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ORLANDO, Fla. — Jim Harbaugh may not have gotten Michigan to Alabama’s elevation in college football’s elite as of yet, but there’s certainly a lot of similarities in he and head coach Nick Saban.
That was certainly recognized when the two coaches sat down for the VRBO Citrus Bowl joint head coach press conference on Tuesday morning, as the stoic football men discussed the matchup. Both have been known for having something of an adversarial relationship with the media, and when Saban started getting bristly about media evaluations of players, you could see Harbaugh finding kinship with his compatriot on the other side of the table.
“Everybody’s got to make a decision about what’s best for their future, and we feel like our job is to make sure that we give them the correct information because there’s a lot of misinformation out there, whether it’s mock drafts or who is the evaluator,” Saban said. “And what we try to do is make sure we get the information from the actual people who draft.
“I know there’s a lot of media guys out there and, even you, but I’m not sure you draft anybody.
“Do you have a pick when the draft comes? So we try to get the information from the people who will actually pick the players, which is sometimes not congruent with what you all think, no disrespect to your ability to evaluate.”
As Saban finished this diatribe, a grin quickly came across Harbaugh’s face, drawing laughter from the media in attendance.
So, like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in the movie Step Brothers, did the two head coaches just become best friends?
Yup!
They probably won’t be however tomorrow evening, after they face off in the VRBO Citrus Bowl in Orlando.