Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh said that winning the national championship was far better than he had envisioned.
“It restarts every day, you wake up and it’s ‘yeah, we did that, we did that,'” Harbaugh told the Free Press on Friday during a team visit to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan. “When you go through the day, there’s not much that brings me down. I’ll misplace my wallet, but that’s fine; we’re national champions. Go to bed, get up the next day, and the cycle begins again. Simply fresh.
“We have the trophy in the trophy cabinet, and what our team has accomplished is fantastic. It is scriptural. It’s been a physical voyage, a cerebral journey, a spiritual journey, and simply a job well done.”
Harbaugh led U-M to the top of the mountain after a 27-20 OT thriller over Alabama in the Rose Bowl (which just so happened to be Nick Saban’s final game) and then a 34-13 victory over Washington to cap just the fourth 15-0 season in college football history.
Celebrations will continue Saturday afternoon with a parade through Ann Arbor, followed by a sold-out event on Saturday night at Crisler Center — Harbaugh told return man Jake Thaw on Friday he’d heard tickets were gone in three hours, so quickly that U-M had to start selling floor seats.
When he’s not taking pictures with the trophy, signing autographs, or traveling around southeast Michigan for various events, Harbaugh said he’s been speaking with players like quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who are debating a return to school or a potential NFL future.
Harbaugh approached McCarthy about his future in early December, when the quarterback said he wanted to focus on the season at hand. Now that it’s in the rearview mirror, attention has been turned to the future, with the deadline to enter the NFL draft set for Monday.
“Yeah, I have,” Harbaugh said if he’s talked with McCarthy about what’s next. “Been having all those conversations with guys. Many, many conversations, that’s what my days have looked like, talking about those guys futures.”
McCarthy, Donovan Edwards, Rod Moore, Makari Paige, Josaiah Stewart, Trente Jones and Quinten Johnson are a handful of players who have been said to be undecided on their 2024 plans, and they aren’t the only ones.
Harbaugh, 60, has explored NFL opportunities each of the past two seasons — he flew to Minnesota to interview with the Vikings on national signing day after the 2021 season, then spoke with the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers last offseason — and his name is as hot as it’s ever been.
Until Friday, when he told the Free Press the two have been working together for longer than that.
“Beginning of December,” Harbaugh said of when the two partnered.
The NFL coaching carousel is spinning as fast as ever. Mainstays like Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll both left their posts this week, creating two of the seven open positions around the league.
Harbaugh said he’s still been dialed into his team’s national championship aftermath and said that he and Yee have hardly spoken, if at all, since he hoisted the championship trophy Monday night in Houston.
Leave a Reply