Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Jim Harbaugh not worried about specifics to start spring practice

Last week at the NFL combine, reporters tried to nail down a specific position for former Michigan tight end/wide receiver Devin Funchess. He told them he preferred to think of himself simply as “a ballplayer.” That attitude would have fit in well had Funchess returned for his senior season with the Wolverines.

Jim Harbaugh’s first day on the practice field at Michigan -- four hours of work that flew by for him, but maybe not his players – was void of specific details. Right now, the new coach and his staff are just looking for ballplayers.

“Some guys are trying out at multiple positions, both sides of the ball,” Harbaugh said Tuesday night. “It’s too early to say what’s going to take place. We’re still trying to figure out who the best players are right now. We’ve just had one practice so far.”

Players, to some degree, are free to start working at the position they feel suits them best. Harbaugh doesn’t have any timetable yet for when he wants players to settle into their spots or when he wants the staff to rank them in some form of a depth chart. He said he had not given those types of deadlines any thought leading into Tuesday’s opening practice.

There are new schemes to learn and plenty of position battles yet to be settled for the Wolverines, starting with the quarterback, but those are not top priorities for Harbaugh’s first spring. The coach has made a career out of rehabbing football teams in relatively short order. The first step is usually establishing the expectations and culture for everyone involved.

A lack of talent or specific, technical skillsets are not what held Michigan to a losing record last fall. They won’t be the focus while trying to build a foundation this spring. For Harbaugh, winning starts with overcoming bite-sized obstacles on a daily basis.

“Our expectations are really high,” he said. “They were high for a great practice today and they’ll be high for a great practice on Thursday and great meetings on Wednesday. We’ll try to make them the best of the year if we can.”

Harbaugh filled the void of football information during his first post-practice Q&A session with his unique and quirky enthusiasm – unbridled excitement over returning to Michigan and “rolling the balls out there and letting the fellas compete.” When asked to describe how he felt about his first day back in cleats he ripped off a string of analogies likening the experience to most substantial memories in a person’s life. Birthdays, holidays, first days of school and “the birth of Christ” were all included.

Michigan started its spring practices earlier than any other Big Ten team this season (Northwestern begins Wednesday). Harbaugh said that was in part because the team hadn’t put on pads since November without a bowl game or December practices to stretch their schedule. His description of getting started, though, leads one to believe that the real reason for the early schedule is the coach couldn’t bear to go much longer without getting his hands on a football.

While Harbaugh’s unconventional answers are fun for onlookers, don’t mistake them for unintentional or uncalculated. The message he is sending in front of microphones is the same he is trying to relay to his team: Don’t worry about the hurdles to come or when they’ll be cleared, just hit the ground running as fast as you can.

The specifics will be addressed eventually. Harbaugh said he plans to both evaluate his players and spend time with the more technical aspects of a new coaching staff such as installing schemes during the next month of practice. But for now, and for the foreseeable future, it’s more about coaching enthusiasm than expertise.

^ Back to Top ^