Jim Harbaugh: Michigan football's win over Ohio State 'one of the happiest moments of my life'
Since the start of the 2021 season, Michigan football is 37-3, including consecutive 12-0 starts for the first time in program history and hasn't lost a Big Ten game in more than 750 days.
However, no matter how unforgettable many of the memories have been along the way for coach Jim Harbaugh, none compared to when Rod Moore hauled in a diving interception to solidify the Wolverines' 30-24 victory over Ohio State on Saturday.
"Probably the happiest I've ever been," Harbaugh said on a conference call Sunday afternoon to preview his team's Big Ten championship game appearance on Saturday (Fox, 8 p.m.) against Iowa. "One of the happiest moments of my life."
Harbaugh called this version of the Buckeyes "the best Ohio State team we've played," and said his group knew it would take a total team effort. Of course, that was going to have to come without him, as he served the last of a three-game suspension handed down by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti earlier this month.
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This suspension was in relation to the ongoing sign-stealing investigation that stole the spotlight from U-M's season and put into question the program's accomplishments of the past few seasons. The NCAA and Big Ten have concluded that former staffer Connor Stalions orchestrated an elaborate plot to obtain signs against NCAA bylaws from Michigan's future opponents; he has since resigned and linebackers coach Chris Partridge was fired as well, reportedly for destroying evidence related to the investigation.
Harbaugh was not found to have any ties, but was reprimanded as the face of the program. He already served a three-game university-imposed suspension earlier this season in connection to a series of pandemic-related recruiting violations and for allegedly misleading NCAA investigators about those violations.
In total, Harbaugh watched from somewhere other than the sidelines during six of U-M's 12 games, the first 11 of which were not nearly as important as Saturday's.
"Yeah, been a lot of emotions, but my focus has been with the team the entire time," Harbaugh said. "It's been a tremendous season, right in the exact position that we hoped for, that we worked so hard to be in, it's onward now.
"We've accomplished many of our goals, but not all of them ... so I would say it's good to be back, but I never left."
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Not that he has wanted to, but Harbaugh has gotten used to watching his team from afar. What struck him most this time around, he said, was how united the team was and how all the units complemented one another.
He saw it when the defense gave the offense a short field after it had gone three-and-out twice to set up the opening touchdown in the first quarter. He saw it on special teams when James Turner made a 50-yard field goal early in the third quarter, not long after OSU missed its own 52-yarder, to give U-M a seven-point lead.
And he saw it again in the third quarter, after the defense was hammered for the first time all season: The offense came back and marched down the field to retake the lead, 24-17. That drive was the one that spoke volumes to him, because it was also when senior captain and right guard Zak Zinter suffered a horrific leg injury.
"I know how that can affect a team, it can go one way or the other," Harbaugh said. "That overall sadness for a teammate and worry and concern. It also can motivate a team, you saw that with Blake, you saw that presence of mind, touchdown on the next play to flash up the '6-5,' Zak, he was really moved by that."
Harbaugh visited Zinter, who broke his fibula and tibia, in the hospital, but called it the "best of a worst-case scenario" saying it was a clean break and that the bones are expected to heal.
With that, the Wolverines will be shorthanded, but turn their attention to Iowa all the same, with the "one-track mind" they've carried with them the entirety of the season.
The Hawkeyes (10-2, 7-2 Big Ten) rank near the bottom of the country in most major statistical offensive categories, but Phil Parker's defense is rated No. 4 in scoring and No. 7 in total defense, led by a pair of midseason All-Americans, linebacker Jay Higgins and safety Cooper DeJean (who will miss the game in Indianapolis with a lower-leg injury).
The Hawkeyes are limited, but it wasn't difficult for U-M's head man to describe the difficulty they pose.
"I mean the keyword there is win," Harbaugh said. "Iowa does that. They win."
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Michigan has done that, too, every time it has taken the field this season. Harbaugh wasn't there for the last three — at Penn State, at Maryland or Saturday against Ohio State — but from his vantage there are going to be more victories on the way if Michigan continues to follow its formula of not turning the ball over.
The Wolverines have not lost a game under Harbaugh in which it didn't commit a turnover, a pattern he believes will continue as long as U-M does its job by holding onto the football. While he verbally refused to look ahead to the College Football Playoff, he acknowleged there might be another goal on Sunday.
No disrespect to Iowa, but the Big Ten title game isn't the final destination.
"More than ever, more than the last two years, I really think our team is — there's more to do," Harbaugh said. "I know I talk about 'the team, the team, the team'. To me, this is the team. The '23 team. It's the team."
Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.
Make "Hail Yes!" your go-to Michigan Wolverines podcast, available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify). We'll have our Michigan-Ohio State reaction podcast coming this weekend.
Next up: Hawkeyes
Matchup: No. 2 Michigan (12-0) vs. No. 17 Iowa (10-2), Big Ten championship game.
Kickoff: 8 p.m. Saturday; Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis.
TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1), WTKA-AM (1050).
Line: Wolverines by 21½.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan's win over Ohio State one of Jim Harbaugh's happiest moments
