colin kaepernick

Things discussed:

• Villanova game: Hunter Dickinson, hit the shots you always hit. What are you gonna do?
• Hoops future: guys we like in the portal, Frankie was the difference between a first round exit and a Sweet 16 team.
• Not looking good for getting back either Diabate or Dickinson, so now what? Can Jett give them the three they need? Can Bufkin grow his game dramatically over the offseason?
• Portal is full of Just a Shooters. Michigan needs to get one. Can we be a weird lineup? What does Terrance Williams at the five look like? What does Tarris Reed look like?
• Hockey/Frozen Four: The first one or two Quinnipiac goals were flukes but then they were controlling play. Brian is bored by the pulling the goalie conversation because the percentages don’t change that much. Denver is going to be as talented as Michigan, play like Michigan, doesn’t have the goaltending of Michigan.
• Football invites Kaepernick to the Spring Game: The perpetual whiners whined when they put George Jewett on the team too. Any effect of an outcry is drowned out by the good it does. Wear your heart on your sleeve.
• $42 million scoreboard? Makes a talking point but it’s just all part of the Kafkaesque hell of David Brandon: He built the scoreboards with parts that can’t be replaced, so they’re going to end up spending $42 million to keep the scoreboards functional anyways.

[Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog]

Jim Harbaugh is the first person to admit he's obsessed with football. Everything else is secondary. This is a man who traveled to Paris with his wife, went to a Mexican restaurant that appears to be decent but by no means world-renowned, and declared it the best restaurant while also boiling down his personality into a damn near perfect tweet.

I"m not a food critic, merely a blunt instrument who only knows football. In my opinion this restaurant is the Best! pic.twitter.com/oIdvpemrIn

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) July 15, 2015

Harbaugh is a blunt instrument. He doesn't get sick. He doesn't take holidays. He's a jackhammer. We know this.

Harbaugh also has strong ties to the military. One of his oldest, closest friends is retired Marine colonel Jim Minick, who now serves at Michigan's director of football operations. He has a well-documented history of bringing in military officers to speak to his teams. He stops by Omaha Beach while on vacation. He welcomes servicemen into his office and genuinely looks more excited to take a photo with them than vice versa.

Which brings us to yesterday. Harbaugh emerged from the fall camp submarine—his term; he's also referred to it as a "bunker"—to address the media for the first game-week press conference of the season. Harbaugh is well-known for his unpredictable, off-the-cuff answers in pressers (not to mention on Twitter). We have a "jim harbaugh says things he probably shouldn't" tag, and the proprietor of this site has described him as "being himself at maximum volume at all times" on multiple occasions.

The odds that Harbaugh had the time or inclination to seriously ponder Colin Kaepernick's protest of the national anthem before the press conference are exceedingly low. This is a football coach known for being way more football-obsessed than even the average football-obsessed football coach. He's briefly emerging from three weeks of fall camp and its four-hour practices and endless film study to talk about the Hawaii game. He's probably aware of the basic details of Kaepernick's protest, but that's not anywhere close to his primary focus. He's thinking about his team, preparing for Hawaii, and not letting on anything about the ongoing quarterback competition.

[Hit THE JUMP.]