Jim Harbaugh is mercurial. Any one who listens to his press conferences or watched the magnificent Michigan version of All or Nothing knows that.
So his appearances at Big 10 media days are eagerly anticipated.
Much of the focus on Harbaugh’s interview was to do with his open, if somewhat salty views on Urban Meyer. But thats for another time. For those of us on this side of the pond, we are more interested in another throwaway comment from Coach Jim.
“You can talk to (athletic director Warde Manuel) about this. But I think we’re really close to announcing playing another team on foreign soil. I won’t say what it is. Have you heard about this? I’d better not say it because they’re probably not ready to release that yet. I thought there’s something imminent….An announcement soon on that.” , Harbaugh told reporters.
Wait, WHAT!?
You may recall that Michigan took its team on an overseas trip to Italy in 2017 and has since returned to Europe to France in 2018 and this year, South Africa. Harbaugh is a keen traveller and has been open to playing a game overseas for some time.
Harbaugh’s comment was in answer to a question about playing a game in Mexico City. The only other city outside the US apart from London to host an NFL game. So could London or another European city be in with a chance of hosting a Big Blue game anytime soon?
Well, London is unlikely as its now fully invested in the NFL.
However, Dublin has hosted College Football games before and has recently signed up to a five game “Dublin Friday Nights Lights” series from 2020 to 2024. Notre Dame is scheduled to play Navy in the first of these games next year.
Dublin is no stranger to College Football with Boston College playing Georgia Tech in 2016 and Notre Dame having played Navy previously in 2012. On both occasions the games were sellouts with a huge influx of visitors from the US.
So with a behemoth program like the Fighting Irish committed to a game in Ireland it would not be inconceivable for Big Blue to also commit to one of those four remaining slots.
Michigan does not have any open dates on its football schedule until 2022. So Dublin 2022 might be a date in your diary worth circling out. Here’s hoping.
At the time of writing Michigan Football had no further comment to make beyond that already made by Coach Harbaugh.
#GoBlue
Photo credit: MLive.com (title), AP.com (body)