Harbaugh’s offseason antics, while entertaining, are starting to feel contrived. A tweet by Adam Rittenberg

That's really stupid.  If Harbaugh tweets a photo of himself at a McDonald's, he's just doing what half of the other people on Twitter do.  It's the media who are deciding to cover all of that crap like it's newsworthy.  Harbaugh's just being himself and living his life.

I yam what I yam.

Does not seem to me to be the schtick that ANY marketing department would dream up. 

It's silly that Sherman connects the antics to ticket sales. The reputation of a winning coach and favorite son coming in is accounting for 99% of that.

We interrupt this thread o' OUTRAGE to point out that Rittenberg didn't write the article; he tweeted a link to it. 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread o' OUTRAGE.

So he did his job? Excellent! Of course SOME of them are contrived, thats how a good coach attracts recruits and raises the teams profile. The only problem I may have with it is if it took away from preparing the overall program for this season, which I highly doubt because of his competitiveness. Can wait for Fall camp so these "reporters" can see how much better of a coach he is than most.

Ridiculous but completely predictable.  If Saban was doing this stuff you'd see 5 page loving articles on how he had evolved and loosened up.  JH is being himself and has to be shot down.

"Contrived"? Ok. How about "working out pretty well so far"? He hasn't coached a single game and the AD's financial situation has changed dramatically based on his presence. 

Adam Rittenberg unleashing his SAT words.  

I wonder how much searching would be needed to find a Rittenberg tweet blasting somebody for not being authentic. A platform+short memories+somebody who would bitch at a cloud=Twitter gold. 

I think there are 2 theories about Harbaugh's antics

 

1)He's crazy and interesting. This is just who he is and what he's doing is totally natural to him.

 

2) This is some contrived marketing campaign to keep Michigan in the public eye 

 

Either way, not a bad thing for us. Also if it's contrived marketing, kudos to them, they're killing it.

ESPN putting out a clickbait article in the middle of July. I'm shocked...

Take note Brandon and the MBA professors. This is how you market. 

It may or may not be contrived/ planned from the beginning, but the results of Harbaugh's mastery of social media are amazing.

This is how Michigan is the most talked about program in CFB, despite finishing 5-7, with a predicted 8-4 record in 2015. It's also why Nike is putting up the big bucks.

ESPN spinning a story to keep it a story. Stopped watching and going to the site years ago. They just make news out of nothing.

And we wonder why ESPN is losing subscribers...

so much nonsense being discussed in the media.  I can't wait for actual football that we can discuss.

The season can't get here quick enough. 

Here is the situation, "cool guy" gets the job, the hot wife, and the interesting life and it makes these guys feel bad about themselves having to report on it on a daily basis.

"8.6 percent of all tickets redeemed at Michigan home games last year were distributed for free."

You'd think Rittenberg would get this right, given that he is in Briston, the heartland of contrived personas.  Chris Berman, Stuart Scott (RIP, but still contrived), Barry Melrose, etc - those are ACTORS playing a role for attention/views. 

Maybe its easier for us to see since we're more exposed to Coach Harbaugh, but he is the opposite of contrived.  Quirky, yes.  Aloof, sometimes.  Contrived, not even slightly.

Eh, it doesn't bother me whether Harbaugh is constantly out there promoting himself and the University in LOUD TWEETS or if he locks himself in a film room and never gets on the internet.

But let's be honest, we're sports fans, if Harbaugh never posted stuff on social media we'd claim that it's a good thing because he's authentic and doesn't care about any of that marketing BS while he's off working hard somewhere.  If he does post a ton on social media we claim it's great because he's being authentic and getting the Michigan brand out there.  We've made fun of lots of other coaches over the years for their use of social media that seems an awful lot like what Harbaugh has been doing.

TLDR; We're sports fans, so whatever our guy is doing is right, and whatever the other team's guy is doing is wrong.

The logic behind this article is honestly so fucking dumb. A guy can't post about his vacation with his wife because he's a football coach? That's being contrived? Whelp, I guess I, along with millions of others, are egomaniacal. Thanks for the moment of revelation, ESPN. Holy hell, can September 3rd just get here already?

What a tool. Stop covering him, then. He's not arranging elaborate publicity stunts, he's being himself and doing what he does. Oh, he took his shirt off during a camp drill! I'm sure it wasn't at all to do with heat, and totally because he just wanted to show off his old man body and thought it would impress the recruits. Oh, he tweeted a Pulp Fiction quote while at McD's in Paris! Because that's not something about 78% of American males would probably do if it occurred to them while there.   

It's all just contrived marketing.

Everybody knows that Harbaugh secretly engineered that wreck on 94 so that he could be seen coming to the rescue.

That's just the kind of manipulative bastard he is.

But those ESPN guys are way too clever to fall for it.  I'm glad they're on the job, protecting me from that slick Michigan marketing that I'm just too stupid to see through.

Somebody should create an ESPN appreciation thread.

The only thing that's contrived is the giant microscope the media has put on Harbaugh. Any other coach's daily tweets constantly in the headlines would look contrived, too.