Jim Harbaugh and I approach Twitter quite differently, as he says he spent eight or nine hours thinking about at tweet before sending it, and I've never thought about a tweet as long as eight or nine seconds.
Hell, I try not to let thinking get in the way of my tweets at all.
Anyway, the tweet Harbaugh thought long and hard about was his recent response to Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith. This one, to be exact:
Good to see Director Smith being relevant again after the tattoo fiasco. Welcome back!
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) March 23, 2016
It was in response to a quote from Smith earlier that day. Smith had been asked about Ohio State following in Michigan's footsteps and possibly taking spring practice down to Florida in the future. Smith said, "If we were jump-starting our program, I'd probably try that, too."
Harbaugh clearly took it to heart, as while he's responded to plenty of perceived slights on Twitter, this was the first time Harbaugh went after somebody so directly, dropping Smith's name in his tweet.
On Saturday, Harbaugh discussed the tweet for the first time. Because it's 2016 now, and this is what we do. We ask college football coaches about their tweets.
“It felt like one got shot over our bow,” Harbaugh told reporters. “It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. I waited a good eight, nine hours and figured they might consider that it could be construed a certain way toward our program. Actually, some of the scribes and pundits were construing it that way. So when no explanation came, thought it was time to fire one over their bow.
“Consider things even right now.”
Smith obviously agreed with Harbaugh's sentiment that his comments were "over their bow," as he apologized for his remarks shortly after Harbaugh's Twitter response.
Now all we can do is hope that we can all move on from this dark period and get on with the rest of our lives.
