Borton's Blog: Harbaugh Wants To Badger Everyone
Showdown No. 1 of several has arrived in the eyes of most Michigan football fanatics. It’s the battle of undefeated top-10 teams.
No. 4 Michigan (4-0) hosts No. 8 Wisconsin (4-0), the latter fresh off a woodshed coup, featuring Badgers grabbing logs and beating Spartans silly. It’s four-hundred-pound, cheese-stuffed behemoths, trying to smother King Khakis’ near point-a-minute squad.
It’s the gold standard of early Big Ten match-ups, pitting the most talked-about college coach in the nation against a Badgers boss slightly more quotable than Floyd of Rosedale. (Yes, we know that’s Iowa-Minnesota — close enough).
Here’s the thing, though. Jim Harbaugh doesn’t view it that way. Count on the fact that they’ll put everything they have into prepping for the fracas among unbeatens, but guess what? That doesn’t make the Badgers special one bit.
Harbaugh had the hammer down for Hawai'i. He wanted to freeze out Scott Frost and Central Florida. He acted like Bill McCartney was coming to town with the 1990 Colorado Buffaloes, and that Penn State lost its linebackers and picked up Paul Posluszny, LaVar Arrington and Jack Ham on waivers.
He’s not interested in any letdown. He’s not interested in any buildup. Harbaugh made that abundantly clear on Monday of Wisconsin week, when someone tried to prod him into talking about the import of the confrontation.
“We start at the beginning of the season, looking at every team on our schedule as teams that we’re going to have to highlight and prepare for,” Harbaugh assured. “Respect would be at the highest, going into each and every one of those games.
“We would have to have our best week of practice and play our best game, knowing that we’d be tough to beat. Every opponent on our schedule will be treated that way. That’s what we’re striving for.”
Not exactly this sort of oratory…
“We shall fight on the beaches,
“We shall fight on the landing grounds,
“We shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
“We shall fight in the hills,
“We shall never surrender…”
That’s okay. Harbaugh knows no football game ever tilted Michigan’s way because of something the head coach told the media on Monday. He saves his best material — verbally, schematically and emotionally — for the practice crucible leading up to combustible Saturdays.
He means it when he urges treating everyone the same, and the results have underscored that approach: 63-3, 51-14, 45-28 and 49-10. It’s good that he rides the team bus into Michigan Stadium on game day since his personal vehicle features specially designed brakes that don’t work on Saturday.
Go out and win. Keep winning. If the opponent can’t keep up, win by more. There’s your respect.
Harbaugh wants Michigan to run, in a macro sense, like senior tailback De’Veon Smith runs on any given play — ruggedly, intensely, maniacally driven, without regard for who’s in the way.
The head coach grew animated at the start of game week when the conversation turned to Smith’s fully focused ferocity of purpose.
“Boy, does he run hard,” Harbaugh excitedly praised. “Gosh. He had one of his runs in there, early in the game, where he broke in there six or seven yards, bounced off a tackle, did the spin and kept going. Someone tried to hit him and he’s still going, just running so hard.”
The effort becomes contagious, Harbaugh observed.
“Our offensive line knows it, too, when De’Veon is running the football,” he stressed. “Their pursuit was almost as good as our defense’s pursuit. They know they’ve got a chance to get downfield and make a block.
“[Fifth-year senior wideout] Jehu Chesson, on that very play, had the best pursuit of anybody on our offense. He was even down at one point, on the ground, and got up and got ahead of De’Veon and made a block. Here comes our line, pursuing.
“They know when De’Veon is running he’s got a good chance to break a tackle. He’s going to run strong, and they get in good position to make a block for him. Same with our receivers — that’s good football.”
Harbaugh loves good football, and desires — no, demands — to see it when the Badgers roll into town. More people than ever will be paying attention, talking about this one, breaking down the match-ups like it’s the Battle of Stalingrad.
Harbaugh doesn’t care. It’s all just noise. He’s got a team that — if it plays its best game — will be tough to beat. That’s all he cares about, and what opponents should be worried about.