Everything Jim Harbaugh said during his pre-Minnesota press conference
On Roman Wilson's touchdown catch
That was incredible. If somebody makes a great play or a player of the game kind of thing, we do a picture of him in our team room and now we're going to do a 3-in-1 collage because that play just needs three different pictures to really show good it was. The second one he made was really great, too. 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 with our 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. Same with the tight ends, talk about a group that's really playing well. Colston Loveland is sometimes getting double-teamed out there. You could see the major attention on Colston. He's so unselfish. He continues to block great, gets other guys open. A.J. Barner, really stepping up. Max Bredeson continues to have another great game again. The backs played really well, ran really hard. All three, Blake, Dono and Kalel. 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 so efficient in how he plays the game and what he does for our offense. He really makes it go. Also, completely unselfish, just like everybody on our team. I could name every guy right now. Especially him, especially J.J. I 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. The rest of the quarterbacks. Jack Tuttle, Jayden Denegal, Davis Warren, they were really good, too. Thought we made a real big step and improvement when our twos went into the game that we still put up a field goal drive and a touchdown drive. That was really good. O-line, dominant. Offensive line against a really big defensive line. Those guys were big and physcial. I thought our offensive line played extremely well. Another group that's playing really good, unselfish football. Trevor Keegan, LaDarius Henderson both had really good games. Drake, Barnhart played really well. Trente Jones, played really well. We gotta get Trente in the game more. He's such a good player, so athletic. Have to start playing a bit of a rotation. Our guys are unselfish and will do it. That's a real strength for us. Had one of their better games.
On the lack of penalties
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. They're super excited about situations, too. They've learned so much. If you ask some of the guys on the team, offense, defense or special teams, and give them some situational scenarios I bet they will acquit themselves really good. They're excited to learn that stuff, too. Really stimulates the whole team. Something we work on daily and in training camp. Besides the regular coaching the guys get, we devote a meeting a week to the situational awareness. Our guys are real sharp that way. They're smart. They love, as I said, being stimulated and learning new stuff. Putting it into practice, that makes you feel great when you see it in the game. Zero penalties in this last game as a team. Tremendous. I know there's a few penalties that weren't called maybe both ways but officials were letting the guys play. I think that's part of it but the biggest part is our guys really focus and dial in on situational awareness, technique and discipline and they know the rules and do a great job.
On what he meant by the word critical after the game
That was the task at hand, going on the road and getting a Big Ten win against a really good football team in a hostile environment. A sea of red. Loud, all those things. Each game now, it's critical. It's as critical as it gets. As clearly as I could say.
On Rod Moore
Progressing really well. There's so many times that 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. You can rest assured there's somebody, multiple guys that are working through something. Guys defy human capacity to play sometimes. Definitely almost superhero, superhuman in that way. They get the treatment, they get the rehab, they find a pad that protects them. The ability to cut that time of whatever it would be for a normal person, football players seem to have that ability. Some even more than others. Mike Sainristil right now, freaky. It's freaky in that way. The Green brothers are like that. I think I was like that. It doesn't make you a better person, it doesn't make you a better anything, just better at playing with pain and coming back faster than other people. That's the only thing that makes you better than somebody. Not saying we're better than people, better than playing with pain.
On whether he plans to stick with the starting OL
Myles is working through something and he's shown to be a great player, team player, unselfish guy. Gosh, so is Trente. So is Andrew Gentry, Jeff Persi, there's just so many good guys in there, right? Just want to see them out there. We do a thing with the defensive line, a rally group, where, eh, maybe. We haven't 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? Really have to explore that and look at that. As I said, especially with Trente and Myles would be the same. LD and Keegs probably played the best out of any of our offensive linemen in a group that was really good in this game, one of our best.
On whether unselfishness can be coached or is innate
How does that develop? That's one of the great mysteries of a team environment. Definitely think it comes from the individuals, those individuals. If it was one of those things where it was real coachable, I think it would be happening a lot more. It's rare, rare when it happens. You see with our team, this game really wasn't all won on Saturday. It was the way they practiced, the entire team. The starters, the backups, the players who play in the spot situations, specialized on special teams or on offense or defense. Scout team players, the freshmen, guys who are going pro and who aren't taking a knee. I could give you 50-60 examples of that with our team. That's the one thing 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. The law of averages say that it's going to catch up to you. To see if we can defy Sir Isaac Newton's laws of gravity, what goes up must come down. The gravitational force of the earth is tremendous and so is some of the forces against a football team. Things that are set there to divide a football team. The ones that aren't divided are the ones playing in the playoffs and eventually champion. There's the opponent, there's human jealousy, there's the star system, there's media—not accusing you of anything but people like to read the salacious story where things are maybe divided. Not blaming that on anybody here, just human nature. There's definitely forces. There's injury, there's confidence, there's so many things. Eventually, selfishness, it's another human nature thing on a football team. I look at our team and it's not just our players, it is the players. It is the players, those guys have so much at stake with their individual careers and there's nothing more important to me than each and every guy's individual career. To do both. To love both. Do what's best for your family, do what's best for you. Then, get the team in there, that's scary good. That's happening with our staff, that's happening with our coaching staff, the coordinators, the assistant coaches, staff, the medical, the doctors, the trainers, Gary Hazlett, Sonny, Drew. In the weight room with Herb, Tress, Darren, Benny, Rabe, Lock, Phil Johnson in the training room. Mike Pierre and Jason and Steve. With Dave, no shameless self-promotion. Scott Goldschmidt, Albert, Claiborne Green, it's a scary good thing. You keep those balls up in the air. How do you keep them high? Probably energy. Energy and working at it, attacking it, only way to keep a balloon up that doesn't have helium, right? Eventually, that's going to come down. I think 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.
On Minnesota
Good. Another really good defense, really stout. The quarterback is really coming along and they have a tremendous ability to run the ball. Physical team that is going to be—I love how they play. It's an emotional, fired up type of team. PJ does a great job, you can always tell they're confident no matter what the stakes are, the odds are. You see it in the way they play. They play hard. It's all you can ever ask for as a coach 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. We gotta play good. Get prepared, practice and get ready to go execute in another crazy college campus stadium. Can't wait.
On anything the team focuses on particularly in situational awareness meetings
Pretty much on everything and Grant Newsome is doing it this year, he's doing an incredible job. You're doing a lot of what our team does right, maybe something we did wrong and what another team did wrong. Don't be this guy and make this penalty in this crucial situation. To throw the punch or lose your stuff. Clips from all over college football, pro football. It's great. It's entertaining, it's insightful and it's a great learning experience. He's taking it over this year and doing a heckuva job. We call it Teach the Game, TTG. We've been doing it so long that now we've got an acronym for it.
On whether he thinks he's found something to sustain success
Yeah, yeah. I think so. I think we do things to try to help that as much as possible. Really comes down to, hey, we're for you. Don't think we're ever against any of our own. Coaches, players or staff. We want you to have all the success in the world. By the way, you're having it so keep doing you. It's working. If you want to get a little bit better at something, just work a little harder at it and whatever you do, don't get the big head. That's a trap. A deep, dark, lonely trap.
On whether the telltale signs he's been able to pick up over the years
Yeah. I think I'm pretty good at it.
On the memories of the Little Brown Jug and what it means to him
Trophy game. Part of our TTG was to learn the entire history of the Little Brown Jug and that was a half-hour session, 45 minute session in August. Many of the guys have participated in it, know what it's about. It's something that is a priority for us. Get the best grades, win the most awards and trophies and excel at football.
---
Discuss this article with our community on our premium message boards
Not a subscriber to Maize & Blue Review? Sign up today to gain access to all the latest Michigan intel M&BR has to offer
Follow our staff on Twitter: @JoshHenschke, @Berry_Seth14, @TrevorMcCue, @DennisFithian, @BrockHeilig, @JimScarcelli, @lucasreimink
Subscribe to our podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify
Check out Maize & Blue Review's video content on YouTube
Follow Maize & Blue Review on social media: Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram