CHICAGO — As Jerry Kill finished answering his final few questions at Big Ten media days in Chicago Friday morning, the Minnesota head coach might as well have been speaking to an empty room.
As Kill was doing his duty, answering inquiries from the Golden Gophers' local media about replacing talent like David Cobb and Maxx Williams, attention was already beginning to turn to the next coach on the dais. Standing in the corner of the room awaiting his turn to speak was Michigan's Jim Harbaugh, prepared to make his debut as the Wolverines head coach at the annual kickoff event.
And after seven months of anticipation, it didn't take long for Harbaugh to live up to the hype.
Baited right off the bat by a Columbus television reporter about Michigan's rivalry with Ohio State, Harbaugh didn't wait to let his sense of humor shine. Asked if he would have a special name for the Buckeyes, as his predecessor Brady Hoke did by calling them "Ohio" or Urban Meyer does while referring to the Wolverines as "That Team Up North," Harbaugh let it be known that he doesn't have any interest in playing the name game.
"No. Ohio State in particular? Just 'Ohio State,' " the former San Francisco 49ers head coach deadpanned, enthusiastically confused why he would call the Buckeyes anything else.
"But great to see everybody this morning. Glad everybody could be here. Wonderful turnout."
Judging by the sizable crowd that surrounded him for a breakout interview session after his time at the podium was over, Harbaugh was the primary reason for the impressive gathering that he mentioned. With the conference room inside the McCormick Place Hyatt Regency possessing a palpable buzz, the first-year Wolverines headman didn't disappoint, touching on topics ranging from the upcoming season, his relationship with Bo Schembechler, dinner with Mike Ditka and his recent vacation to Paris.
This wasn't the same closed-off coach who was run off ESPN Radio for one-word answers a month ago, either. This was a man prepared to put his unique personality on display not just for the room, but for the world to see.
Such was the case when he was asked about his relationship with Ditka, his legendary coach with the Chicago Bears during his first six seasons playing in the NFL.
"It's your coach. When you're a player, your coach is like family," Harbaugh said. "There is your family. There is sometimes a favorite teacher that you had growing up, grade school or high school. There's sometimes a neighbor that you were very close to. Maybe somebody in the church or the clergy and your coach.
"I had a chance to spend the evening with Coach last night at his restaurant," Harbaugh continued. "In fact, I picked up a Ditka jersey from the restaurant."
Harbaugh then took the opportunity to proudly display his new No. 89 Bears jersey that happened to be sitting by his side, as if he were a draft pick taking part in his first press conference.
"I didn't get it autographed, but I'll be proud to wear it," Harbaugh said with a smile.
The laughter—sometimes stemming from hilarity, discomfort or a combination of the two—didn't stop there either. Asked about his recent trip to Paris, which he documented on Twitter, Harbaugh explained that he and his wife Sarah were simply overdue for a vacation.
"Sarah and I, we figured this out that it's been eight years since we've spent more than a day just her and I and not all the kids and/or some football function or some work-related thing," Harbaugh said. "Eight years since her and I had just spent time alone, so we decided to go there and that's where she wanted to go.
"And I really enjoyed it. And yeah, hopefully she enjoyed it."
From a pure football standpoint, there wasn't much to be gleaned from Harbaugh's 15-minute presser—that stuff typically gets saved for the round-table discussions that follow the podium appearances. At this point, we don't know anything more about Michigan's quarterback competition between Shane Morris and Jake Rudock or the Wolverines running back stable than we did before Harbaugh arrived in the Windy City.
But what we do have is a closer look at the coach who, despite taking over a program that was 5-7 just a season ago, has managed to dominate the headlines of the college football world for the past seven months. This is a man who refuses to abide by the traditional constructs of the press conference format, taking a question about Michigan's culture as an opportunity to have a back-and-forth with longtime Columbus Dispatch reporter Tim May about the good ol' days of the Big Ten.
"I really don't have that list in front of me right now. But just how long have you been at the Columbus Dispatch?" Harbaugh asked May.
" '77," May responded.
"I was thinking about this: Remember, were you around when the Big Ten had the press caravan and go from (town to town) on the bus, right?" Harbaugh said, recalling the 1970s version of Big Ten media days.
"My favorite story...The caravan went to Columbus, and reporters got out of the bus, and they have chairs and sandwiches set up on the sideline for all the reporters. And if things are weren't going well in practice, Coach (Woody) Hayes got upset and kicked everybody out of the practice. Threw a couple chairs. And all the reporters got on to their next destination a little bit earlier. I read about that. I would have loved to have been there."
In 40 years, attendees at this year's media day may not recall Harbaugh's press conference the way he recalled Hayes', but it will be hard to forget the way the former Michigan quarterback had an answer for everything—even if it wasn't the question he was asked. That too rang true, when Harbaugh was asked about the attention he's brought to his alma mater, something he tried to downplay with the closest he came to coachspeak all morning.
"Well, I don't know. I don't know. Not striving to be creating any buzz. Just striving to coach the football team," Harbaugh said. "Not trying to be popular or anything. Anyone who is popular is bound to be disliked. So just coaching football."
With fall camp fast approaching, Ann Arbor's favorite son will soon get his opportunity to do just that. But whether intentional or nor, that Harbaugh-created buzz is building and only grew with his show-stealing press conference Friday morning.
Whether Harbaugh will match the hype on the field this season in a similar fashion remains to be seen.
Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.
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