OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Eleven years after turning the Super Bowl into one of football’s most memorable family reunions, Jim and John Harbaugh are again at the forefront of the sport.
This time, the two coaches are chasing different prizes — meaning the brothers won’t be in each other’s way.
John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens have the NFL’s best record at 13-3 and have clinched the top seed in the AFC with one week remaining in the regular season before the playoffs begin. Jim Harbaugh’s No. 1 Michigan Wolverines (14-0) face the No. 2 Washington Huskies (14-0) on Monday night in Houston for college football’s national title, a game John — at 61, a year older than Jim — said he’s planning to attend.
“I’ve never seen either of them have as much fun with their team as they’re having now,” said Joani Crean, their younger sister. “It brings a pure smile to my face.”
The family should be used to the publicity by now. At the end of the NFL’s 2012 season, John’s Ravens defeated Jim’s San Francisco 49ers at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.
Jim returned to Michigan, his alma mater, in 2015 and now has the top-seeded Wolverines trying to win the storied program’s first national championship since the 1997 season. They’ve already won a third straight Big Ten title and defeated fourth-seeded Alabama 27-20 in overtime to win Monday’s Rose Bowl, a College Football Playoff semifinal. Washington beat third-seeded Texas at the Sugar Bowl in the other semifinal.
Of course, Jim has also been as polarizing as ever this season, suspended once for three games by his school amid allegations of recruiting violations, and then by the Big Ten for another three amid allegations of an illegal sign-stealing scheme. Through all of that, John was quick to support his younger brother, saying at one point that Jim had “come through this thing with flying colors” and that an investigation into the Michigan coach’s phones and computers had turned up nothing of substance.
When Jim was suspended for a road game against Maryland near the season’s end, John had him over to watch.
Lately, the mood at Michigan has been far more celebratory. After Monday’s victory, Jack Harbaugh and his wife Jackie — the parents of Jim, John and Joani — did an exuberant, endearing interview for WXYZ, a TV station in Detroit. Jack said at a key moment in the game, he and Jackie superstitiously traded seats.
“That is so classic of them. … It probably did make the difference,” John said Wednesday. “My dad is fun, but he’s a little bit polished, he’s been interviewed before. My mom — you put a microphone in front of her face, or you hang out with her for a couple of minutes, you don’t even have to ask her what she thinks, she’s going to tell you what she thinks.”
AP photo by Ryan Sun / Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh gestures from the sideline during the Rose Bowl semifinal against Alabama on Monday in Pasadena, Calif.Jack was an assistant coach at Michigan under Bo Schembechler, and Jim played quarterback there during the mid-1980s. John was a defensive back at Miami of Ohio. The family’s saying — “Who’s got it better than us?” — is one Jim has made somewhat famous. And John has worn a Ravens-colored shirt with that question on it at practice.
With the Harbaughs in charge, the ties between the Ravens and Michigan run deep. “The team, the team, the team” — one of Schembechler’s mantras — is on the wall at the Ravens’ facility.
When Jim was on shaky ground at Michigan before the 2021 season, he hired Ravens linebackers coach Mike Macdonald as his defensive coordinator. After helping the Wolverines win a Big Ten title, Macdonald came back to Baltimore to be the defensive coordinator there. Now it’s Jesse Minter, who was on John’s staff with the Ravens from 2017-2020, who runs the Michigan defense.
“Michigan and the Ravens is a very similar culture because of the men running it, Jim and John Harbaugh,” said Ben Mason, a former Michigan player who is now a fullback on Baltimore’s practice squad.
The Ravens finish the regular season Saturday against the Pittsburgh Steelers (9-7), then have a first-round bye in the playoffs.
Mason said he could “potentially” go to the Michigan-Washington game Monday in Houston. John is heading down there with his wife Ingrid.
Crean is married to ESPN analyst Tom Crean, the former men’s basketball coach at Marquette, Indiana and Georgia. She lives in Florida but was at Michigan’s victory over Ohio State at the end of the regular season in late November and the Ravens’ preseason game against the host Tampa Bay Buccaneers in August.
Like John, she’s planning to be in Houston to watch Jim.
“Everybody in a family has a different personality. They care about the same things,” she said. “Maybe they go about things differently, but I think that’s more of a perception than reality.
“They’re caring human beings. I know people don’t want to hear that, but that’s the truth. You can’t fake things in a locker room or a building in sports, and there’s nothing fake about them, and that’s part of why they’re successful.”