Everything Jim Harbaugh said post-Maryland

Though focus has now shifted to Ohio State, there were a number of things for Jim Harbaugh to discuss after Michigan's win versus Maryland. From Donovan Edward's big game as a receiver to special teams' domination to brief injury updates, here's everything Harbaugh had to say:

On how much Donovan Edwards had been building up to today's game

Really all season we’ve known about his ability to catch the ball and run routes. It started back in spring practice after he came off of his surgery on his thumb. He was in a cast for the first three weeks. He was catching-- averaging seven catches a day, to the point where he was even an example even for everybody. Like, this guy is catching, he doesn’t drop anything, and he’s wearing a hard cast on his hand. And the work he’s put in. He’s got so many built-up reps. I understand he and J.J. (McCarthy) are throwing and catching all the time.

So we had some good designed plays today. There were some really good looks to get the back out of the backfield and as soon as he caught that pass, I could see the cutback coming. Because I had seen it, seen it in practice a bunch of times. He sure did look--oh, there he is. He was rolling! How fast did he look? Really fast.

I’ll make this statement, and I don’t like to make a lot of big, hyperbolic statements or whatever. It was a record, it was a great performance, all-time record, but, as I told you earlier, this will be a blip on the radar of the career of Donovan Edwards. He’s destined for great things.

On the significance of the injury to Brad Hawkins

I don't think it's gonna be. I know what happened and I don't think it's significant, but I don't know for sure.

On what it means to have the opportunity with everything on the line against Ohio State

Yeah, it means everything that was planned, built for, all of the energy that was put in since way back in early 2021--you know, January, February--all the things that the guys have done, the coaches have done has put us in this position.

That’s the position we wanted to be in and we want to finish it. We want to win all the marbles. So, we’re in the position we want to be in. We’ve been preparing for this really the entire year, and now bring that preparation to life this week, to play for it all.

On whether scoring three touchdowns in five minutes was to put an exclamation mark on this week heading into next week or whether it just happened that way

Yeah, that just happened. That was a great game plan by Jay Harbaugh and the execution was flawless. They do that cross-field kick once or twice a game and our plan was the first time they did it, we’d activate the throwback so it was really an audible on the result of where the ball was kicked to. That was up, it was up the entire game, and then they ran that cross-field kick. And Mike Barrett threw an absolute dime back to AJ Henning. You’ve gotta highlight Trente Jones. He caught my eye. He was rolling out in front of AJ and AJ put in the top gear as well. Great play by Mike Barrett, AJ, Trente and the whole unit!

And then we came back next series and got the interception by DJ Turner. And that was huge because we were having a tough time getting them stopped opening up, the second or third drive of the second half and DJ makes the huge play on the interception and pick-six.

On special teams

It was a huge, monster game by the special teams. Matt Torey, his blocked punt early in the game really got us going, no question about that. AJ Henning had a really fine punt return; I think it was a 25-30 yard return, but got it on their side of the 50, which was huge and set up a score. Yeah, it was really good by the special teams.

On what kept Taylor Upshaw in Ann Arbor today

He's working through something.

On slowing Taulia Tagovailoa

Yeah, from where I was looking, he was playing great. I said going into the week he’s a great player, he’s their most valuable player, and we couldn’t get him on the ground. We were doing everything we could to do that. We were approaching him like he was a running back, we were leveraging him as a running back, and he was still getting out of the pocket and making plays. He’s a real, real player. Throws it extremely well. I don’t know that we did as much as we wanted to to limit him. And I don’t know that you can, really, so maybe we did good by limiting the production. But he is fun to watch. Again, as I said at the beginning of the week, he’s been fun to watch all season and not gonna be fun to watch this game. It'll be fun to watch him again after this.

On Ohio State and early impressions of them

Yeah, obviously didn’t see the game but saw the score. All our preparation has been happening. We know it’s a big challenge so we’re excited to get after it and bring it to life.

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