“If you don’t love football, It’s going to be hard to play for Harbaugh,” Frank Gore quote from excellent Russo story about Harbaugh (AP)
Ralph Russo does some good work in this piece describing what makes Harbaugh tick. This is not the lazy internet journalism article that has become the norm. Here are a couple more quotes to whet your appositive:
“Jim is not a B.S.’er. He’s going to give it to you the way that it is,” Taggart said.
“Plainly put, what makes him tick is competition and being the best version of yourself, so when you try and distill down his principles, why he was successful as an athlete and why he’s successful as a coach it’s because of this relentless positivity and enthusiasm and competitiveness,” said J.T. Rogan
We have the national AP coach of the year. He is the total package. I hope this article further adds to your appreciation of how fortunate we are.
December 28th, 2021 at 5:50 PM ^
FireHarbaugh!
Did I do that right?
December 28th, 2021 at 5:56 PM ^
Yes, you have sufficiently channeled the spirit of firing Coach Bakich
December 28th, 2021 at 6:16 PM ^
Get the #FireJuwanHoward going
December 29th, 2021 at 11:00 PM ^
half right
i am told that at this point you are then supposed to say "hire matt campbell" or "dan mullen" or "i don't care i would hire urban meyer because clearly i care nothing for the unversity of michigan"
December 28th, 2021 at 5:53 PM ^
Great read! Thanks for sharing! I've never lost faith in our coach! Go Blue!
December 28th, 2021 at 7:39 PM ^
Agree. After the state game this year this board was full of fire Harbaugh guys.
Having a beer with a friend of mine after the state game, osu fan, he asked me if Harbaugh will survive.
I said that I thought he would because I don't see them losing again this season. He smirked.
December 28th, 2021 at 5:58 PM ^
Frank Gore..now that was a dude. Compact, powerful and fierce competitor.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:04 PM ^
The greatest runner who never quite got his due.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:46 PM ^
I believe Coach Harbaugh has stated Gore is near the top of the list of his favorite players. Just a relentless runner. Pretty akin to a certain tailback on this Michigan squad.
December 28th, 2021 at 7:10 PM ^
As soon as I saw his name here, I started wondering if Hassan could have a similar NFL career. Then I saw Gore is only 5’9”?!?
December 28th, 2021 at 8:10 PM ^
Does height really matter when you're a tailback?
December 28th, 2021 at 8:28 PM ^
Walter Payton and Barry Sanders both say NO
December 28th, 2021 at 9:03 PM ^
The Tom Brady of Running Backs. While 99% start to wear down by the time they get to their late 20’s, he was productive until his late 30’s.
December 28th, 2021 at 5:58 PM ^
There’s a reason he was The Unicorn Swimlane.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:02 PM ^
Bet it’s hard to play for Sabin, & it’s obviously hard to play for Meyer.
Then there was Woody Hayes, Mike Leach, oh & what about Bear Bryant & the Junction Boys.
then in basketball you obviously have Bobby Knight.
that’s to name a few other difficult coaches
December 28th, 2021 at 6:11 PM ^
On the other hand, It appears to be easy to play ON urban Meyer if you are a young attractive blonde.
who else can hardly wait to eat at the Jacksonville UM 2-11 cafe?
December 28th, 2021 at 6:27 PM ^
Sabin, Saban?
Yes, it would be extremely hard to play for Rainer Sabin.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:14 PM ^
Harbaugh made some shrewd coaching changes and I think this starts a new era.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:43 PM ^
I chalked up much of the previous six seasons to some bad luck and bad timing. But these coach hires helped us make our own luck.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:57 PM ^
2015 and 2016 were definitely snakebitten. Sparty punt 6 and robbery in the Shoe were brutal.
2018 and 2019 were on the coaching....Don Brown's stubborn, idiotic defensive scheme against a coach (Day) that knew exactly how to and had the players to exploit the same man coverage look.
In coaching, the buck ultimately stops with the head man, and kudos to Jim for realizing he needed to go another direction with the defense...and thank you John Harbaugh for recommending MacDonald to your brother.
As per the offense, kudos for having patience with Gattis and finding a way to meld his creativity and knowledge with Harbaugh power run schemes. The marriage took a while, but it seems fully marinated and has the right mix of athletes now.
Impressive job all around to basically turn around the momentum of this program for a second time since coming to UM.
December 28th, 2021 at 8:02 PM ^
Not having to start transfer QB's probably didn't hurt either.
December 29th, 2021 at 2:19 AM ^
The continuity we have behind center definitely helps!
December 28th, 2021 at 8:15 PM ^
Let's keep in mind where this program was when Harbaugh came here. Too many fans act like Harbaugh was a big underachiever until 2021.
From 2008-14 Michigan went 46-42. In Harbaugh's first five seasons here, he went 47-18. He made this program much, much better than it had been. He just wasn't able to reach the playoff until now, mainly because he had one of the three best programs in the country in his own divison.
December 29th, 2021 at 4:10 AM ^
This is exactly why the 'fire Harbaugh' noise made zero sense.
He immediately turned the program around..from a national laughingstock to nationally relevant and competitive. But OSU had basically run away from the conference and taken advantage of every advantage to be taken to separate itself from all but the very top programs in the entire country. No one was going to fix that in short order...and I doubt anyone would have done better or figured it out sooner than Harbaugh..the best mix of experience and love for UM on the planet.
December 29th, 2021 at 3:57 PM ^
One bad spot and a bunch of other home cookin to not reach a playoff til now.
I can only come up with a few current HC's who've had more success than Harbs since 2015:
Saban 91-7 .929
Dabo 88-10 .897
Kelly 64-20 .761
Chryst 64-23 .735
Harbs 61-23 .726
Ferentz 63-24 .724
Gundy 64-25 .719
Fisher 59-26 .694
Whittingham 59-26 .694
Franklin 60-27 .689
Day (2018) 33-4 .892
Riley (2017) 55-10 .846
Smart (2016) 64-15 .810
These #'s all take into account 2020 which skews things a bit.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:46 PM ^
If we can be proactive and shrewd with NIL and at least close the gap in what SEC and OSU has been paying and what we have been running, we'll be just fine. Harbaugh with top 5 classes will be competitive every year.
December 29th, 2021 at 2:17 AM ^
They should be working on the Dante Moore NIL as we speak.
December 28th, 2021 at 8:16 PM ^
Maybe it’s over stated, but JH seems like a great balance of intense but calm this year.
Not sure if the team’s chemistry gives him confidence or if his demeanor gives his team more resilience, but this team stayed calm and executed in many tough situations this year (Neb late, PSU late, OSU multiple points) instead of imploding.
Regardless, JH made some great personnel and personal adjustments this year to reach the GD semifinals. Congrats to JH.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:20 PM ^
My favorite quote:
“All I know is there’s a foxhole, we’re in it. And wherever the fire is coming from, we want to be running into it.”
December 28th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
Congrats on finding the hidden egg rewarded to those who make it to the end
December 28th, 2021 at 6:28 PM ^
'Tis a fried egg.
December 28th, 2021 at 7:44 PM ^
I'd rather call for FA with an 8 digit grid coordinate but that is just me. Stay put in the fox hole and wait for infantry to come so you have proper cover and concealment.
December 28th, 2021 at 11:38 PM ^
Ahh, I see, so you are saying running directly into firing bullets without cover is a questionable battlefield strategy. In a war war, you can be my general, but in a football war, I’ll still take Harbaugh.
December 28th, 2021 at 6:39 PM ^
Let's do another contract restructure, further reducing the base salary and making higher incentives. Worked really well this season.
December 28th, 2021 at 7:19 PM ^
$0 base salary
$750k per conference game win
$1M per conference title win
$1M per NY6 or better bowl win
$2M for national title game win
December 28th, 2021 at 8:18 PM ^
Nothing at all for winning the three non-conference games?
December 29th, 2021 at 8:46 AM ^
Given how bad those teams are, maybe $20 each or so would be reasonable?
December 28th, 2021 at 7:13 PM ^
Not to change the subject but I wish things had worked out better for Taggart at FSU. He is a good coach
December 28th, 2021 at 8:47 PM ^
It was over when he and Rosewood fell for the banana in the tailpipe.
December 28th, 2021 at 9:05 PM ^
Taggart is not respected in Oregon. Left a bad taste in peoples mouths. Just another carpetbagger coach.
December 28th, 2021 at 7:37 PM ^
I wish loving football was enough, my 5’9” 185 lb self, both old and slow as hell, would love to play for Harbaugh!
December 28th, 2021 at 7:39 PM ^
I've seen it noted alot that John helped out Jim by sending MacDonald & Weiss from the Ravens. But Greg Roman was with Jim at the Niners before he went to the Ravens and resurrected the team around the running game & Lamar Jackson. And I'm sure there's more opportunities for the brothers to help each other out in the future.
December 28th, 2021 at 8:52 PM ^
Ravens drafted Ben Mason, Ben Bredeson, Willie Henry, and Chris Wormley.
December 28th, 2021 at 11:24 PM ^
The descriptions of a hallway chat with Harbaugh are so reminiscent of his press conferences:
"Without warning, Harbaugh’s mind could dart elsewhere and he would drift away, often to return in 10, 15, maybe even 30 minutes later to pick up right where he left off — as if he never left."
"...his mind never stops working...you may be on a topic and it sparks something else in him and he seems like he’s going off on a tangent, but by the time he’s done you realize that it’s all connected."
December 28th, 2021 at 11:36 PM ^
Thanks for posting.
December 29th, 2021 at 1:04 PM ^
This is probably not a popular opinion but I wish Harbaugh would go back to using the fullback. I loved the way the offense was run with Ben Mason in there. And it was very effective; we just had a couple of tough losses to rivals but overall it worked really well.
Despite what he has said on the record, I feel like he felt pressured to move away from his old school offense. But if you go back and watch his Stanford teams (see in particular Sugar Bowl versus Virginia Tech), man, that is some of the most beautiful offense I have ever seen on a field, college or pro. They were basically toying with VTech the whole night.