Mike Hart Responds to Jim Harbaugh’s Comments

By Sean · Thursday, August 2, 2007 · 10:17 AM |  Share | 3 Comments 

I think “responds” is an understatement.

Yesterday at the conclusion of Big Ten Media Days, the press got a chance to interview players and coaches. One of the players in Chicago to represent Michigan was running back Mike Hart. Hart was asked about Jim Harbaugh’s infamous comments made a while back that bashed Michigan publicly. Harbaugh basically criticized U-M’s admissions standards for student-athletes, which pissed Hart off greatly. To say it bluntly, Hart ripped Harbaugh big time.

“That’s a guy I have no respect for. When you graduate from the University of Michigan and you’re going to talk about your school like that, a great institution like that we have, to say we’re not true student athletes. It’s coming from a guy who, I don’t know, maybe wants to coach here, and is mad he didn’t get a job here. A guy like that I have no respect for. It’s funny to me, because we don’t let great student-athletes in, but he just accepted one of our transfers [Jason Forcier]. What kind of sense does that make? He obviously wants guys like us at his school and he’s mad he can’t get them. It’s nothing against Stanford. I just have no respect for that guy. I don’t know how you can say that. He’s not a Michigan man. I obviously wish he never played here before.”

Wow! Mike Hart came out swinging and down goes Harbaugh. In all seriousness though, I’m shocked Hart said all these things. I agree with everything said, but you don’t usually hear comments like this from one of your star players.

Lloyd Carr also was asked about Harbaugh but offered a vague answer that indirectly referred to the one time Michigan QB.

“To say that certain groups, or to set yourself up as saying they shouldn’t be there, they shouldn’t be recruited … I guess I would say it’s very, very sad,” Carr said.

“Do I think they’re elitist? Yeah,” Carr said. “Arrogant? Yes. Self-serving? Yes.”

Another Michigan running back, Jamie Morris, who is actually a former teammate of Harbaugh, once was close friends with him until these comments were made.

“I said, ‘Jim, here’s my question for you — do you really believe the comments you said, or are you saying them to make you look good?’ ” said Morris, who works in the Michigan athletic development department.

“He said, ‘I believe them.’ And I said, ‘Would you have said it if (former Michigan coach) Bo (Schembechler) was alive?’ He said, ‘That’s not the point.’ And I said, ‘That’s exactly the point. You didn’t hurt Michigan, you hurt your coach, and you hurt the guys you played with. These are the teammates you turned your back on.’

“We said, ‘We’re not friends anymore,’ ” Morris said. “ ’You lose my number, I lose yours.’ ”

As you can obviously see from the quotes above, those comments were taken personally by a lot of people at Michigan. To anyone out there that still believes Jim Harbaugh has a shot at the Michigan head coaching job ever, no matter how good he is, needs to wake up. The bridges are burned beyond fixing and Harbaugh will never be hired at Michigan in any capacity.