Harbaugh dismisses haters: Michigan’s ‘scary good’ and ‘having a blast’

Spring ball is here.

Four weeks, three practices a week. A month to forge what this Michigan Football team aims to be in 2022.

For head coach Jim Harbaugh, he’s a mix of enthusiastic and confident — he likes this team.

“Right now, it’s scary good,” Harbaugh proclaimed.

“As I walk around our field, whether it’s our weight room, whether it’s out there with the guys, coaches and players, it’s people that are engaged, players come up to you, they’ve got a smile on their face. ‘What’s up, coach? What do we got today?’ It just makes the days fly by,” Harbaugh said.

Michigan has a plethora of returning talent on the offensive side of the ball, it’s a unit that should produce at an above-average clip this season. Harbaugh said the offensive line looks good, that quarterback Cade McNamara has looked sharp, and he called a trio of Michigan freshmen wideouts (Amorion Walker, Darrius Clemons, Tyler Morris) a “freak show” in terms of their physicality and running, jumping abilities.

However, on the defensive side of the ball there are more perceived question marks — they lost key pieces along the defensive line in Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo. Harbaugh thinks other players will step up accordingly.

Harbaugh mentioned that Mazi Smith is playing really well, said they’re excited about guys like Kris Jenkins, Taylor Upshaw, Braiden McGregor, and Mike Morris.

“Yeah, the state of Michigan football is scary good right now. Mike Morris could be the next Aidan Hutchinson, Ojabo,” Harbaugh said. “There’s some really exciting things going on on the defensive line.”

A lot of outside noise occurred this off-season when Harbaugh interviewed with the Minnesota Vikings — Harbaugh said Michigan is where he ultimately decided he wanted to be. For Harbaugh, he sees a lot of the narratives surrounding his NFL intrigue to be conjured up by folks who want to see Michigan fail. Even so, Michigan is having fun and hitting it hard in spring practices to get back to the Big Ten Championship, back to the College Football Playoff.

“There’s people that want to keep different stories going, love to hate us or hate to love us, but we’re having a blast,” Harbaugh said. “The word tumultuous was used in the off-season. If guys are bringing the energy and having fun and the momentum that the program has, whatever word you want to put on that, that’s what we’re having. And that’s scary good, because you know something’s gonna happen at some point — the law of averages will catch up to you at some point, but it’s the place you want to be.”

Harbaugh’s back in Ann Arbor, the team is at a place that he feels can win at a high clip and make another big run in 2022.

The kids are alright.

“We’re having a blast, gonna carry that on as we get going through spring ball,” Harbaugh said.