Jim Harbaugh has long rankled his coaching peers. Now they're coming after him.
The postgame handshake is a sportsmanship rite among coaches, a gesture of mutual respect between competitors in the same profession. It is usually civil and congratulatory. But with Jim Harbaugh, it has occasionally been a flashpoint of tensions throughout his career, dating back to his first job in Power Five college football.
Who can forget the awkward exchange in 2009 after Harbaugh’s Stanford team demolished Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans and rubbed salt in their wounds with a late 2-point conversion attempt? The typically affable Carroll went up to Harbaugh and asked him a pointed question: “What’s your deal?”
Two years later, Harbaugh had a heated run-in with then-Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz when he enthusiastically grabbed his counterpart’s palm after celebrating a San Francisco 49ers victory at Ford Field. Schwartz was so infuriated by Harbaugh’s aggressive approach that he chased him down before the two men were separated.
Then came Saturday, when Purdue’s Ryan Walters breezed past Harbaugh, pressing the flesh with him for one second and barely making eye contact with him after Michigan football beat his Boilermakers by 28 points. The brief encounter caught everyone’s attention because it came after Walters called out Michigan for an alleged sign-stealing operation that has rocked the sport since it surfaced last month.
“It’s unfortunate,” Walters said Thursday on his radio show. “What's crazy is they aren't allegations. It happened. There's video evidence. There's ticket purchases and sales that you can track back.”
Walters made those unvarnished remarks after “a vast majority” of Big Ten coaches reportedly lobbied conference commissioner Tony Petitti to punish Michigan during a 90-minute video call on Nov. 1 as the NCAA continues to investigate whether the program violated a bylaw prohibiting in-person scouting. It has left Harbaugh in the crosshairs of his peers — an exclusive fraternity of men he has antagonized over the years with his actions and his words.
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A former U-M football employee once told the Free Press that Harbaugh was comfortable being the “most hated coach” in the Big Ten, because if he wasn’t, that meant to him he wasn’t doing a “good job.”
Harbaugh never gave the impression he cared what others in his own industry thought of him, making little effort to ingratiate himself with them. Harbaugh’s abrasiveness, after all, was a trademark of his hyper-competitive persona.
ADVANCE WARNING: Michigan football reportedly served notice of potential disciplinary action from Big Ten
As soon as he arrived at Michigan, he pushed the envelope, explored the gray areas of the NCAA rulebook and poked at his rivals — re-entering the college game like a bull in a china shop. He rankled the SEC establishment when he infiltrated the South with an unprecedented satellite camp tour designed to generate more exposure for the Wolverines. He later caused a ruckus when he staged a series of practices at Florida's IMG Academy, the prep sports powerhouse that supplies blue-chip recruits. He took unpopular stances whenever he was in a room with other coaches debating the most pressing issues affecting the sport.
He also didn’t hesitate to spotlight others’ wrongdoing. After Alabama’s Nick Saban criticized Harbaugh’s barnstorming circuit in 2016 and questioned whether it was good for college football, Harbaugh fired back with this missive on Twitter: The Crimson Tide "broke NCAA rules & now their HC is lecturing us on the possibility of rules being broken at camps. Truly ‘amazing.’”
Harbaugh continued to make waves elsewhere. In 2019, he was quoted in a book saying it is “hard to beat the cheaters.” A year after that, Harbaugh ripped Ohio State’s Ryan Day on a league-wide coaches call about a Buckeyes assistant pictured working with players at a time when on-field instruction was forbidden.
If there was an omerta within his profession, Harbaugh didn’t abide by it. As a lone wolf, he seemed to adhere to his own code. But now that seems to have come back to bite him with Michigan at the center of a controversy that has caused many in Harbaugh’s own field to question the legitimacy of the Wolverines’ rise over the past three years. According to a survey of 50 coaches published by The Athletic last Wednesday, 37 believed the alleged sign-stealing scheme helped restore the Wolverines following their 2-4 downfall in 2020 while 47 — 94% of them — said Harbaugh and Michigan should be punished if there is proof that the purported improprieties occurred.
The strong reaction doesn’t surprise Todd Berry.
As the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, he answers to a constituency that often has disparate views on any subject but has remained united on the issue of fair play.
“If you’re cheating the system,” he said, “I don’t care who it is. You’re going to get that kind of response from the coaches because you’re costing their players opportunities to have a great college career, you’re costing them their jobs, you’re costing the coaches’ families.”
Beyond the walls of Schembechler Hall, it has left Harbaugh under a cloud of suspicion even though he proclaimed in a statement that he had no knowledge of the sign-stealing operation. Asked Monday how he felt about the backlash he has faced within his own profession, Harbaugh didn’t have much of a response and sidestepped the question.
“I’ve stated my position clearly,” he said.
But Harbaugh was eager to talk about a visit from one of his good friends, Ric Flair — the former pro wrestler who often played a heel during his time in the ring. Flair spent his career irritating his opponents. Harbaugh, in many ways, has done the same within football circles — inviting both public and private opprobrium from his competitors.
“Nobody wants criticism,” Harbaugh balked. “That’s why I work so hard to do everything right, both on and off the field. It’s been that way for a long time, since I was 22 years old. But if the criticism is directed at me and not my adolescent kids at home or the players on the football team, then I’m OK with it.”
In an industry where he has cultivated few allies, Harbaugh understands it comes with the territory.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.
Next up: Nittany Lions
Matchup: No. 2 Michigan (9-0, 6-0 Big Ten) at No. 9 Penn State (8-1, 5-1).
Kickoff: Noon Saturday; Beaver Stadium, University Park, Pennsylvania.
TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1), WTKA-AM (1050).
Line: Wolverines by 5½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's sign-stealing scandal makes Jim Harbaugh a target
