Now the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, is Jim Harbaugh still throwing jabs at Ryan Day and the Buckeyes? It would appear so.
Like he was replaying an old hit, Harbaugh gushed about the hard-working humility of everybody in the Chargers organization when he chatted with reporters at the NFL's annual owners meetings on Monday, noting that "nobody was born on third base."
It was after his first win over Ohio State back in 2021, and the first of three in a row for Michigan, that Harbaugh said, "Sometimes people that are standing on third base think they hit a triple -- but they didn’t." Harbaugh would later confirm that retort was intended for Day as "a counterpunch by me to the comment that they’re going to hang 100 on us, etcetera. Kind of like Sugar Ray Robinson."
And there he was Monday, talking about his intention to build the team he desires in Los Angeles in the span of one offseason.
"Everybody in that building, everybody in that organization, nobody was born on third base," Harbaugh said. "They had to work their way to first, to second, to third. And the players, same thing. I mean, welcome. I want to celebrate and congratulate them for being at the highest level of football and celebrate their story and how they got there, and then we’re all here together. We’re all on third base poised to bring this home together. That’s where I’m at, that’s the excitement I have. I think we’re in a great place to welcome those players and get the ball rolling on April 2."
Asked if he thinks he can mold the roster to his liking in one year, Harbaugh said, "We think we can, we think we can."
"Every year is a new year," he said. "It’s almost like, I got this vision in my head of some of those Survivor programs, those Survivor Island type of programs. There's 32 teams and we’re all we got. We’re eventually going to be 90 (players) to 53 and 17 on the practice squad, and coaches and front office and ownership and every person in that building from equipment to training staff to social media staff and the analytics staff, got so much respect for what everybody does."
Another counterpunch to Day after Harbaugh led Michigan to the national championship to cap off a perfect 15-0 season? Make of it what you will.