Despite all of Jim Harbaugh's issues, Michigan football players remain loyal to him
Outside the domain of Michigan football, Jim Harbaugh isn’t exactly a beloved figure.
The Wolverines’ coach has an uncanny knack for eliciting intensely negative reactions, ranging from annoyance to derision to outright contempt. Just this past Sunday, “The Simpsons,” the long-running animated comedy, took aim at Harbaugh and the recent sign-stealing imbroglio that has afflicted his program. In an episode titled “Do the Wrong Thing,” the mischievous Bart begins to teach a class titled, “Intro to Cheating 101” at the “Jim Harbaugh Center for Competitive Imbalance.”
It was a rather mild dig, all things considered. But it served as a reminder that the perception of Harbaugh beyond Schembechler Hall is far different than it is from within its walls, where he has summoned intense loyalty from his players despite being the root of so much turmoil.
“I mean he’s such a good dude,” senior receiver Roman Wilson said Thursday.
That sentiment was echoed by his teammates as they began another day of preparations for their Rose Bowl showdown with Alabama in the semifinal round of the College Football Playoff. The chorus of support trilled after they spent this past year answering for Harbaugh and the litany of uncomfortable questions he invited.
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They started last January, when Harbaugh began another offseason by flirting with a return to the NFL. An interview was lined up with the Denver Broncos. There was a reported conversation with the Carolina Panthers. The talks occurred right around the time Harbaugh landed in the crosshairs of the NCAA, which levied a Level I charge against him for failing to cooperate with an investigation into impermissible recruiting and coaching activities. Shortly thereafter, co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss — a man who had worked for Harbaugh twice — was fired following a report of unauthorized computer access crimes at the team’s headquarters.
The embarrassing episode would soon be overshadowed in May by the botched onboarding of Shemy Schembechler, the scion of Michigan’s most iconic coach who was forced to resign shortly after he was hired when it was uncovered that he liked posts and comments containing insensitive content.
But the most jolting stuff was yet to come.
As the season approached, the university suspended Harbaugh for the first three games to mitigate the severity of his potential punishment by the NCAA. The sanction threatened to disrupt a team led by a cast of upperclassmen who had decided to come back to school because they wanted another shot at a national title. But instead of being miffed at their coach, the players rallied around him.
At the opener, the team lined up in in the train formation to honor him and star quarterback J.J. McCarthy sported a “Free Harbaugh” shirt. It would become fashionable again in November when Harbaugh was banned another three games by the Big Ten for violating the league’s sportsmanship policy after former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions was found to have organized an impermissible “years-long in-person advance scouting scheme” designed to poach the play signals of the Wolverines’ future opponents. The scandal sparked outrage and Harbaugh was roundly criticized by national pundits. It was nothing new, as left guard Trevor Keegan noted Thursday.
“He's always been in situations where he's been hated on and disrespected by the media or something like that,” he said.
“Being able to go through everything he’s gone through, getting all the hate,” McCarthy added, “is pretty disgusting. It really stinks. But he doesn’t care about it.”
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The players clearly do, however.
They take offense that their coach has been portrayed as a villain while they see him as a hero of sorts. “Cool Jim,” they call him.
They have embraced his quirks, odd sense of humor, zeal for football and even the problems that have consumed him over the past 12 months.
Instead of Harbaugh’s troubles derailing Michigan, they galvanized the Wolverines during a final stretch when they faced their stiffest competition this season. Road victories over Penn State and Maryland were followed by a rousing home conquest of Ohio State that catapulted the Wolverines into the CFP for the third straight year.
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“The boys rallied around him,” center Drake Nugent said.
They still stand behind him even as Harbaugh did nothing to squash the latest rumors about a potential move to the NFL that have become amplified before the Wolverines’ clash with Alabama. The threat of Harbaugh’s imminent departure would qualify as a distraction at most programs. But at Michigan, it’s become par for the course.
“We know who Coach Harbaugh is,” Keegan said.
They trust him. They like him. They even admire him. Inside Michigan’s domain, he is revered. Outside of it, he is often reviled.
“He likes being that villain,” Wilson said. “But he is a good guy at the end of the day. You know what I mean?”
As Wilson noted, it’s kind of hard to explain much like the fealty he has inspired within his ranks.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football players remain loyal to Jim Harbaugh despite himself
