What Jim Harbaugh said about Michigan football before Minnesota
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Have you ever wondered how Jim Harbaugh can work physics into a lesson about the state of his football team? Well, look no further, because that’s how the Wolverines head coach treats Michigan football.
On Monday, Harbaugh met with the media for his weekly press conference, and as he’s wont to do, he inserted some interesting imagery into the session. Perhaps the biggest was his five-minute-long soliloquy on keeping the team from falling back to earth via gravity, in a figurative sense.
With Minnesota on deck on Saturday, here is everything Jim Harbaugh had to say about the matchup as well as the previous one.
What he thought about Roman Wilson's TD upon further review
Yeah, that was incredible. Really kind of spurred the idea we put — somebody makes a great play or player the game kind of thing, we do a picture of them in our team room. And now we’re gonna do a three-in-one collage because that play just needs these three different pictures to really show how good it was.
And when he made, the second one he made, was was really great, too. I love the way he’s playing. He’s getting a lot of attention now. And he’s still winning, still finishing plays, blocking. Really happy with our perimeter blocking as a receiver group.
As you can imagine every position group played well, particularly happy with the big catches, the tough catches, the catches across the middle, the contested catches, obviously the circus catches, the blocking. And same with the tight ends. Talking about a group that’s really playing well. And Colston Loveland is sometimes getting double-teamed out there. You can see the major attention on Colston. He’s so unselfish, continues to block great, gets other guys open. AJ Barner, really stepping up, Max Bredeson continued to have another great game — again by Max and AJ Barner.
The backs played really well, ran really hard, all three, Blake, Dono and Kalel. And a completely unselfish group at a position where it’s hard to be unselfish. They continue to be. Same with the quarterback. Had one of his best games, just gotten — he’s just so efficient in how he plays the game and what he does for our offense, he really makes it go. But also completely unselfish. Just like everybody on our team, I can name every guy right now. But especially him, especially J.J. We see some quarterbacks throwing four to six touchdowns a game and he’s just so locked in on winning and being efficient for the team and contributing to the team. It’s a beautiful thing. And the rest of the quarterbacks, Jack Tuttle, Jayden Denegal Davis Warren — I thought they were really, really good too. I thought we made a real big step and improvement when our twos went in the game that we still put up a field goal drive and a touchdown drive. That was really good.
O-line — dominant, dominant offensive line against a really, really big defensive line. Those guys were big and physical. And I thought our offensive line played extremely well. Another group that’s playing really, really good, unselfish football. Trevor Keegan, LaDarius Henderson both had really good games. And Drake, Barnhart played really well. Trente Jones played really — we gotta get Trente in the game more, he’s such a good player, so athletic, and might have to start playing a bit of a rotation. Our guys are unselfish and will do it but that’s a real strength for us and had one of their better games.
On avoiding penalties
Oh, really, really disciplined is the key and really knowing the situations, situational awareness, football awareness, rules awareness. Our guys do a great job of taking the coaching. And they’re super excited about situations too, I mean, think they’ve learned so much — some of the guys on the team, offense, defense or special teams, and give them some situational scenarios, they acquit themselves really good. And they’re excited to learn that stuff, too. It really, really stimulates the whole team.
And so we work on it daily in training camp, and besides the regular coaching that the guys get, we devote a meeting a week to the situational awareness. Our guys are real sharp that way, and they’re smart, and they love, as I said, being stimulated and learning new stuff. And then putting it into practice, that just makes you feel great. When you see it in the game, zero penalties in his last game as a team. Tremendous. I know there’s a few penalties that there weren’t called maybe both ways, but this is where they’re letting the guys play. I think that’s part of it. But I think the biggest part is, our guys are really, really focused and dialed in on situational awareness, technique, and discipline, and they know the rules. And do a great job.
On the game being a critical win
That was the task at hand, going on the road, getting a Big Ten win against a really good football team in a hostile environment. Sea of red, loud — all those things. Each game now, it’s critical, as critical as it gets — it’s as clearly as I could say it.
How is Rod Moore progressing from injury?
Yeah, progressing really well. It’s becoming a way — there’s so many times we have guys that are working through something. That’s football. It’s rare, it’s lucky when you come out of a game as healthy as we did coming out of this game. But you can rest assured that there’s somebody, multiple guys that are working through something.
And guys defy like human capacity to play sometimes. Definitely almost super superhero, superhuman in that way. They get the treatment, they get the rehab, they find a pad that protects them. Just the ability to cut, like, whatever, that time of being out would have been for a normal person. Football players just seem to have that ability, some even more than others. I mean, Mike Sainristil right now. It’s freaky in that way. The Green brothers are like that. I was like that. It doesn’t make you a better person, doesn’t make you a better anything. Just better at playing with pain and coming back faster than than other people. That’s OK. It really doesn’t make you better than somebody. Not saying we’re better. Just better at playing with pain.
On the offensive line lineup
Well, Myles Hinton is working through something. And he’s playing, he’s shown to be a great player, team player. unselfish guy. But gosh, I mean, so is Trente, so is Andrew Gentry, Jeff Persi, and there’s so many good guys in there that just want to want to see them out there.
We do a thing with the defensive line, a rally group, where maybe — haven’t really done anything quite like that on the offensive line, but in spots perhaps. A rally guy goes in and he’s fresh and he’s good. Can we use that to our advantage? I think we really have to explore that and look at that. As I said, especially with Trente and Myles will be the same. L.D. and (Trevor Keegan) probably played the best of any of our two offensive linemen, and in a group that was really, really good in this game, one of our best.
Is the unselfishness player-led or coach-led?
Yeah, how does that develop? You know, that’s one of the great mysteries of a team environment. I definitely think it comes from the individuals, those individuals. Yeah, I think that if it was real coachable, be happening a lot more. But yeah, it’s rare. It’s rare when it happens. But I mean, you see with our team this game really wasn’t all won on Saturday. This was the way they practiced, the entire team, the starters, the backups, the players who play in spot situations, specialize on special teams or offense and defense scout team players, the freshmen, guys who are going to go pro that aren’t taking a knee. I could give you 50, 60 examples of that with our team.
And that’s the one thing that when things are scary good, that’s where you want to be, that’s who you want to be with, that’s how you want to be doing things. But the law of averages say that it’s gonna catch up to you. And to see if we could defy Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of gravity — what goes up, must come down. And the gravitational force of the Earth is tremendous. And so are some of the forces against a football team, some of the things that are set there to divide a football team. And the ones that aren’t divided are the ones that are playing in the playoffs and eventually champion.
But yeah, there’s the opponent, there’s there’s human jealousy, there’s the star system, there’s the media that likes — I’m not accusing you of anything but yeah. People that read like to read the salacious story, you like to see where things are maybe divided. Not blaming anybody here, it’s just human nature. But there’s definitely a force: there’s injury, there’s confidence, there’s so many things that — and eventually selfishness. It’s another human nature thing on a football team.
And I look at our team, and it’s not just the players. It is the players, I mean, it is the players. Those guys get so much at stake with their individual careers, and there’s nothing more important than me than each and every guy’s individual career. But to do both, to love both, do what’s best for your family, do what’s best for you, and then get the team in there, I mean, that’s scary good. And that’s happening with our staff, our coaching staff, the coordinators, the assistant coaches, staff, the medical doctors, the trainers, the equipment staff, Gary Hazelitt, Sonny, Drew, in the weight room with Herb, J. Tress, (Devin Woodhouse), Benny Rabe, Lock, Phil Johnson and the training room, Pierre, Jason, Steve — Dave (Ablauf) — no shameless self-promotion; Scott Goldschmidt, Albert, Claiborne Green. It’s a scary good thing. And you just have to keep those balls up in the air. You know? How do you keep them high? High energy, energy and working at it and attacking it. It’s the only way to keep a balloon up that doesn’t have helium in it, right? Eventually, it’s gonna come down but hey, smoke still rises. It stays up a long time, I’ve noticed. Heat, I guess heat energy, those things are the way we’re going about it.
What he's seen from Minnesota
Good. Another really good defense, really stout. The quarterback’s really coming along and has a tremendous ability to run the ball. Physical team, is going to be how they play. I mean, it’s an emotional, fired-up type of team. PJ (Fleck) does a great job. I mean, you could always tell they’re confident, no matter what, no matter what the stakes are, the odds are. You see in the way they play, hey play hard. And it’s all you can ever ask for a coach from your players is that they play hard. Our guys are doing it. Minnesota’s guys are. It’ll be a football fight like it is every Saturday. And we got to play good. Get prepared, practice and get ready to go execute in another one of those crazy, crazy college campus stadiums. But yeah, can’t wait.
What are the meetings on situational awareness like?
Pretty much on everything. And Grant Newsome is doing it this year, he’s doing an incredible job. I mean, he’s doing a lot of what our team does right, maybe something we did wrong, or what another team did wrong. ‘Don’t be this guy and make this penalty in this crucial situation,’ the throw the punch, or you know, lose your stuff. And clips from all over — college football, pro football. And it’s great. It’s entertaining. It’s insightful. And it’s a great learning experience. He’s taken it over this year and doing a heck of a job.
We call it ‘teach the game,’ ‘T.T.G.’ We’ve been doing it so long, now we got an acronym for it!
Has he seen signs of the gravitational pull? Can he pull them out of it when he sees signs?
Yeah, yeah, I think so, I think we do things to try to help that as much as possible. Really comes down, ‘Hey, I mean, we’re for you. Don’t ever think we’re ever against any of our own, you know, coaches, players or staff. And we want you to have all the success in the world. And by the way, you’re having it, so keep doing you. It’s working. And if you want to get a little bit better at something, just work a little bit harder at it. And whatever you do, don’t get the big head. Because that’s a trap, a deep, dark, lonely trap.’
Importance of the Little Brown Jug
Part of our T.T.G. was to learn the entire history of the Little Brown Jug and that was great. It was a half-hour session, 45-minute session in August, and many of the guys who have participated in it know what it’s about, and yeah — it’s something that’s a priority for us. Get the best grades, win the most awards and trophies and excel at football.
