How Michigan and Maryland are college football friends, sort of

Maryland visits No. 3 Michigan at the Big House on Saturday, and the game will be what it will be. The Wolverines blow out just about everyone, and if that same fate befalls Maryland, so be it. There’s no great shame in it.

Before the game, Maryland coach DJ Durkin will visit Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh on the field. My guess is they’ll exchange a bro hug of some kind, or at least something more than a handshake through gritted teeth. That’s because Durkin and Harbaugh are old friends and colleagues — and, more interestingly, kind of on the same side in the Big Ten East.

Let me explain.

The Terps don’t have the tradition Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Penn State have. If the standings were decided only by program prestige, Maryland would never finish above fourth in the seven-team East.

But Maryland’s trying hard to get better. The Terps currently have the country’s 14th-ranked recruiting class for 2017, third in the Big Ten behind the Buckeyes and Wolverines. For a team that went 3-9 last year and is 5-3 in Durkin’s first year, that’s remarkable. And it requires a certain tactfulness.

For the absolute best players, Maryland usually has to beat out both Michigan and Ohio State. That usually won’t happen, although it did in the spring. Five-star defensive end Josh Kaindoh picked Maryland over those two, Penn State, and others, but Maryland still has to make that commitment stick.

You remember The Great Satellite Camp War of 2016, don’t you?

When the NCAA banned off-campus football clinics (read: recruiting camps) run by FBS coaching staffs, the Big Ten’s powers were among many that spoke out against it. When the NCAA reversed itself weeks later, the Big Ten rushed to go camping.

Among other places, Harbaugh has held them in New Jersey, from where he’s signed a handful of elite prospects, including No. 1 overall player Rashan Gary. When Harbaugh had a camp at Gary’s school last summer, Maryland’s staff joined Michigan’s.

At the same time, Rutgers coach Chris Ash held one miles away with Ohio State’s Urban Meyer.

When Michigan held a summer camp in Baltimore, less than an hour from College Park, Durkin joined him again. Maryland has decided, probably correctly, that if Harbaugh’s going to recruit like a madman, it’s best to be on his side and meet the same talented players he’s meeting. Competing with Michigan later is secondary.

So that’s how Maryland has kind of wound up being on Michigan’s team in the incredibly weird world of football satellite camps, with Ohio State and Rutgers kind of on another team.

Durkin, by the way, also worked under Meyer at Bowling Green.

Durkin coached special teams for Harbaugh when the latter was in charge at Stanford, and he came on board to help a drastically improved Michigan defense last season.

Durkin tells a fun story of an ultra-intense pickup basketball game he once played with Harbaugh in the middle of a workday at Stanford:

I go up for a shot, and he fouls me pretty hard. I mean, a clean foul right on the arm. And so out of pride, I’m not gonna call the foul. I’m not gonna say, ‘You fouled me.’ He was ready to check the ball back to me. I’m like, ‘No, no problem, go ahead, your ball.’ And so it became no one was gonna call a foul then, the whole game, and so we played a game to seven. It probably took close to an hour. There was, like, breaks involved, and it was probably a pretty ugly game of basketball. Neither of us was trying to lose that game. He’s very competitive.

Maryland defensive coordinator Andy Buh also worked on Harbaugh’s Stanford staff, as a defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown, who replaced Durkin, spent two years in that job at Maryland under Ralph Friedgen. The coaching world’s a small one.

Here’s Harbaugh saying nice things this week about Durkin:

He’s done a fabulous job. Just always respected DJ as a tremendous competitor at the highest level. Smile thinking about his competitiveness, and also always happy for a friend’s success. I think he’s doing a fabulous job, him and his entire staff and team. You can see the energy. You can see the strength. You can see the competitiveness and execution on the field, et cetera.

And here’s Durkin on Harbaugh:

I really enjoyed working with him. It was a great opportunity to rejoin him at Michigan a year ago. He’s a fantastic coach and even better person. There’s a long list of things that I’ve learned from him.

Harbaugh won’t take things easy on Maryland, though.