bowl than having the athletic directors decide that, gee, Michigan outplayed Ohio State, and Ohio State went last, but Dennis Franklin has a broken arm, and maybe Ohio State has a better chance of winning, and, by the way, the MSU guy hates Michigan and doesn't want them to go, so what the hell, let's send Ohio State and screw Michigan.

I get that Harbaugh didn't appreciate the fluff questions and seemed like his time was being wasted, but this is pretty much the same way Saban handles most media questions.  That certainly hasn't stopped him from getting recruits.  If you want an even worse example watch one of Gregg Popovich's halftime interviews.  It's uncomfortable to watch.  Harbaugh didn't seem to care too much about what Cowherd thinks, and while I don't like that attitude as a general rule towards media, Cowherd is a bit of a db so I don't really care in this particular scenario.

Harbaugh's behavior until--one day TBD by God himself--it doesn't. Then precisely one half of its members will be trod upon as the herd reverses field. Thinking people, OTOH, will continue to hope and pray that other thinking people, in the admin and elsewhere, are keeping tabs and instituting the necessary controls.

Although many will insist it's not true, it really is perfectly alright to have mixed feelings about someone like our current coach.

game in Madison. For a team that was barely 2-1 that weekend, Camp Randall was frearking sold out!  The thing I'll never forget about that game was the keys.  People jangling their keys. It was loud as hell. And the slow-mo wave. The UW Student Section was wild as well. Up to that point, it was one of the best college football game experiences I ever had.

For Badger fans, it was a "return to glory" of sorts because in the 1980s UW and Dave McClain was a thorn in the side of Earle Bruce.  At one point McClain's Badgers had beaten Ohio State 4 out of 5 seasons: 1981, 1982, 1984 and 1985.

Weird piece of trivia: Alvarez's predecessor Don Morton was from Flint, Michigan.  He scrapped Wisconsin's pro offense in 1987 and brought in a Houston (Bill Yeoman) veer option offense and zero defense.

I have some experience both interviewing and being interviewed, don't listen to ESPN radio, and frankly I have no preconceived notions about who or what Colin Cowherd is.  We were all looking for Jim Harbaugh intensity and charm and insight, and we sure didn't get any of it.

Yes, we can all agree it was painful.  In fact,  Harbaugh sounded like somebody who was woken with a surprise phone call in the middle of a deep sleep; or somebody with a stomach cramp who just wanted run to the bathroom.

But in this case, objectively speaking I would have to side with the media guy. One side was trying, the other was not.  No, the questions weren't bad at all, and they were indeed open-ended. The buy/bye issue was pretty obvious in context- it was prefaced with the Big Ten now has elite recruiters and coaches like JH, Urban, and Franklin.  More likely Harbaugh wasn't paying much attention. 

Cowherd did have questions prepared, and expected Harbaugh to be intense, but Harbaugh gave apathy instead.  He gave him (When/Why/All-in?) questions that gave him an opportunity to talk up Michigan, Ann Arbor, and show some of his enthusiasm and let fans and especially recruits to get to know him, and JH didn't fell like playing.  He switched to- how is the work day and when do you install the game plan for the first game- questions I really would have liked to hear Harbaugh talk about and expand on, and JH doesn't even want to answer that. He switched to 'give me a recruiting pitch'- JH just tried to shut it down.  It WAS a clunker, so the plug had to be pulled.


I realize the desire to circle the wagons, but objectively speaking, I think we have to admit Harbaugh did a poor job on this one. Might be more understandable if he was interrupted in mid-season, but surprised he wasn't able to handle this one better.

Thought Cowherd wasn't a dick until it was over.

Was Lloyd insulted (maybe dissed) by Cowherd multiple times? That's what I read somewhere and so maybe Harbaugh was doing him a solid?

Shit, I think Jim Harbaugh made HIM look stupid. "Dafuck you doin asking me all these dumbass questions?"

Who is Colin Cowherd?

Harbaugh.

Cowherd sucks anyways.  I turn off his segment when it comes on the radio.  His opinions on turning college football into a big business, paying college players, changing rules in MLB, thinking that people are interested in NBA basketball drama, even the opinion that vegetables are his favorite food group....these are the complete opposite of my opinions.  I picked my side a long time ago based on Cowherd's viewpoints, and to see that he hung up on Coach Harbaugh solidifies my belief. 

regardless of what CC is or what he has said in the past about Michigan (which are really just Ad Hominem arguments), in the context of THIS interview, I don't think he did anything hostile, until the end.  Again, I never listen to CC so I have no prejudice for or against.

I wish he would have taken Harbaugh up on his offer to try to make it a better interview, instead of siezing the opportunity to create a headline by ending it abruptly; then going on about it afterward, to stir things up.

But as far as the interview itself:
Regarding not greeting Harbaugh at the beginning and launching right into it: I don't have a problem with that like some seem to, and I am not sure whether JH was actually offended or just pretended to be so in order to disrupt CC and reestablish the pace of the interview.  Presumably before going on the air- if not CC, then a producer- had already properly greeted Harbaugh, told him what was going on, and then they cut to it and launched right into the question.  That is quite common in radio, and avoids the clunky, wasted seconds and drop in energy at the beginning exchanging greetings, etc.

Again, maybe it could have been phrased a little better, but the meaning of the word "buy" as in 'buy/sell' was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention, and gave JH all kinds of room to talk about M, to talk about the division, the conference, or whatever direction he wanted to. [again, one wonders if harbaugh might have been driving or doing something else while this interview was going on]

Be let's be honest: if Dantonio or Urban had given an interview like that, many of us on this board would have jumped all over it.

As for the questions, they weren't mind stretching, mostly softballs, but I thought they were fine, and certainly not unfair.   The interviewer set the segment up  talking about intensity asking about personality [could have taken that either way- 'I am ALWAYS intense and competing', or 'No, at home with my family, we like to relax', blah, blah].
Taking the M job?
Why is M, community special?
The team? The conference?
Coaching (NFL vs. college; game week prep)? 
No real curve balls.  Questions I would have liked to have heard better answers to, and JH is certainly capable of if he was at all engaged.

But I would ask those who thought the questions were so terrible: what questions could the interviewer asked that would have been so much better?