Colin Cowherd praises Harbaugh and U-M, calls NCAA “toothless and bored”
On his Thursday show Colin said U-M should make Jim the highest paid coach in college football (“whatever it takes”), he followed with this on Friday.
“The toothless NCAA. Jim Harbaugh is under investigation, some buying burgers recruiting thing during the Covid period. Blah blah blah. The NCAA is bored. They’ll make him sit out a practice. Who cares, Michigan football is rolling.
I am rooting for Harbaugh to stay in college. I believe northern college programs need great coaches to compete for the playoffs and win a national title. Harbaugh matters to Michigan. He’s great for Michigan, Michigan is great for Jim.
Harbaugh is better for college. He gets the Michigan brand. He’s dominating the Big Ten. No crazy owner, no power hungry GM. I hope he stays. The NCAA thing doesn’t mean squat.”
January 8th, 2023 at 4:17 PM ^
Weird to think they had a really awkward interview a few years ago with both criticizing each other.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:27 PM ^
Colin loves college football. I omitted a few lines where he talked about growing up in the Pacific NW with its crummy weather and unfavorable geography. He noted how easy coaches in the sun belt have it over cold weather northern schools. I think he genuinely admires what Harbaugh has built and knows he’s a special one of a kind coach for U-M.
Thursday he told U-M to not be outbid to keep Jim in Ann Arbor and echo what Alabama did for Nick. “If Michigan whiffs on the next coach, they could be a six win team in a year. It happens fast. It’s not easy to lure kids to a northern school. Harbaugh works. Spend the money. If you’ve got a top coach, there are only about 8 of them, take care of them. Harbaugh is great. Do whatever it takes to keep him.”
January 8th, 2023 at 5:31 PM ^
Minor update: According to the WWW Cowherd's childhood was spent mostly in coastal Washington (a couple of small towns near Grays Harbor). (I looked because I was curious about the Oregon specifics.)
January 8th, 2023 at 6:05 PM ^
Cowherd grew up a Washington Huskies fan. He still roots for them and noted the climate and geographic disadvantages they have in common with Michigan.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:51 PM ^
“If Michigan whiffs on the next coach, they could be a six win team in a year. It happens fast. It’s not easy to lure kids to a northern school. Harbaugh works. Spend the money. If you get a top coach, there are only about 8 of them, take care of them. Harbaugh is great. Do whatever it takes to keep him.”
This is exactly what I have been thinking. Surprised at how many commenters the last few days are so upset with him that they are fine with him walking, or have said to just fire him right now. 95+% chance whoever replaces Harbaugh would be a downgrade, and possibly a drastic one.
January 8th, 2023 at 7:04 PM ^
Do you have a link to the transcript or did you transcribe this? Post a link if you can, I’d like to read/listen to the whole thing.
January 8th, 2023 at 8:22 PM ^
I listen to Colin Cowherd ‘Best of The Herd,’ which is 30-40 min of consolidated highlights from each of his weekday 3 hour shows. It’s on the Apple podcast app. That transcribed comment begins at about 9 minutes into the ‘Best of The Herd’ episode from Friday. He often posts clips on Twitter too.
January 8th, 2023 at 9:21 PM ^
Thanks. I didn’t hear him say M needed to make him the highest paid coach in college but did hear him say M needs to outbid Carolina. All of the things we are hearing tells me that even if we did that by a million a year, he’s still leaving if he gets the offer he likes. We’ll find out sooner or later I guess.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:36 PM ^
It's TV so they gotta generate views so they'll always go both sides.
January 8th, 2023 at 9:03 PM ^
What you get when one quirky guy interviews another quirky guy
January 8th, 2023 at 10:59 PM ^
I remember that interview. As I recall, Colin got the ball rolling by asking if or telling Jim Harbaugh that he was soft. He had no clue that "soft" was one of the worst 4 letter words in Bo's, and consequently his players', vocabulary. He didn't realize it, and it certainly wasn't his intention to insult Coach, but that's exactly what he did. It went south pretty quick from there.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:18 PM ^
Lol.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:18 PM ^
Well, that was pretty well said.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:20 PM ^
Unlike many, I like Cowherd. He at least tries to have an opinion, and can be pretty entertaining.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:49 PM ^
He's come around.
I think Cowherd has learned his lesson from when he stole M Zone content and presented it as his own.
Then attacking the fanbase for rightfully calling him out on it wasn't a good look.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:52 PM ^
Loved M Zone.
January 8th, 2023 at 7:46 PM ^
Best Michigan blog ever IMHO.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:21 PM ^
I truly hope he's using this leverage to force Michigan to better support NIL and transfers. With Santa in his role, we've seen his overt support for Michigan athletics. He needs to keep the ball rolling. Short term, this whole deal may have have an impact on recruiting, but I think Harbaugh is planning long-term, even if he's not the coach.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
NCAA is bored, as is MSN's news feed, which put Shane Beamer to M as their lead on my news feed. I am so sick of this, so it is best just to ignore it. I expect JH to be back next year, if not, there must be some very good reasons for him to leave. There is no doubt he loves M and loves his players.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:35 PM ^
MSN's newsfeed is terrible....so much clickbait. They were not only posting negative things about Harbaugh and UM but the opposite for OSU. Example: One title suggests an OSU star has a shocking decision! What? The article says he is not transferring. Why? Because OSU is so great. No matter that he never suggested he was transferring in the first place.
Sounds like a made-up propaganda piece from OSU's public relations firm---to whom they pay a bundle. I changed my home page so I no longer have to see the MSN newsfeed.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:46 PM ^
Seems that Jim doesn't feel the same way. What a shame.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:04 PM ^
Fire Warde
January 8th, 2023 at 4:50 PM ^
Media got real quiet about the investigation when information about burgers came out
January 8th, 2023 at 5:28 PM ^
I expect the Freep to blow the lid off the scandal of what toppings and condiments were on the burger!
All kidding aside, the "nothing burger" jokes really do write themselves in this situation.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:44 PM ^
The toppings story should be in the next issue of the Onion.
Of course, that’s where the entire story should be.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:50 PM ^
Don’t forget the chips vs. fries. Seasoned vs. regular.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:12 PM ^
When it comes to hamburgers, run silent, run deep.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:17 PM ^
They all look like idiots yet again. What fans around the nation wouldn't laugh at this and think it's one big joke? (other than *tate fans who think Michigan should vacate all it's wins over buying a kid a meal)
It was just a foregone conclusion that Ohio State was going to beat Michigan, for two years running now... and now they tried to smear Harbaugh over a damn burger. I'm glad we have informative places like MGoBlog so I don't have to pay attention to big media garbage to find out what's going on with the program.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:53 PM ^
I dislike Cowherd's general schtick, which is to tout some obvious point like it's a wild and bold stance only he's thought of (LeBron is good a shooty hoops! Patriots+Brady are always a factor to win it all!), but in this case he's correct, so stopped clock, meet 12-hour interval of time.
January 9th, 2023 at 7:29 PM ^
I can’t listen to Colin for 3 hours but his distilled ‘best of’ show in the podcast app is decent at 1.5x speed.
January 8th, 2023 at 4:59 PM ^
Not generally a Cowherd fan but I agree with him here, esp. re the NCAA. A total clown organization.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:15 PM ^
That's why I firmly believe that the University's best defense may be to go on offense; i.e. publicly threaten to challenge the legal basis for their enforcement actions, the arbitrary and capricious nature of those actions, etc. But with what seems to be a milquetoast in the AD chair, that isn't likely to happen.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:31 PM ^
I'd rather see us just ignore the whole thing and carry on business as usual. How is the NCAA planning to enforce ANY possible sanction? They can't, they have no power.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:53 PM ^
If they can, do we get Xavier Worthy back?
January 8th, 2023 at 6:40 PM ^
That would be very unfair to Ferris State.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:35 PM ^
You know what the NCAA can do? They can put milquetoast in THEIR chair & sit in it!
January 8th, 2023 at 6:32 PM ^
brutal. how can you be so cruel?
January 8th, 2023 at 5:30 PM ^
At this point, it just seems like everything is all smoke and mirrors. Pundits with their “sources”, interviews vs meetings. Harbaugh not really given a definitive answer. People assuming Warde screwing things and not offering a big contract vs Harbaugh just wanting to jump to the NFL. So it sounds like it’s coming down to a big time contract vs going to the nfl?
Sidenote: anyone seeing these rumors flying around about Domani transferring to Michigan on social media?
January 8th, 2023 at 5:32 PM ^
I was all ready to jump on the 'Fire Harbaugh' bandwagon and then I realized that this was only about a few burgers. I had anticipated it being something corrupt and scandalous like providing them with cream cheese.
January 8th, 2023 at 5:39 PM ^
Harbaugh should stay. Contrary to what some have expressed, I think he was meant for the college game. I remember all the chatter about that while he was on the 49'ers, how the players tired of him. Did he really enjoy coaching in the NFL or was it just the coveted ring? I'm one who thinks that you have to enjoy the journey in addition to reaching for the goal. It's like being an actor. You spend most of your time auditioning and not getting the part (unless you're a DeNiro or Streep) so you better like the process.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:31 PM ^
PBP: "Here comes the pitch, and it's a mean fastball with lots of mustard! The batter, she swings and...Oh, that's a beaut! It's up and up, it's going and going, and..."
Color: "A moonshot and it's out of the park, folks! Even the pitcher can't keep a smile off his face!"
"I'm one who thinks that you have to enjoy the journey in addition to reaching for the goal."
This for sure. And judging by the smiles we see from him all the time I'd argue he has. All the crap from opposing coaches, players, the NCAA, etc., and yet he's still giving all of them the "The Kozakiewicz Gesture."
January 8th, 2023 at 6:04 PM ^
I know he has to do what's "best" for him.
He fights for, unites, praises, and stands by his players. He's not Warde Manuel or Brady Hoke. He's not a "Michigan Man", but instead a man of Michigan. He's with it and for it. He loves his players, fights for them, praises them, expects character and responsibility from them. He wants NIL to be about supporting players and not buying them. He'll never tolerate bullshit from opposing coaches, his own coaches, his own players, or the NCAA.
He might be one of the best battlers against the NCAA and it's turd regulations, he wants NIL to be about the betterment of his players, etc. But if all the red tape and such is so onerous, let him traipse off to the NFL and see what that gets him. NIL is broken and players are getting bought by too many teams, and so naturally he should go to the NFL where every player is for sale.
But fuck it. I appreciate everything you've done Coach Harbaugh. You've fought hard for what you believe in. It might feel like you've made no progress but you have, and even if you haven't changed the general practices, yet you have still made people believe that those changes should happen. But if you "leave" for the NFL I won't respect you for it. What you've done for your team, staff, and college football so far is amazing. But "Those who stay will be champions" means much more than the literal. You may see not achieving a national championship and/or fighting a seemingly losing and pointless battle against bullshit as a reason to leave for the NFL (although I can't really know if you do), please don't let the door hit you in the tush on the way out if you leave.
If he leaves all the "transfer portal, NIL are ruining the state of college football" talkers can shut the hell up. Michigan to a huge degree isn't throwing money players to come play football. Coach Harbaugh is paid millions a year and he isn't on the field, and therefore risking injury, his health, livelihood, and income. His players are. His leaving isn't as bad as what the aforementioned idiots claim is happening because of players, it's immensely worse.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:07 PM ^
Well I guess that makes it ok then.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:12 PM ^
You always seem very depressed, and disappointed in the state of things. Are you doing okay right now?
If I ever need to send you a get well card, can you please tell me what bridge you live under so I'll know where to send it?
January 8th, 2023 at 8:14 PM ^
Every time you are tempted to get self-righteous about these “violations,” just remind yourself this is about freakin’ hamburgers. Hopefully it will help.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:17 PM ^
Cowherd’s one of the biggest Harbaugh/Michigan guys in the media.
His Wednesday segments with Klatt throughout the season is the best 10-15 minutes of college football talk you’ll get each week.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:45 PM ^
I'm with Cowherd. The NCAA is a joke. And, in addition, why the hell do they care about recruiting now? The players get paid and they jump from team to team via the Portal. Why the hell are they worried about "impermissible contact with a recruit"? Do they actually think college sports (ie football, basketball) are anything less than semi-pro sports? They're creating super conferences for big tv contracts and generating billions in revenue. And they are punishing schools for stupid recruiting violations? What assholes..... There is no integrity with the NCAA.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:48 PM ^
matty blue praises silence, calls colin cowherd “pointless and boring.”
January 8th, 2023 at 6:48 PM ^
How sad do you have to be to listen to this loser? Who gives a shit what he has to say? Jesus. Have some respect for yourself and never listen to rat fuck again.
January 8th, 2023 at 6:55 PM ^
The other day the “Michigan should tell NCAA f you” thread had all the 13 year olds in here all stroking themselves. This is the same. Football fans are children and so stupid.