They're rivals now, but it wasn't long ago that Jim Harbaugh and Mel Tucker had a little family connection. Tucker was neighbors with Harbaugh's sister and his brother-in-law Tom Crean when Tucker and Crean overlapped at Georgia.
Crean arrived as head coach of the basketball team in 2018. Tucker left his post as defensive coordinator of the football team a year later to become head coach at Colorado. He landed in East Lansing the year after that.
"Good guy and we'll be having at it Saturday," Harbaugh told the Stoney & Jansen Show on 97.1 The Ticket ahead of Michigan's clash with Michigan State this weekend.
Harbaugh said he took a liking to Tucker in the offseason based on their virtual interactions and commended him for helping get Big Ten football off the ground this fall.
"Really gotten to know him well through all the Zoom calls and Big Ten head coaches meetings that we've been having since April, north of 30-something calls," Harbaugh said. "Mel's really good. Like his creativity, like listening to him on those calls. He helped us a lot getting football back."
As for Tucker's team, it wasn't a great start. The Spartans committed seven turnovers in a 38-27 loss to Rutgers in the season-opener.
Harbaugh said he expects to see 'a different team' Saturday in Ann Arbor.
"I don't think they're going to turn the ball over. They're going to get that fixed," he said. "You're going to see a different team when you don't turn the ball over seven times, so we'll expect that. We know how good they are, how tough they are, and how much the game means to both sides."
While Tucker will be getting his first taste of the in-state rivalry, Harbaugh is preparing for his 10th game as either a coach or a player. He's won two in a row and three of the last four against the Spartans.
Tucker can expect an intense, physical game Saturday.
"I think the biggest thing is everybody's emotionally involved. Every single player on every single play, play after play after play," Harbaugh said. "Everybody's playing as hard as they possibly can for as long as they possibly can. It's all-out, 60 minutes."
