The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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THE WOLVERINE 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ■ 29 baugh to coach first base for a few innings of a game against Pittsburgh. He obliged, taking the time to sign dozens of autographs for fans who showed up specifically to see him. While many have continued to express sur- prise at Harbaugh's energy, nothing his boss has conjured up or experienced has surprised offensive coordinator Tim Drevno said. "I've been with him so long … he's just a very, very intelligent man and really thinks outside the box, comes up with different ideas, and there is no monotony with him," Drevno said. "He'll look at things and say, 'Hey, we can we do it this way better, so let's go do it this way.' "That's what great leaders do. It doesn't matter if you're the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams … you're looking at different ways to motivate your men. That's very, very important, and you've got to know when to do it. It's knowing the pulse of the football team and what the needs are to lead them." That often involves something nobody's seen before and a lot of hard work for the staff, as evidenced by the summer camp tour. "This job that we do here, I don't get ex- hausted with it. It's really fun," Drevno said. "It's very stimulating to try to be the best at your craft." There will be no shortage of ideas in the future, Anson added. In Florida, Harbaugh and his staff even came up with a way to turn four hours of NCAA allotted practice time into four hours for each player and six hours for the coaches by overlapping the time be- tween the backups and two-deep players by two hours and spending two hours alone with each group. "To me, he's the greatest innovator to come into the game in the last 50 years, maybe since Fielding Yost himself," Anson said in compar- ing him to Michigan's legendary coach. "He looks at how Michigan relates to the rest of the college football world, and also how it relates to high school and even Pop Warner teams across the country, let alone to potential recruits. "Most people go to work and think about when they can leave from the first moment they arrive on the job. Jim Harbaugh goes to work looking at, 'How can I stay longer? What else I can do?' He loves this so much, he wants to do more of it." In short, he's brought something to Michi- gan that's been missing for the last decade — a sense of swagger that the Wolverines truly belong among the nation's elite. When former U-M All-Big Ten offensive lineman Doug Skene was at Michigan, he said there was a sense that anything less than the best was unacceptable. Too often in the past eight years, the Wolverines were in rebuild mode — or as Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio said in a veiled shot at U-M, "Selling hope, while we're selling results." The Wolverines still have to win under Har- baugh to back up national perception that the program is becoming a monster, but former players have embraced the coach's approach. "That's what I'm talking about," Skene said. "Coach Harbaugh shooting one across Coach Saban's bow … I go back to when he was a quarterback at Michigan, and I was in high school watching him. This guy will tell you what he's thinking whether he's in front of the camera or not. That's just who Coach Harbaugh is. "The long track record is he backs up what he's saying. There's a lot of legitimacy to everybody's excitement about this season and the seasons ahead. He hasn't crossed any in- appropriate borders or done anything that has been disrespect- ful. In my mind, he is sticking his foot in the ground for Michigan, and as a former player, I love it." It's all for the pro- gram he loves, Michi- gan athletic director and former Harbaugh teammate Warde Manuel added. "It's not about Jim Harbaugh … it's about Michigan football. From my standpoint, peo- ple need to understand the difference," he said. "He is three-dimensional in his thinking, but in responding to a question, it comes off as one-dimensional. And people can't see that depth of him as a person and the level of intel- ligence that he brings to what he does. "I'm happy to work with him. It's been a lot of fun." Perhaps maybe even more so for a fan base that has struggled through some lean years. In many of their minds, Harbaugh wasn't a choice to take over the program — he was the only choice, and they've loved every crazy minute, as Barrows predicted they would. "You may notice that your Harbaugh never shuts off," he wrote. "This is normal." Not normal for everyone, of course — only for jackhammers like Jim Harbaugh. ❏ Harbaugh's new twist on the 2016 summer satellite camp series is wearing a famous jersey from the region of the event, including (from left) Indianapolis Colt QB Andrew Luck, Denard Robinson, USF head coach Willie Taggart and Yankees legend Derek Jeter. Like most things he does, the pictures go viral at just about every stop. PHOTOS BY BRANDON BROWN "There's a lot of legitimacy to everybody's excitement about this season and the seasons ahead. He hasn't crossed any inappropriate borders or done anything that has been disrespectful. In my mind, he is sticking his foot in the ground for Michigan, and as a former player, I love it." FORMER MICHIGAN ALL-BIG TEN OFFENSIVE LINEMAN DOUG SKENE