Jim Harbaugh vs. Nick Saban: Cool Dad vs. Farm Dad

Brady Quinn says players would have more fun with Jim Harbaugh than they would with Nick Saban. It’s a coaching war that looks like a dad war.

When Michigan football hired Jim Harbaugh over a year ago, there was a small part of me that wanted him to have a cool relationship with the SEC and its coaches. It looked like an opportunity to build bridges and unite college football.

Related Story: Harbaugh not allowed on sideline during games

From then to now, just the opposite has happened, and I’m thankful for it.

If there were ever any bridges there to begin with, Harbaugh has crushed them. And as he makes his rounds to SEC coaches, he’s comes to Nick Saban of Alabama, who of course criticized satellite camps.

Saban has called satellite camps “ridiculous” and recently had much more to say about the issue.

“I’m not blaming Jim Harbaugh,” Saban said. “I’m saying it’s bad for college football. Harbaugh can do whatever he wants to do if he thinks that’s what’s best. There needs to be somebody who looks out for what’s best for the game, not the SEC or the Big Ten or Jim Harbaugh. But what’s best for the game of college football. The integrity of the game.”

Harbaugh responded in a way only Harbaugh could.

Former NFL quarterback Brady Quinn, who played his college ball at Notre Dame, was asked on the Dan Patrick Show about Harbaugh and Saban.

"Nick Saban has the championships, so you’d probably have to go in that direction at this point but you’d probably have much more fun with Jim Harbaugh. And maybe I’ll change my mind. Harbaugh has more of an NFL pedigree from when he was there and the success he had, he was a former quarterback who had a lot of success as well so maybe he’d be able to see more eye-to-eye with you as a player.I really wouldn’t want to play with either, because I’m a Notre Dame guy, but I’d have to say Harbaugh in this case."

Knocking Harbaugh for not having won the title in his first season at Michigan is odd, but he eventually prevailed anyway.

The battle this has created reminds me of competing dad styles. You have Harbaugh: charismatic, unconventional, funny, tough. Then you have Saban: quiet, behind-the-scenes, old-schooler.

Harbaugh is your cool dad who instills a work ethic; Saban is the farm dad who makes you get up at 4 a.m. to do 1,400 things you don’t want to do, and then he gets on Facebook to criticize the leftists.

In the end they’re both winners who just project themselves in drastically different ways, and there isn’t actually a quarrel here—just a bunch of amplified noise we create to pass time between now and the 2016 season.

Next: Top 10 running backs in Michigan history

It’s fun, though, so we’ll keep doing it.