Everything Jim Harbaugh said on Inside Michigan Football show pre-Hawaii
On Erick All and his baby
The report's good. They're leaving the hospital today. You're right, it was a great weekend. The team got better and the team got bigger with Erick's son, Houston, joining the world. How about that? About 7:30-7:45 his was born. Got in the car, drove over. Hadn't slept much, can't imagine he got much sleep in the last 36 hours before that game and did some pretty good things in the game.
On Noah Wells and Team IMPACT
It's been huge. Larry Prout has had a huge impact on our team. Great relationships, and friendships. It was great to see Larry at the game on Saturday. Just tremendous inspiration for all of us. Over some 100 hundred surgeries that he's had. The enthusiasm that he brings, the attitude he brings, it's infectious. It rubs off on everybody. You just want to rub up against Larry's shoulder and get some of that tremendous attitude that he has. Now Noah Wells is joining the team, his family has gone to at least 6 or 7 practices already. Talked to the team once and again today. It's tremendous for everybody involved. All concerned.
On whether he was happy with the performance on Saturday after second viewing of the game
I really was. Accomplished winning the game, accomplished improving, accomplished staying healthy, too. If I went through the offense, I would say the tight end group was really good and really solid. 6 tight ends caught a pass. I think we had 5 back in 2016 caught a pass against BYU out of the tight end room. They played really good. Luke Schoonmaker, his blocking was as good as I've ever seen. You could go back to Jake Butt, all the great tight ends, McKeon, some of the guys we've had. He looks tremendous, strong. Erick made a big play in the two-minute. Colston Loveland, great to see it. Running back room, the same way. Guys touching the ball, some having their first carries. Mike Hart has done a great job with the running back room but it was great to see Blake Corum have a really good, solid day. Even leaped a guy. Good stuff. Donovan Edwards was running hard. Isaiah Gash, C.J. Stokes had a tremendous run. Tavierre Dunlap, that group is really good. The offensive line was really solid. Quarterback play was really good. The wide receivers, 15 guys caught a pass. Highlighting that. The defensive side of the ball was also good. The thing I was enjoying the most, watching the end of the run or watching the end of the play, just how many winged helmets were coming into the shot. Guys were pursuing, running like heck. That was good. Secondary play, the guys we thought that were going to play really good like R.J. Moten and Rod Moore, Mike Sainrsitil, Gemon Green, DJ Turner, all played really well and made really big plays. Makari Paige, want to hihlight him. Just the transformation now going into his junior year, he's a physical presence out there. Mike Barrett had 6 tackles, he was running really good. If somebody breaks through that line or that front, there's hats coming from everywhere. If you were running the ball, and I know I would, my head would be on a swivel. Mike Sainristil was everywhere. The offensive version of Mike Sainristil would've been Ronnie Bell on offense because he was everywhere. Blocking, catching balls. The blocking was outstanding. Andrel Anthony had a tremendous block. Cornelius Johnson was blocking them. They really took the challenge and guys were just back there, 15 guys catching balls. They were blocking, too. Special teams, Jake Moody extended his streak of 12 field goals made in a row. Brad Robbins had a 47-yard net punt. Great to see Eamonn Dennis, he was our special teams player of the week. He has so many tools, Eamonn does. He's so fast and athletic. To see him put that into game practice it was great to see. A lot of good things.
On Blake Corum hurdling
It does make me a little nervous, it sure does. I think, these days, the defenders are really going for the knees, they're going for the thigh board. They're trying to be like an arrow going through snow. Blake had the one hit on the sideline a little earlier, good thing he was wearing the thigh boards. It makes me nervous (laughs).
On Cade McNamara
He had some opportunities and he made some really good throws. Intermediate route to Cornelius Johnson was really good. The throw he made to Erick All in the two-minute drive that produced a 22-yard gain, I can't believe he got that ball in. That was in the tightest and narrowest of windows. He had two he missed, I know he was mad at himself after the game. He's such a perfectionist, I love that about him. Two short throws he would like to have back. The one to Cornelius on the crossing route and also Cornelius on the 9-yard stop route on the other boundary. The way things ran, I was really happy with. So clean, so smooth, in a first game to have it go that good with the communication, there were no delay of games, there were no false starts. All the things that come up in special teams where you don't have the right punt protection or blown coverages, not one blown coverage from our defense. Watching games, I had a chance to watch some games after ours and there was a lot around college football. The typical game one type of thing. I was just really happy—maybe the most happy with the preparation of the players had and the coaches had going into this first game because it was about as clean and smooth of a first game that you could have. Also, some big plays being made whether there were good throws, good runs. Crisp tackling. Probably made me feel as good as anything. As I said, the communication was outstanding. Field goal protection, we've got to get that a little better. We saw last night watching the LSU game how critical that is. I just don't like anyone on our side of the ball in those field goal situations. We can run down on the kickoff coverage and punt coverage better on special teams. A little bit of penetration at times on the offense, especially on the perimeter, some of the perimeter runs. Defense, I thought was really good. Pressure on the quarterback was outstanding. 8 sacks, I'm calling it 8 sacks. I think the NCAA is calling it 7. It was good. I went back and looked. Do you know how many sacks we had against Western Michigan last year? One sack. Aidan Hutchinson had one sack in the opener last year. A lot of things good, a lot of things to build on and we're going to have to. We understand there's big game, if you use a hunting analogy, to be had. And we've got to get better. We've got to get better each week. Those teams like Michigan State, Ohio State, all the other State's. Penn State. The Maryland's, the Iowa's, the Indiana's, Rutgers. They're all coming and we need to get better and better each week.
On 84 players playing in the game against Colorado State
No question about it. It's great for development, it's great for morale. I have kids, you have kids, I go to those games and sometimes my kids have been the backup and you'd like to see them play. We have over 100 on our roster now that have game experience, see if we can keep that growing.
On Ryan Hayes and Nikhai Hill-Green's status for Hawaii
I definitely expect Ryan Hayes to be back and we'll see on Nikhai more towards the middle of the week.
On Karsen Barnhart's status
Probably not for this game, he's going to be OK. He's going to be OK going forward. Probably out of caution, will keep him out of this game.
On Giovanni El-Hadi
We were really happy with Gio, really pleased. Comes in right off the bat and has a play where he's pulling. He's really good at pulling. He's a physical guy. He's come a long way, already been a talented player. It's just confidence. OK, Gio's in there, we're running a pin-and-pull to the right, go, Gio's going to be pulling here. Didn't miss a beat. Trevor Keegan going out to tackle, his versatility showing there. Olu had a heck of a game. Zak Zinter, really good game. Physical, graded out the highest on Sherrone Moore's grade sheet. Trente, good but Trente is one of my favorite guys. I like watching number 53. I have really high expectations for Trente. When you see him do stuff good, then you just expect it, right? OK, now we have evidence that you can do it good, now we'll just expect that every week. For Trente and Gio, and those guys, Keegs, we know. We just know that they're good and versatile and you can count on that every single week.
On whether defensive pressure coming from anywhere will be a trademark for the defense
I like the sound of that. I like the sound of that a lot. That it could come from anywhere all options are open. I think when you have guys that can really run and you have a creative coordinator like Jesse Minter and Clink, all options are available. Second level type of blitzing, Junior Colson gives you that. He's got the speed. Mike Barrett gives you that. So does Kalel Mullings and Mike Sainristil coming off the egde. Boy, looked like a natural doing it. The guys like DJ Turner and Gemon Green, they had great games, too. Gemon didn't show up on the stat sheet as much because he was covering guys and helping to create some of those sacks. And the safeties, like I said, Makari Paige and Rod Moore who had four tackles, and an interception and got in on a sack, R.J. Moten. We expected them to play good and they went out there and did.
On Junior Colson
Really just consistency, more of the same. He's a great guy, an easygoing guy. He's very pleasant when you talk to him. Probably some of the most well-mannered, respectful gentlemen on our team but they do flip a switch when they get out there on the field.
On J.J. McCarthy and preparation leading into the Hawaii game
Very similar to—or exactly how we did it last week with Cade. J.J. will take most of the one reps in practice this week. What I'm hoping for is really what he was like on the sidelines and in the game. You can tell the game was slowing down for him. He was calm, cool and collected. Going out and executing, making plays himself and getting the ball to the playmakers. Thought he was real good. We'll be really striving to do what we did in the first game at the quarterback position. We expect J.J. to go out there and play well and get Cade out there, too. We'll get Cade into the game. I don't want to see him go a week where he's not in there and playing just like we didn't want to go a week without him being in there and playing. Probably see something similar this game.
On whether he's hopeful heading into UConn on who the starting quarterback is
Yeah, I'm hopeful for that. We have the time to look at it. We have last week, this week and see where we're at. You kind of know where you're going to be at, we have two really good guys. Same thing we've been saying now for weeks.
On how he keeps the team disciplined playing at a high level and not playing down to an opponent
Every Given Saturday, everybody is familiar with that. You take nothing for granted, ever. Also, respect every opponent that you play. Also, like we talked about before, we've got to get better. We have to take this opportunity to improve our team as much as we can. Get as good as football as we can. You probably watched the same games as I watched. Not just the ones in our conference that all looked really good, you watched Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State and the others Georgia, caught them, they smoked Oregon. Alabama looked really good and a lot of the others. We've got our aspirations pretty high. If we're going to meet some of those we will have to waste no time, waste no days, waste no practice days or game days or any hours in trying to get as good at football as we can get.