Jim Harbaugh stole the spotlight from Michigan football's promising team ... again
INDIANAPOLIS — When Jim Harbaugh was asked to address another subject that had nothing to do with this upcoming season or a Michigan football team that has the makings of a national championship contender, he cracked a smile and made a plea to the crowd of reporters surrounding him.
“Keep me in the realm of what I know,” he said, “which is football.”
If it only were that simple.
Harbaugh understands, of course, it isn’t. He came to this city, where he experienced his best years as an NFL player and celebrated his greatest achievements as the Wolverines’ coach, with questions of a looming four-game suspension by the NCAA waiting for him.
It placed Harbaugh, an accomplished former quarterback, in the rare and awkward position of having to play defense.
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Time and time again throughout the mild inquisition, he stopped any discussion of the potential punishment he faces from a probe that uncovered alleged violations related to impermissible contact with recruits, improper use of off-field personnel and Harbaugh’s lack of cooperation with investigators.
“I can’t,” he said in one breath.
“I’m not at liberty,” he added in another.
“Unable to talk about any aspect,” he continued before exhaling.
So much oxygen was expended on Harbaugh’s expected punishment that little was reserved for a team many expect will be his best at Michigan. But this is nothing new for the Wolverines, who have continued their upward surge these past two years even as Harbaugh and his staff have sowed all sorts of drama.
Look no further than this offseason, which followed Michigan’s second consecutive Big Ten title and College Football Playoff appearance. It was marked by one crazy headline after another — breathless updates about Harbaugh’s flirtations with NFL jobs, the NCAA probe, the public relations fiasco surrounding Shemy Schembechler’s brief stint as a support staffer, the firing of co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss after he became the subject of a U-M police investigation into possible computer-access crimes. On and on it went.
The turbulence would be a nuisance for most programs. But Michigan players seem inured to it, accepting that this is just how it is in the chaotic universe Harbaugh has created for them. The team’s no-nonsense director of strength and conditioning, Ben Herbert, has helped nurture that unflinching mindset, according to defensive back Mike Sainristil. It has allowed them to compartmentalize the awkward quarterback controversy between J.J. McCarthy and Cade McNamara that Harbaugh helped manufacture last summer. It gave them the strength to ignore all the hubbub surrounding their coach’s long-term future in Ann Arbor that has persisted since January 2022.
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“He says, ‘No matter what is about to happen, who cares?’” Sainristil relayed. “You don’t know if it is going to rain on a Saturday, you don’t know if it is going to be sunny, you don’t know if it is going to snow. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. All you can do is make sure that your preparation allows you to play in whatever condition. So whether coach will be leaving, coach will be staying, whether J.J. was starting or Cade was starting, it didn’t matter to us. Whatever mattered to us was making sure whatever the case was going to be, we were going to be the best team possible.”
It’s how Michigan weathered the pitfalls of distraction and won a program-record 13 games in 2022. It’s why the Wolverines, despite the pockets of turmoil in the past seven months, have been picked by regional media to win a third consecutive outright Big Ten title for the first time in Michigan’s long history.
“We don’t let that stuff mess with our minds,” star running back Blake Corum said. “We’re just a group of guys that are determined each and every day to figure out a way to win.”
If creating volatility to test the mettle of his players was part of some grand scheme to build solidarity within the locker room and transform Michigan into a hardened winner, then it was a pretty genius move on Harbaugh’s part that has worked.
But it seems the development of a powerful esprit de corps at the same time there has been so much turbulence has been merely coincidental and Harbaugh has been the fortunate beneficiary.
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“People call it attitude, people call it culture,” Harbaugh said. “Where the team’s at, it’s been in the best place it’s been in since I arrived in 2015.”
It gives Harbaugh reason to believe this edition of the Wolverines will be special. They are, in his estimation, deeper than any of his previous Michigan squads. They may have more talent, too, with McCarthy, Corum, running back Donovan Edwards, linebacker Junior Colson, tight end Colston Loveland and cornerback Will Johnson part of an impressive starting lineup that also features a strong offensive line and some promising pass rushers.
It's why the conversation with Harbaugh on Thursday should have centered on football.
He would have preferred it that way, of course.
But with Michigan’s coach, it’s always something else that diverts attention from the game he loves.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin.
For openers
Matchup: Michigan (13-1 in 2022) vs. East Carolina (8-5 in 2022), season opener.
Kickoff: Noon Sept. 2; Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor.
TV/radio: Peacock (online only); WWJ-AM (950), WTKA-AM (1050).
Line: TBA.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: At Big Ten media days, Jim Harbaugh sucked up all the Michigan oxygen
