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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Michigan players are looking forward to head coach Jim Harbaugh’s return to the sideline Saturday night for the Big Ten championship game against Iowa.
Harbaugh, who last coached a Wolverines game Nov. 4 against Purdue, has completed the three-game suspension imposed by the Big Ten on Michigan for a prohibited off-campus scouting and signal-stealing operation led by former staff member Connor Stalions. The coach’s suspension was limited solely to game days.
“I’m super excited to have [Harbaugh] back,” senior running back Blake Corum said Monday. “It’s going to be great. It’s going to be like a reunion.”
Corum cited Harbaugh’s pregame speeches, which “gets the hair sticking up on my arms, gets me ready to run through a wall.” Harbaugh addressed Michigan players on Friday nights before each of the past three games. After beating No. 2 Ohio State on Saturday, Michigan players noted how Harbaugh had quoted his former coach with U-M, Hall of Famer Bo Schembechler, who famously said, “The team, the team, the team.”
But on game days, Harbaugh has not spent much time around his team lately. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy on Monday said he hadn’t seen Harbaugh since before the Ohio State game.
Both McCarthy and Corum mentioned Harbaugh’s game-day presence as a key factor that they’ve missed.
“You never know what’s going to come out of that man’s mouth,” McCarthy said. “Anything that does, it’s just always at the right time and the right words that are said. Having him around the locker room pregame, where he just kind of goes around to everybody and pumps them up in some way, ‘Go kill them, champ, go out there and do you,’ just little stuff like that, it makes a huge, profound impact.”
Corum stopped short of saying a third straight outright Big Ten title — a first in team history — would mean everything, as Michigan has its eye on pursuing a national title. But a championship would carry significance, especially given the scrutiny Michigan has faced since the signal-stealing scandal broke last month.
“We’ve been through a lot, we’ve been called all types of names, people don’t think we’re good at football because of this and that and just so much going on,” Corum said. “[Harbaugh] gets suspended for three games and our linebackers coach [Chris Partridge] gets fired. So many things getting thrown at you. What did we do? We stood tall and came together even more. I didn’t think we could come together even more than we already were.”
McCarthy said a lower-leg injury he has been dealing with is “almost perfectly healed” and credited Michigan’s athletic training staff for working with him through the recovery. The junior seemed most limited Nov. 18 at Maryland, when he completed only 12 of 23 passes with an interception, but he responded well in the Ohio State win.
“It was a rough couple of weeks,” McCarthy said.