OT: Congrats to Jim Harbaugh

Submitted by MGoCooper on

In certain aspects, I'm still a little angry at Jim Harbaugh, but I'm happy that a "Michigan Man" has done so well in his first year as a coach in the NFL. It's incredibly rare to do what he has done, and he has done it the Michigan way, running the ball effectively, and playing stiffling defense. So again, congrats Coach Harbaugh, a lot of Michigan men are pulling for you.

 

Edit: For those that didn't see or hear about it, the 49ers beat the Saints in a fantastic game, 36-32.

bronxblue

January 15th, 2012 at 8:33 AM ^

Stanford is not a big time football school, and my guess is that he had more autonomy than he would have had at UM.  He was there for 4 years, and while he helped turn them around I'd like to see how he would have handled boosters, alumni, etc. over the long haul.  RR was a great college coach as well, yet he struggled handling the ancillary elements of being a HC at UM.

Yeoman

January 15th, 2012 at 1:23 PM ^

I'm weary of people treating football aesthetics as a matter of fact and not opinion. I for one have a strong preference for 10-7 over 73-62 and I enjoy watching a power running game more than watching somebody throw 70 passes. I'm sure I'm in the minority but it isn't a minority of one.

Perkis-Size Me

January 14th, 2012 at 8:38 PM ^

i would have been happy to have him as our coach, but i'm glad we have a coach that truly wants to be here, and we didn't have to lure here with promises of a big pay check.

steeltownblue

January 14th, 2012 at 8:41 PM ^

Concur.  I find him hard to root for.  There's a certain lack of class, fergodsakes.  I didn't know it at the time the search was underway, but I'm glad we did not get him.  And, of course, I am very pleased with coach Hoke.

nyc_wolverines

January 14th, 2012 at 9:09 PM ^

Indeed. Having an opinion is a bad thing? Mike Hart has little room to define who is and is not a Michigan Man particularly given his chest thumping "little brother" comment.

Harbaugh is a loose cannon due to his emotions but I consider him more of Michigan Man than David Brandon who ignored our MVP during the coaching search and couldn't even buy rings for the coaching staff for the Gator Bowl. You want to rip on Harbaugh for class, you can couple his antics with Brandon. But, haters gonna hate.

bluenyc

January 14th, 2012 at 9:29 PM ^

Wait, you are going to compare a man who made a comment and a man who didnt have time to meet with Denard and failure to buy rings with someone who ripped the university for pushing people to easier majors while he was doing similar things. 

Hart, unfortunate with his comments, loves the school and never said one bad word about the school..  David Brandon while trying to search for a coach should have listen to Denard, but i think DB doesnt really listen to many students.  The ring thing is a a disgrace, but he has never uttered anything against the university. 

 

nyc_wolverines

January 14th, 2012 at 11:26 PM ^

Harbaugh felt what was on his mind, I don't shy away from folks having an opinion.

I don't like Yes Men and I don't like folks who don't like others to have an opinion.

Btw, did Harbaugh's comments hurt Harbaugh or U of M? If you answer U of M then our alma mater is in bad shape to be harmed be 1 man.

bluenyc

January 14th, 2012 at 11:36 PM ^

I think the University was cast in a bad light, dont think it was a major setback.  How do you think the people in the AD felt.  If you think the people in the AD were happy with you, fair enough.  He had all the power to effect a change without having made it so public.  Ok, he did, and let everyone see our business out in public. 

What was also hypocritical, he did some of the same things he accused our university of.  If he had such a problem, why not change it as the head coach of Stanford.  Was he really trying to incorporate change in our university, and the best way was to do it so in a public fashion. 

It's not about yes men, he could have done it in private.  And who said anything about opinions. 

snarling wolverine

January 15th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^

David Brandon while trying to search for a coach should have listen to Denard, but i think DB doesnt really listen to many students.

Listening to players' advice on hiring a coach is how you end up with guys like Brian Ellerbe. I love Denard but he wasn't in a position to know whom the best coach for the job was. He probably wouldn't have named Hoke if asked, but now I bet he's happy to have him as his coach.

BRCE

January 15th, 2012 at 12:11 AM ^

Early returns on Hoke are great. The ultimate verdict is still out as it is on most coaches (for one, we need to see at least a few years of Hoke's Michigan vs. Meyer's OSU on the field and the recruiting trail). We have good reason to feel confident but saying "home run" after one season is really jumping the gun.

nyc_wolverines

January 14th, 2012 at 11:31 PM ^

Apart from 3 and Out revelations, Brandon's blind drive to raise $$ for Michigan's AD department at any cost to tradition, plus his uncommon meddling in the football operations and media comments (eg complaining about OSU dual-coaching situation) is indicative of an imperial AD. But hey, others have differing opinion.

PS- hiring Hoke, if we all remember, was option 3 behind Harbs and Miles  - remember that kitten "I can Haz Hoke?" on the MGo header? Yeah, very few saw a SDSU coach as a Sugar Bowl winning favorite.

 

 

Michichick

January 15th, 2012 at 2:45 PM ^

Brandon was never going to offer either Harbaugh or Miles. At the time, LSU was under investigation by the NCAA for Miles' recruitment of a kid out of Sacramento, for which the NCAA found major violations last summer that cost LSU 2 scholarships and a year of probation. With Michigan being on probation, Brandon wasn't touching Miles with a 1,200 mile pole.

Brandon did his due diligence on Harbaugh too and found baggage too big to bring to Michigan. So he never offered Harbaugh either. Harbaugh made it clear that the NFL was his goal, and the 49ers obliged.

Brandon made only one offer, to our current coach. Hoke wasn't #3, he was #1.

FrankMurphy

January 15th, 2012 at 12:15 AM ^

He wanted to be an NFL coach. He took a job at one of the league's top franchises. And he didn't even have to leave the Bay. If he had stayed at Stanford or spurned us for another college job, I would have been done with him. But I can't blame the man for follwing his dream.

BrownJuggernaut

January 15th, 2012 at 10:42 AM ^

With Hoke, we got someone who will be here for the long run. With Harbaugh, we would've had talk of a guy who might leave for the NFL for a while. The main difference between Harbaugh and Hoke was that Harbaugh is younger and still has a lot of ambition as far as coaching. Hoke knew where he wanted to be. I think it worked out for all parties because Hoke came here and was successful. Harbaugh has had success and he did not have to uproot his family. 

Yeoman

January 15th, 2012 at 1:29 PM ^

...is that the part of the job Hoke likes best is the teaching aspect and the part Harbaugh likes best is the chess match against the other team's coaching staff. Each of them is coaching at the level he'd prefer and for which he's best suited.

BrownJuggernaut

January 14th, 2012 at 9:08 PM ^

Harbaugh has done a whole lot to change the culture of the team. I don't know how many philosophical difference he had with Mike Singletary, but he's really instilled confidence in Alex Smith and made his players play hard for him and each other. I can't speak highly enough about what he's done with the Niners. It'll be very interesting to see how they do next week.

I Blue My Dad

January 14th, 2012 at 9:35 PM ^

I feel as though the only real incident that changed our opinions of him was the Shwartz handshake. If that had never happened, I definitely would have been rooting for him.

NateVolk

January 14th, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^

You have to take the bad with the good with Jim, because he doesn't care about any of that political or social custom stuff. He's a really cocky guy and could probably use some humbling. (if that is even possible) His critics are right and his supporters are right. It's a testimony to his ability that the most fanatically loyal people are his players, or when he played, his teammates.  The fans of the team he is associated with, love him too.

 Despite his boorish tendencies at times, I still love the guy and he is definitely in my top 5 all time favorite Michigan players.   

BRCE

January 14th, 2012 at 11:45 PM ^

His critics can only be so right when his results are what they are. How people can knock his personality when he is so beloved by his players is beyond me.

Stanford players aren't dummies. Those guys have a lot on the ball. If Harbaugh was really this bad person his idiot critics say he is, I doubt he would have been able to earn such obvious admiration from those guys.

BrownJuggernaut

January 15th, 2012 at 10:45 AM ^

It's because he's a competitor. He cares about his players and he builds the team concept, but he's also a competitor and wants the most out of his team. I love that. Furthermore, his work with Alex Smith this year has been nothing short of phenomenal. Smith was a guy who was lacking in confidence and Harbaugh has him built up. Smith's performance yesterday was fantastic. He led that team. A lot of that has come from being coached up.

Swayze Howell Sheen

January 14th, 2012 at 10:22 PM ^

i thought he actually kind of looked nervous all day, very un-Harbaugh like. But they snuck out  a win, so good for him. He has done well, way beyond expectations. 

That said, he still is obviously a butt head (and that was better when he was *our* butt head).

 

FrankMurphy

January 15th, 2012 at 12:08 AM ^

Harbaugh is who he is. He's an uber-competitive, loudmouth blowhard with a frat boy attitude, but that's part of what makes him a great coach. No matter what he may have said, at the end of the day he's a Michigan Man who did a lot of great things for us. 

I'm happy for him, and I'll be happy to see him dominate the league in the future (though this year, I would rather see Tom Brady get his fourth ring). 

TWSWBC

January 15th, 2012 at 9:01 AM ^

He is a leader of men wherever he goes. Can't deny that. Also he is similar to coach Hoke. Both took over teams who did not perform well for prior coaching staffs and led them to post season success. Go Michigan Men

SooCalBlue

January 15th, 2012 at 10:41 AM ^

All Michigan Men stand a little taller today because of what Jim Harbaugh has accomplished. Listen to "Lumpers" when he says Harbaugh is a true Michigan Man. He is blue through and through. The criticism of the Michigan two-tiered academic system- athletes vs. others- was taken out of context and mutilated by the "Michigan Mob." I know because indirectly I precipitated the comments by simply asking Jim, a dear friend, the difference between recruiting at Stanford and our beloved Michigan. His answer was simple (Bo discouraged him from a desired History major), direct (he had 16 engineering majors on his first Stanford roster and later as many as 23- Michigan had few) and to the point that even at places like Michigan something is surrendered in the name of athletics. The very next day a San Francisco paper called and asked a similar question. The day following the Ann Arbor News picked it up and contorted the sentiment it expressed. The rest is history. As Jim's friend and a proud Law School alum, I was appalled at what happened next- the vilification of Jim. He was right and he spoke the truth. To criticize one who forces you to confront your own inherent weaknesses and who wants you to get better has become a Michigan trap. Michael Hart, also a great Michigan Man, fell in to it by denouncing Jim. Why? Because he spoke a truth none of us wanted to hear? "Come on, Man"! We're "Michigan for ' Chrissakes!" We make ourselves better and celebrate our Michigan successes. BTW, I was at the Niners' playoff game with my favorite Michigan Man last night and celebrated his win afterwards with him in true Michigan style. Not a day goes by that this guy's blood isn't True Blue, trust me AND the facts. Hell, his Dad even gave our newest Michigan Man and Secretary of Defense, Greg Mattison, HIS start. Lastly, don't buy in to the myth that you can't win with men who have the brains to be true Michigan Men. Jim exploded this myth at Stanford. In fact, Andrew Luck chose Stanford BECAUSE Jim would allow his engineering major!

TdK71

January 15th, 2012 at 12:23 PM ^

Allow me to concur and present my summation of your well written passage.

 

Jim Harbaugh can talk the talk because he walks the walk. 

 

Brady Hoke. brings much joy and gladness to my heart, but I so wanted Michigan to successfully court Harbaugh, who knew that he would become so white hot at the end of the last season. I am very glad Coach Hoke leads Michigan he gets it, looking back on the whole thing Brady Hoke is what Michigan needs and vice versa.

I figured that Harbaugh's Rah Rah style wouldn't carry over to the pro's, boy was I wrong.

I thought the 49ers would be in the running for the Andrew Luck bowl instead they are in the NFC championship game.

Congrats Jim you are always true blue in my heart!   

M-Wolverine

January 16th, 2012 at 11:48 AM ^

Also steers players. And those numbers just weren't true-

http://mgoblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/destroy-harbaugh.html

Stanford players mainly are in less demanding classes too. 

And I find your story a little implausible that you'd ask a question that a major paper would just happen to ask the next day.

 Not holding it against Harbaugh overall, and he's good at what he does, but it was a dick move.

SooCalBlue

January 15th, 2012 at 10:50 AM ^

And one more point on Harbaugh's love for Michigan and the culture Harbaugh has created in San Francisco with his Niners team? What do you think was on the cover of yesterday's Forthy-Niners playoff game program? " The Team, The Team, The Team!" I've heard Jack Harbaugh imitate the great Bo many times with his impression of it.