The Michigan football team is in Miami to play Florida State in the Orange Bowl on Friday night (8 p.m. ET, ESPN). That means Jim Harbaugh had to give a pregame press conference on Thursday. Some intrepid reporter decided to put forward one of the weirder lines of questioning you’ll ever see.
Jim Harbaugh had no time for a reporter’s stupid questions about bikinis
Harbaugh handled an odd scene about as well as he could’ve.
The transcript, via ASAP Sports:
Q. I want to get your thoughts on this because you have mentioned that the fun is in the football work and the team unity with the guys being down here with the practicing and everything, but your players are a little disappointed they haven’t seen any bikinis. I’d like to get your thoughts on that.
Harbaugh: I don’t have any thoughts on that.
Q. They would like to see some bikinis before they leave.
Harbaugh: I don’t know about that. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Q. See the beach.
Harbaugh: I do not know what you’re talking about.
Q. The beach, the bikinis.
Harbaugh: Yeah. I don’t know anything about that.
Q. Not on the itinerary?
Harbaugh: Don’t know what you’re talking about.
To recap: Someone was wondering why Michigan didn’t make time during its Orange Bowl preparation to go and look at women in bathing suits. That person saw fit to bring it up in a public forum with Michigan’s coach.
The video makes it seem like this was just a really overzealous attempt to get Harbaugh to say something weird. Some media members were laughing, but Harbaugh was just trying to move on as quickly as possible. From the 12-minute mark:
Harbaugh handled it about as well as he could’ve despite his annoyance, which is to say he avoided engaging with an off-color question and sought to move on as quickly as possible. It comes off like a misguided attempt to get a “fun” answer.
For major college football coaches, meeting with the media is part of the job description. It’s an especially big part of the lead-up to bowl games. But this is so odd, and there’s no reason for Harbaugh to respond differently than he did.
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