Jim Harbaugh: Not just culture – Michigan football is ‘family’
Michigan has done extremely well in the transfer portal the last few years, and head coach Jim Harbaugh thinks he knows why.
“The story is that people want to come be here at Michigan. There’s really no other layer to that,” he said. “There are just a lot of really good players that by word of mouth or whatever it is … I think the guys talk amongst themselves. I think you see that here.
“We’ve got a lot of guys … more that want to come in than want to leave.”
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It’s been his responsibility to make sure that’s how it’s viewed, he said, but he doesn’t take the credit. While there have been some hiccups — 2020 was brutal with COVID and a shortened 2-4 campaign — the program has been on the brink of huge success since he first arrived in 2015.
Two years ago, Michigan finally got over the hump with a Big Ten title and a College Football Playoff appearance. Harbaugh and the Wolverines repeated last year and will likely be favored for their third straight in 2023.
“Like I’ve always said, anything goes well around here, that’s everybody … everybody doing a tremendous job,” Harbaugh said. “When it goes bad, then I’m a bad manager. That’s my role, and that’s a role I think you always have a job at, because nobody is waiting in line to do that job.
“But I couldn’t be more blessed. People talk about culture on a football team — they throw that out there. To me, culture is doing the right things, being on time, being where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. Giving it a really good effort. But this program is beyond that.”
It’s “family,” he said, and he hasn’t shied away from calling it faith-based at times.
“Everybody bleeds blue, goes in the same direction,” Harbaugh continued. “You can trust your name in somebody else’s mouth. We enjoy it. We enjoy each other’s company. It’s father and son relationships; it’s brother to family relationships in this program. I just feel really blessed to be part of it.”
And they’re setting the stage for future generations, too. When asked about his running tandem of Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards, Harbaugh hearkened back to the 1970s, when his father was a Bo Schembechler assistant, and he was a ball boy chasing the Michigan players around.
“[Running backs] little Gordie Bell and Rob Lytle? They were heroes,” he recalled. “Great players; great guys. I got to know them as a kid and look up to them. They were great … tremendous role models. I feel it with [his son and Michigan assistant] Jay [Harbaugh], [assistant Ron Bellamy’s son] Jaxson Bellamy … Mike Hart’s kids. Everybody that comes in and is around our team, you see it happy. You see the light go on; you see them in practice throwing the ball around. It’s just a wonderful thing.
“Like I’ve said, [success] not only seems possible; it seems inevitable. Being around a great team and a great bunch of guys that are on our team and role models, that affects generations, to me.”
You see it in how many former players’ kids have had an effect on the program, most recently Aidan Hutchinson and Will Johnson.
They’ll continue to build with the hope that it bears fruit for the program for years to come.
