CBS interview with Coach Harbaugh
Dennis Dodd sat down with Coach Harbaugh for an interview. No earth-shattering news, but lots of great quotes that are exactly the sort of thing you expect to hear now from the coach.
I thought this board would especially enjoy this one:
Harbaugh also kind of boasted he's stripped down the weight room to a more spartan look. Upon arriving, he was repulsed by walls filled with pictures and inspirational quotes.
"It was shiny, like somebody from Chicago came in [from a ] P.R. firm."
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/writer/dennis-dodd/25135139/lo…
I never knew about this part:
How many schools have a football from 1903, from the only game Michigan gave up points that season? Aside from that 6-6 tie with Minnesota, Michigan outscored everyone else 565-0.
That is just crazy...
Yost's point-a-minute teams. Yeah we kicked everybody's ass back then except for apparently Minnesota.
I am actually looking forward to the Little Brown Jug game this year. We need to take it back.
Princeton may have one from before 1903.
Ah, well then, let us all bow to mighty Princeton
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I will never forget that Sparty broke Harbaugh's arm in 1984. I am betting Harbaugh hasn't forgotten, either.
That's the most we've heard on that Bo benching story. You can tell he's still a huge influence on Harbaugh, in some ways almost haunting from this interview at least. Many have said it seems like he might be Bo reincarnate...I get the image in my head from Patton where Patton's on the Roman/Carthaginian battlefield in North Africa and says "I was here." Patton, at least the movie portrayal reminds me of both Bo and Harbaugh.
I really like his approach this offseason. Basically work hard and then play hard too. All the stuff with Twitter, asking a recruit to commit via a prom-like invitation, visiting Cracker Barrels...all that helps build a positive aura that is unlike any other college coach of this generation. He may not have the wins here yet. But they'll come.
Oh and the detail about the weight room...for the umpteenth time thank God we have Hackett now instead of Brandon.
Hackett got out of the way like a good AD should, and let Harbaugh undo and put it like he wanted to.
If you really want to nitpick that which was a fraction of the point of my overall post, feel free I suppose. Whatever gets you off.
the stake not being his type of motivation. Given his antics over the years, I highly doubt that. The point here is that the wieght room is a place to get to work. Think Rocky v. Apollo...
Harbaugh has done some of this - like the time he bought blue work shirts for his team. And he may not like the quotes on theweight room wall, but he does like them on twitter.
The benching story was in Bo's Lasting Lessons.
I think that not only are you correct, but that what Harbaugh was aiming fpor here was a change of attitude fostered by a change of environment - if the walls had been bare, the change would have been that he'd have filled them with inspirational sayings.
"If Michigan is looking for someone to walk up to Urban [Meyer] in pregame and punch him in the nose," Ron Lynn said, "they got the right guy -- literally and figuratively."
Ron Lynn is an ass. One of the greatest football photos of all time is of Bo and Woody having a friendly chat before a big game. That's class.
Let the football TEAM do the beatdown. At the end of the game Jim can go out and say, to Urban,
"Can't wait to play you guys again".
Agreed about the Woody/Bo photo.
However, I'd be okay with Harbaugh punching Dantonio right in the fucking mouth.
He is the last guy in the world to have a friendly chat with someone he is directly competing with, either right before, or right after, the game. He is intensity personified. He didn't say anything like "can't wait to play you guys again" when it was his own brother!
As for "Ron Lynn is an ass," I'd say your comment says a lot more about you than about him. Further, I'd bet he has spent more time with Harbaugh than you, and has one hundred times more cred with any casual reader than you when it comes to what Harbaugh is like.
Great article! enjoyed reading every word of it.
The job may have been too big for him to handle, and there's no shame in that. We should certainly appreciate what he left behind.
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Hoke is a great position coach and the way he went about things like the motivational wall in the weight room and the clapping and telling his guys they were the best is exactly what a position coach would do. But he was the head coach and as head coach he needed to approach things differently. He needed to hold everyone accountable and he didnt. Encouragement only goes so far. IMO thats why he failed.
I hold Hoke in very high regard. A great Michigan Man. Just not a great head coach.
"It's like being dipped in magic waters again," Harbaugh said of recruiting.
I am assuming this is a summary writeup of a much longer interview, as the article itself jumped around a bit, but still it manages to highlight some of why Jim Harbaugh is the right person in the right moment here, not to mention that he is full of entertaining quotes like the one above. I thought that one was pretty intriguing.
"These first Harbaugh practices have been full go. Instructions were that quarterbacks -- even in the spring game -- were tackled all the way to the ground. That is almost unheard of. Anywhere."
That's interesting. First I can remember hearing of it.
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That's an unfortunate word...
Harbaugh also kind of boasted he's stripped down the weight room to a more spartan lookThe author should have used something like "austere". Fuck Sparty!
Fisch is really being pumped up in the media narrative around this team. I really do believe he's here in order to make a jump to MAC head coach after the season.