Wolverine Watch: Time For Some Fire-Breathing Prep
Jim Harbaugh strode into the interview area at Schembechler Hall on Monday with a purpose. Those on the receiving end, frankly, braced for the worst.
Harbaugh isn’t crazy about this setting, at high noon each Monday during the football season. Given the option of being staked down in the sun, covered in honey and set upon by fire ants, he might take it.
He enjoys friendlier outlets, like his podcast and his radio show. He endures these moments, like a week earlier, when he stared and stiff-armed his way through roughly 11 minutes of pre-Wisconsin chatter.
So inquiring minds could only imagine his approach, after his team got its collective backside handed to it at Wisconsin. This promised to be short, and anything but sweet.
They were surprised. This was Good Jim — engaging, helpful and ready to pull back the curtain a bit.
He acknowledged what he described as obvious “to the entire football world.”
“From A to Z, it wasn’t good,” Harbaugh said of the 35-14 chastening in Cheeseville. “It wasn’t good enough. Not acceptable. It starts really with, it’s not acceptable to me. You start self-critical and determined to get it fixed. That speaks for me and everybody on our team, players and coaches. Not a day we’re proud of.
“We didn’t play physical enough. We were out-hustled. I take responsibility for that. In any ways that we were out-schemed, I take responsibility. That’s my job, to make sure we’re completely sound in all offenses, defenses, everything we’re running.
“And, in how I manage the team and get them to play hard, play tough. Like I said, A to Z, it wasn’t good enough. We all take responsibility for that, we’ve all got fingerprints on it. We’re determined to get it fixed.”
Boom. There it is. Any questions?
Well sure, a few. Like how, after months of preparation for a season, aspects such as physicality and toughness can be enhanced within one? He answered that as well, hinting at personnel changes based on those competitive characteristics.
“You can — and that will be an emphasis,” Harbaugh assured. “An emphasis on physicality, an emphasis on toughness, an emphasis on hustle. You make it part of the practice plan more, and also playing the players who are dedicated to playing physically and hustling at all times. You get those players in the ball game.”
In short, Harbaugh sent a message to his players, his coaches, former Michigan players barking on social media, and Johnny Message Board or Jimmy Talk Show Caller.
Not acceptable. And we’re not accepting it.
Now, Harbaugh didn’t have to do that, with regard to the latter groups. What he says to reporters at noon on Mondays at Schembechler Hall has as much effect on Michigan’s success as whether he pours whole milk or Gatorade on his cereal in the morning.
But in this case, getting Good Jim means something. He came down the staircase at the facility named for his former coach with a purpose. He vowed to get things fixed, with a purpose.
In the days to come, his players and coaches need to experience Good (Or Good And Angry) Jim, and respond to him.
They did a poor job in Madison, albeit against a team that could very well wind up atop the Big Ten. They didn’t push back nearly hard enough against a crew that bullied them right into the Camp Randall Stadium turf.
They didn’t block well, tackle well, or — as several former Michigan offensive linemen forcefully pointed out — play with the sort of edge that intimidates, rather than getting intimidated.
They were too passive, in some minds, when the Badgers knocked redshirt sophomore quarterback Dylan McCaffrey from the game on a dirty, head-hunting hit.
Harbaugh says he’s looking for more physicality and toughness. He’s played on teams with plenty. He’s coached teams that overflowed with it.
He may need to force it — not by tweeting at other coaches, breaking buckeye nuts over Schembechler’s grave or smashing clipboards. But the fire he brought to Michigan might need a little stoking.
“That stuff doesn’t necessarily make you a great head coach, but he had a swagger to him that I think the team kind of adopted,” Michigan Radio sideline reporter Doug Karsch observed. “It seems to have changed.
“Some people wanted him to change. I wonder if he needs to get some of his swagger back.”
Harbaugh’s players indicated he dropped this on them at practice: “Winning cures more illnesses than penicillin.”
That’s true. What he didn’t say (but knows) is this: losing reveals more illnesses than a health screening in a third-world country.
Harbaugh’s team needs plenty right now — more capable defensive linemen, a nastier edge, savvier pass protectors, better health and nobody saving himself for the NFL.
It also needs Good Jim, Ultimate Competitor Jim, breathing fire back into the furnace.
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