Jim Harbaugh reflects on winning national championship at Michigan: 'That stays with you'

Former Michigan Wolverines football head coach Jim Harbaugh is off in Los Angeles with the NFL’s Chargers, preparing for the 2024 campaign and striving to achieve his next goal of winning a Super Bowl. He joined Barstool Sports’ ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast as the first guest on their ‘Grit Week’ tour, discussing a number of topics including finishing 15-0 and winning the national championship with the Wolverines in 2023.

Harbaugh said he loved the feeling of playing football — which he did at Michigan before starring as an NFL quarterback for 15 seasons — and gets a similar enjoyment from coaching. Winning the national championship, though — becoming simply known as a national champion — was more about the players.

“Even the feeling of winning that game, it was so good, but it’s long past being for myself,” Harbaugh said. “It’s like, I get to see [quarterback] J.J. McCarthy or [running back] Blake Corum or any one of those players, this is their opportunity to be a champion. To go undefeated.

“For them to know that, and for their mom and dad, for Jim and Megan McCarthy to know that their son is a champion. For each of those parents, uncles, grandparents, that they get to feel that joy of their son or their grandson or their friend — whatever it is — and for themselves to know that, you did that. Pull it down or pull it in. But you did that. That’s where all the joy comes from, is them experiencing that.”

Michigan blasted Washington in the national championship game, 34-13, after getting ahead 14-0 and finishing strong. Nickel back Mike Sainristil notched an interception and made an 81-yard return that set up a Corum touchdown in the fourth quarter. That’s when Harbaugh knew — in all likelihood — the Wolverines were going to win it all.

“That’s my goal. My goal is that we get ahead, we stay ahead, we get so far ahead that I can’t screw it up,” Harbaugh said. “When Mike Sainristil picked off that pass and returned it 50 yards, ‘Hey, we’re gonna win this … if we don’t screw up this … if we don’t give up a kickoff return here and that kind of thing.’ You never really feel that until your team is taking a knee in victory. Somewhere along the line, I felt it.

“It’s one of those feelings that’s not gonna wash off in the shower. That stays with you.”

The podcast hosts, ‘Big Cat’ and ‘PFT Commenter,’ suggested that Michigan’s 2023 squad was molded in the image of Harbaugh, but he took exception with that.

“This is the only part that I’m uncomfortable with that, that team was in my mold or something like that,” Harbaugh began. “These guys were so much better than I was, and so much more connected than just about any team I’d ever been on. So unselfish.

“You talk about adversity, I mean, they overcame it at every point. And it got to the point where it was white noise and to the point where you couldn’t even hear it. That all came from their parents and their families that had poured all that into them, and it came from them, who they were. They just kept getting better at being them. And they never got a big head. It was tremendous.

“The other thing people say is, ‘Oh, you’ve won everywhere you’ve been,’ and this and that kind of stuff. It’s only because you have good players. There are no good coaches with bad players. I mean, it’s all about the players.

“I learned that from Dave Adolph when I was a young coach, the great Dave Adolph. When I put up a Mount Rushmore of coaches, if I’m going to the very tip top, it’s Jack Harbaugh, it’s John Harbaugh, it’s Dave Adolph, Bo Schembechler. Those four are right at the very top. 

“He said that. I said, ‘Dave, how do make this team at USD, how do we get better?’ He said, ‘You gotta get better players.’ And he said, ‘There are only two ways to do that — you gotta coach them better or you gotta recruit better players.’ In pro football, you gotta coach ‘em better or you gotta acquire players through the draft, etc.

“You can’t even be a good coach without great players.”

Here are some more highlights from Harbaugh’s interview on ‘Pardon My Take.’

On leaving Michigan

“Yeah, it was [a tough decision]. I loved these guys. All the players there, all the guys we recruited, the coaches, just everybody … it’s just like, ‘Love you guys.’ There’s another thing where, OK, here’s a challenge, here’s somebody that likes what you do and how you do it and presenting you with this challenge. And whether it’s a blessing or a curse, that’s kinda always what’s been in me is like, ‘Let me see if I’m up to that.’

“There are only so many sands left in the hourglass, so I want a shot at that, I want to see if we can stand up to that.

“It’s been hard like, man, these are the two great loves I have in my life are my family at home and my family at work, and there’s that Michigan family. And also my dad lived right next door to me in Ann Arbor, and maybe the toughest thing of all has been that they haven’t moved out here. Hopefully they will. Mom and dad, I hope you please, please, I need you living next door to us here in Los Angeles. 

“But I gotta say, this family I have here at work, I love these guys! I love these guys. That’s players, that’s the coaching staff we put together — just a tremendous all-star staff. I know it, I know that. The entire organization — equipment room, the ownership, the trainer, the doctors, the grounds crew. Everybody here.

“And I finally put my finger on it, which is, why do I love everybody here so much, so fast? And if I had to say one thing it’s just that everybody here treats their job like it’s the most important job in the entire organization, and they are just double check it, triple check it. They want to be so good that I just love that everybody — players and all — are doing anything and everything in their power to try to make this team win and be successful. I love that. Love these guys!”

On if his brother, John Harbaugh, having a Super Bowl as a coach motivated him to return to the NFL to chase one

“I think people would automatically think that. I think it’s been said. And yeah, that’s part of it, yeah. I’m not denying that.

“I know everybody says you gotta do one thing first, you gotta make the first birdie before you can do anything else, but it’s so good here, this entire organization, the Spanos family. [General manager] Joe Hortiz. My brother said, ‘You would love Joe. You’re gonna love Joe. You’re gonna love working with Joe.’ He undersold it. He’s one of the best evaluators in the game.

“I don’t think there’s anybody better, after going through this offseason and draft with Joe Hortiz. And he is who he is every day. He pulls the best out of people. It’s just been spectacular.”

On hiring strength coach Ben Herbert from Michigan

“I don’t ever want to be forced — I mean, I’d do it if I ever had to — but I don’t ever want to coach a football team without Ben Herbert being our strength coach. I love Ben Herbert. I’ll put him on Mount Rushmore.”

On his definition of grit

“I would define it as that gravel in the gut that you personally have that overcomes that situation when you doubt yourself, those pressure moments. The guys that have it, the athletes that have it — men or women, whoever has it — they are able to give their best when their best is needed most.”

On if he enjoys adversity so he can overcome it and notch a ‘W’

“There’s like the level of the W would be is just, yeah, you just love a W no matter what. You win. But yeah, there’s like even better levels, like if you have to overcome something, yeah, that makes that even better. 

“For example, that come-from-behind win is even … nothing makes you feel better than that. Or that win where you did it in an opposing stadium and you feel like your team walked in there and the fans were against ‘ya and you overcame that. Some tough environments — there’s just no better feeling than coming out of with a win in a place like that. And then if you can throw the elements in — there are some real cold or real hot or some rain coming down sideways — and you feel like you overcame the elements, as well.

“To overcome an opponent, overcome them in their stadium and to overcome them in their stadium with the elements, then I would say, yeah, there’s nothing that would make you feel more like a man than that.”

On Michigan losing to Michigan State in 2015 on a botched punt

“I’m not fully over that. We had a punt blocked with 10 seconds left in the game. It’s left an indelible bruise there. That was one of the top five worst things to ever happen to me in my life, was that. That’s top five.

“But it led to eliminating that college punt, that spread punt. We’re not gonna do the spread punt ever again. We’re going back to good old fashioned pro style punting from here on out. And our punter’s gotta be at 14 yards, can’t be at 16 yards. I play that scenario out quite a bit.”

On life

“I just like living that strenuous life of always trying to think and always trying to have an idea or work or just feel like you just gotta go. I love being on my feet, love doing stuff. Love thinking of something and then doing it. Just that feeling that you can’t slow down, and in a moment’s notice something could change. So just gotta keep going about it that way.”