Jim Harbaugh’s final meeting with Michigan football before he left for the Los Angeles Chargers included a reminder of what the program accomplished in 2023.Speaking…
Jim Harbaugh’s final meeting with Michigan football before he left for the Los Angeles Chargers included a reminder of what the program accomplished in 2023.
Speaking with NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco ahead of the Super Bowl, Harbaugh reflected on the Wolverines’ undefeated, national championship-winning campaign last fall.
“We did that. We did that!” Harbaugh said
When I was leaving the team and telling them I was coming to the Chargers, I told them, ‘Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that you did that.’ When people stop talking about it and it dies down, just the way you walk, the way you carry yourself and look at each other. It’ll be a head nod. It won’t be a deep, long bow any more, but it’ll still be that.
“And go do it again. Go do it again. Now they know what it feels like to be a champion, to be undefeated. Just so excited for that for every guy on that team and all the coaches. The baton has been passed. Now Sherrone Moore is the head coach at Michigan, and then I get this incredible opportunity the Spanos family has given me.”
Throughout his first weeks in Los Angeles, Harbaugh has assembled a staff that features several of his former assistants. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, defensive line coach Mike Elston and defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale will all join Harbaugh in LA, complicating Moore’s offseason.
Harbaugh also hired Ben Herbert, the strength coach described as the “x-factor” in U-M’s on-field success during the last three years.
But Harbaugh insisted he is “always gonna be a loyal Wolverine,” as he said earlier this month during his introductory press conference with the Chargers.
“Sherrone is the right man for the job,” Harbaugh said then. “Nobody else would be — I mean, that’s the guy. And they got it right. Top-rated, top-five team. I still think of it as one: Chargers and the Michigan Wolverines, like one team. In a great place. In a great place. Much like when players leave the university to go on to the pros, there’s a passing of the baton that takes place.”
