IMAGINE IF “A TOTAL FRAUD” IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL BECOMES THE KING OF THE NFL
Jim Harbaugh has resurrected Justin Herbert and turned the Chargers into a 3-0 curiosity, apparently ignoring an NCAA punishment two years ago that declared Michigan’s 15-0 season was crooked
For all the proper reasons, he is the biggest story in the NFL, bigger than Daniel Jones and other revisited wash-ups and way bigger than his brother’s 1-2 mess in Baltimore. He also remains the ugliest story in college football, for all the wrong reasons, including 14 years of show-cause penalties that ban him until August 2038.
Only Jim Harbaugh can beat Andy Reid, Sean Payton and Pete Carroll in the season’s first three weeks — and be savaged by Urban Meyer as punishable by the commissioner. He mentioned Jim Tressel, his Ohio State predecessor, and asked why he was suspended six games by Roger Goodell in 2011 after a scandal was announced by the NCAA. “There’s an elephant in the room here that no one is talking about,” Meyer said on a podcast. “I think we all know the answer.”
Would Goodell suspend Harbaugh?
“Of course not,” Meyer said.
Such is the quirky fortune of a man who should be hung and just might make it to the Super Bowl anyway. No one ever said Harbaugh can’t coach, but at Michigan, he utilized Connor Stalions to spy-cheat his way to 15-0 glory in a national championship season. He bolted a burning building and signed an $80 million contract with the Los Angeles Chargers, where he has resurrected a playoff-ill Justin Herbert as an early MVP candidate and brings promise to a team basically ignored by southern California. We know he does weird stuff in the locker room: Buys his players back-scratchers so they itch themselves, eats hot dogs at halftime with no toppings, arrived at his new job by living in a trailer park, reads lyrics from “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyes Peas and Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” He also makes comments that belie the history of his franchise.
“The Lombardi Trophy, that’s my mission,” he said. “Multiple championships.”
Is it possible Harbaugh can make it happen this season, joining Carroll, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as coaches who have won in the pros and in college? Already, he has crushed the golden door of the Kansas City Chiefs and, given John Harbaugh’s defensive issues with the Ravens, he might have the team to play Buffalo for the AFC crown. Do not be shocked if the Chargers start 7-0 if they avoid injuries, as running back Najee Harris is out for the season with a torn Achilles. One of these days, Dodgers and Lakers fans actually might pay attention.
“I don’t think I have the vocabulary to express how great I feel,” Harbaugh said after a comeback victory over Payton and Denver. “It’s a signature win. It’s one that reveals your character. That all-out hustle from our guys from the first snap of the game to the end — I wouldn’t be surprised if this does a lot for our morale, and that was already high. There’s gravel in the gut.”
As it is, he woke up one day and decided he must “get Justin Herbert to the Hall of Fame.” Some credit the quarterback’s new relationship with singer Madison Beer — again, we need a new Taylor Swift — but Harbaugh has created a monster who leads the league with 860 passing yards while throwing six touchdown passes with only one interception. “That would mean winning a couple of Super Bowls,” Harbaugh said. “A lot of people would benefit. So that's a worthy goal, and I think it's necessary that we get him surrounded by as many different football players at his level as possible.”
He is helped with defensive gems from Jesse Minter, who arrived from Michigan and soon will become an NFL head coach. Maybe he’ll replace Harbaugh, who claims he’ll run a team until he “dies” yet spent the offseason undergoing two medical procedures: cardiac ablation and hip replacement. Last season, he was treated by paramedics after suffering a type of arrhythmia. He says he’s fine. Is he?
“The doctors can't find anything wrong with me,” he said. “A-grade.”
When the NCAA pounded the Wolverines, he pooh-poohed the penalties by saying, “I’m not engaging.” He claims he is “not aware nor complicit” in Stalions’ sign-stealing scam while adding, “Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. I did not participate.” Um, how does the leader of a gigantic college program not know about a staffer who sometimes stood beside him on the sideline? Harbaugh, of course, knows everything. His program was dirty.
Yet here he is, the September king of the professional jungle. His brother must win with the Ravens, who were popped at home Monday night by Detroit. Jim feels no pressure from Michigan or from Chargers owner Dean Spanos, who loves him. Never mind that ESPN’s Paul Finebaum called him “a total fraud.”
“I’m not an attorney, but I always wanted to be,” Harbaugh said. “I watched a lot of shows, watched ‘Judge Judy.’ I always felt like it would be cool to get up there and thunder away at a jury like Tom Cruise in ‘A Few Good Men’ or be a judge like Judge Judy. Alas, I did not go to law school.”
Instead, he dreams about Herbert, who went to Oregon pondering a medicine career. He chose the right profession. “Oh my gosh, bro. The dude is unbelievable,” right tackle Trey Pipkins said. “I have zero words. What can I say? He was getting hit, making throws. He led us the entire time. If that’s not the MVP, I don’t know what is.”
“He is 1-of-1 who I’ve ever seen at the quarterback position,” Harbaugh said.
Is he corny? Is he full of it? Oh, yeah. He compared Herbert to Kobe Bryant, MIchael Jordan and LeBron James. “He takes a hit, there’s no facial expression that changes, there’s no limp, there’s no crap. It’s like it didn’t even happen,” Harbaugh said. “He’s the fiercest.”
Get used to the babble. This is how he operates. “I think it was Napoleon Bonaparte who said, ‘Morale is to the physical as three is to one.’ And boy, it won’t hurt our confidence in just knowing what’s inside, man,” he said. “We don’t want to go down or stay the same. We want to keep climbing.”
With that comment, he might be off to McDonald’s. Where else would the worst man in college football, the king of the show-cause, celebrate a 3-0 start? Maybe he can throw a pickle at Meyer and sauce at Finebaum. Both attempts would land spot-on, right?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.