Harbaugh set to show brotherly love
After parents’ viral reaction, Ravens coach will attend national title game to support Michigan
After Michigan’s dramatic, comefrom-behind 27-20 overtime win over Alabama in Monday’s Rose Bowl, which sent the Wolverines to the College Football Playoff national championship game, the parents of winning coach Jim Harbaugh were there to take it all in.
It’s not uncommon for family members to share in the revelry of such a crowning achievement. It was, after all, Michigan’s first playoff win, a breakthrough moment for a program that hasn’t won a national title since 1997 and was engulfed in a sign-stealing scandal this season that led to the suspension of its coach, a settlement with the Big Ten Conference and an impassioned defense from Harbaugh’s older brother.
So when Jackie Harbaugh was asked for her reaction by WXYZ Detroit’s Brad Galli after seeing her 60-year-old son win the most important game of his nine seasons at the helm at his alma mater, she said what every Wolverines fan was probably thinking.
“Are you kidding me?! They won! What’s better than that?!”
If that wasn’t enough, Jack Harbaugh led a rousing rendition of a rallying cry he said has been used in the family for a long time (and will sound familiar to Michigan and Ravens fans alike): “Who’s got it better than us? Nobody!”
The one-minute interview received close to 6 million views on X, formerly known as Twitter, shining a spotlight on perhaps the most famous coaching family in football. (Ravens coach John Harbaugh earned plenty of attention himself this week for dancing in the locker room and smearing blood on his forehead after Sunday’s big win over the Miami Dolphins.)
“It’s been amazing. I just couldn’t be happier,” Harbaugh, Jim’s older brother by one year, said after practice Wednesday in Owings Mills. “I was really happy for my mom and dad.”
Harbaugh said he wasn’t surprised to hear his parents superstitiously decided to switch seats before the Wolverines’ game-tying touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. Nor was he shocked to see his mother have such a strong reaction.
“That is so classic of them,” Harbaugh said. “Actually, thinking [about it], it probably did make the difference.
“My mom — you put a microphone in front of her face, or you hang out with her for a couple of minutes, you don’t even have to ask her what she thinks, she’s going to tell you what she thinks — I think [Galli] figured that out pretty quick, so it was fun to watch.”
He was happy to point out, too, that Michigan running back Blake Corum, who rushed for 83 yards, caught a touchdown pass and scored the eventual game-winning touchdown in overtime, played high school football at Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy.
While the Ravens are still playing, this time of year is perhaps not as busy — nor as stressful — for Harbaugh as it is most seasons. The Ravens clinched the top seed in the AFC with a dominant 56-19 win over the Dolphins on Sunday, so Saturday afternoon’s regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers does not have any playoff implications for Baltimore. Harbaugh said Wednesday that star quarterback and likely NFL Most Valuable Player Award winner Lamar Jackson will not play, and several other starters are expected to join him on the bench.
So will Harbaugh attend the national championship game Monday at NRG Stadium in Houston to see No. 1 Michigan take on No. 2 Washington? You bet.
“I’m going to go to the game [and] take [my wife] Ingrid [Harbaugh], and we’re going to enjoy that,” he said.
Perhaps Jim will return the favor next month. The Ravens have the second-best odds to win the Super Bowl, which kicks off Feb. 11 in Las Vegas. And it could very well be the Ravens against the San Francisco 49ers, the same matchup that pitted brother against brother for the first time in Super Bowl history in February 2013.
If they’re lucky, maybe the Harbaugh family will have two championships to celebrate this year.