Jim Harbaugh reveals preseason motivation he gave to Michigan

With his team getting ready to compete in the College Football Playoff, Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh thinks back to the preseason. The Wolverines started the year at No. 16 in the AP poll, and certainly nobody expected them to be where they are.

Harbaugh said he tried to offer some motivating words to his team prior to the start of the year.

“I can take you back to our first team meeting in August,” Harbaugh told ESPN. “One of the things I said to these guys was: ‘Hey, guys, let’s face it. The buzz has died down a little bit around here. So let’s make some new buzz.’ They could not have made more buzz around here for everybody.”

Michigan was coming off its worst season since 1962 after finishing 2-4. The Wolverines, like most teams, had their year cut short because of the pandemic. They did not play in their final two games, including agaisnt their biggest rival, Ohio State.

Even though Harbaugh had not had a losing season in Ann Arbor before that, many latched onto last year for some reason. All seasn long the Wolverines were written off, even as they continued to win games.

A loss to Michigan State seemed to prove those fears correct. The Wolverines fell in the polls and many expected them to lose to Ohio State and end their Playoff hopes once and for all. But that’s not how the story would end.

Instead, Harbaugh would claim his first victory as a coach against the Buckeyes, and the school’s first since 2011. That propelled Michigan to No. 2 in the College Football Playoff rankings, where it would stay after a dominant 42-3 victory in the Big Ten Championship.

The Wolverines made the Playoff for the first time since its inception in 2014, making any doubts about Harbaugh’s job security now seem silly. They are set to face Georgia at 7:30 p.m. ET on Friday with a trip to the title game on the line.

As he prepares to lead Michigan onto the biggest stage in all of college football, Jim Harbaugh remembers what he told his players in the preseason. As he does, he can’t help but feel pride knowing that they listened, and that the story isn’t finished just yet.