Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh appeared on the Barstool Sports "Pardon My Take" podcast Wednesday and it went far better than his spot on Colin Cowherd's show. Harbaugh produced several "classic Harbaugh" throughout the show. You can listen to the entire show here, but the top highlights are transcribed below. A variety of topics were discussed, including grit (one co-host PFT Commentator's favorite words), his career plans, recruiting and much more.
Harbaugh after being called gritty:
"First of all, thank you. That’s a very nice compliment, for somebody to be described as having grit, having some gravel in the gut. That’s a very good thing, and I appreciate it. I told one of our players, Ben Mason, who is a freshman linebacker … he early enrolled, went through spring practice. I've never seen anybody go forward and hit somebody better. I think this guy was just made to be a fullback. That would be a great way to be described. That’s grit. Going forward and hitting somebody better than anybody I’ve ever seen. I’d like to be described that way. You could put that on somebody’s gravestone."
Harbaugh on building grit:
"Absolutely, you can improve and become better at toughness. It’s a talent, but it can be acquired, too. I think of it like building a callus. It’s like the human body. What a tremendous organism. It actually craves contact. It likes contact. It craves it, as opposed to a car. If you backed into a brick wall, that would cause at least $2,000 worth of damage. It doesn’t have the ability to repair itself or callus over, but the human body does. Much like conditioning can be improved, so can that callus of toughness and grit also be acquired or improved. If you’ve got a blister, it’s soft, it’s [puss-filled], it’s got fluid in it, it’s going to break. The great thing about it, when it does break, it will callus over even stronger and harder and better. And now it’s gritty."
Harbaugh on finding good football players:
"You know it when you see it. You can see it day after day. I always think of it like, you’ve really got to tell the truth when you get on the football field. Do you have talent? Have you put in the effort? Are you stronger, are you faster, or are you not? It happens out on the football field, almost like a truth serum. There’s no way to bullcrap your way around it. You can’t send an email [and say], ‘I’m really good.’ Eventually, you’ve got to get out there on the football field and you see what the fruit is. In the Bible, you can tell a good tree because it bears good fruit. A bad tree bears bad fruit. By your fruit you will be known. By your talent, by your effort in football you shall be known."
Harbaugh on recruiting:
"It’s an amazing process, just to go all across the country. You meet really good people. It makes you feel good that there are genuine, down-to-earth, good people. They have one main commonality: they want the best for their son. You’re welcomed into a home, picture this, and you take your shoes off, and they say, ‘Coach, sit here. My wife has prepared …’ Then you eat a meal that’s maybe in the top five or 10 you’ve ever eaten in your life. You get to know a family and they get to know you. You really become like part of the family. When it really works the best, you’re in a circle that is a family, and it’s a responsibility I take very seriously, but it doesn’t seem like working. You’re connecting, and you’re striving to be somebody’s best friend they’ve ever had, professionally. So you’ve got to get to know them. It’s tough to be somebody’s best friend they’ve ever had professionally if you don’t get to know them and they don’t get to know you. It’s a wonderful process, a real honor to be somebody that somebody trusts enough to drop their most prized possession that they have in the world … off at your doorstep, and they expect you to return the same good, quality person that they drop off. It’s a huge responsibility, but it’s a tremendous honor, that somebody would trust you to be in that role.”
Harbaugh on the sleepover at recruits' houses:
"The rules are set up that a player can have an in-home visit one time, and only in the months of January or December. So instead of being two hours, let’s make it 24 hours. Let’s get to know [each other], let you kick the tires. What’s somebody really like? I snore. I used to snore. Now I’ve got a sleep machine, so I don’t snore as much. You stay up a little bit. You talk, you tell stories, you laugh, and you get to know everybody else in the family. It’s amazing. Sometimes the coach comes over. There’s an uncle, sometimes it’s the cousins. I’ve had some amazing times. You pop a little popcorn and watch some highlights. [Freshman] Donovan Jeter, we watched an entire playoff game. That was awesome. You get to hear what he was being coached. Now I understand what kind of player he is, things he needs to improve on, things that he does well. Then you sit down and have a great dinner. You wake up, get breakfast, you go to school, now you meet some of the teachers and counselors … I went to school with Quinn Nordin… Education is wasted on the young. It’s great to go back to class now."
Harbaugh still dreams about playing:
"Yeah. I’ve been playing. I play in dreams. I don’t ever have any coaching dreams, but I have football dream still, and I play… It’s young me, but older me face. Sometimes I’m right back in young me, too. It’s a dream, so you don’t have a whole lot of control over it. But I’m right in there playing, not coaching. I love those football dreams… It’s usually fourth quarter. Maybe we’ve just gotten within seven, or within three. Something might have gone bad in the previous series, but I’m usually trotting out and when the dream ends, I’m out there for the final series. I haven’t had one where it actually finishes."
Harbaugh on what he would do without football:
"Honestly, I knew from the very youngest age that I was going to play football as long as I could, then coach, then die. I really haven’t thought about deviation from that plan."
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