Jim Harbaugh comments on ‘wonderful’ postgame trophy presentation with B1G commissioner Tony Petitti

Jim Harbaugh and Tony Petitti shared the stage on Saturday night in Indianapolis as Michigan was presented the trophy for winning the conference title.

The Big Ten commissioner and the Michigan head coach he suspended kept their distance for the most part. There was a handshake between Petitti and Harbaugh, but not much interaction beyond that, as the trophy was presented to Zak Zinter at the coach’s request.

At the postgame press conference, Harbaugh was asked to summarize his thoughts and feelings being on stage with the commissioner and receiving the trophy.

“Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” Harbaugh said. “Wonderful feeling of winning. Great thrill of victory. Yeah, I mean, how many more people can we get up here on the stage. They said three, four, five. Keep bringing them up. It’s where we wanted to be. It’s what we hoped for, what we worked so hard for, and then it happened.”

Harbaugh continued to talk about the ecstasy of victory, praising his players. He was joined by J.J. McCarthy, Blake Corum and Mike Sainristil for the postgame press conference.

“It’s the like kind of pinch yourself, but yeah, the way our defense was playing, the gutty performance, another gritty one by our offense, and then the special teams,” Harbaugh said.

“James Turner kicking the four field goals, Semaj Morgan with the big punt return. Just so good. You never know who exactly is going to be the guy, who is going to make the play. I mean, these three, they do it every week. But there’s always somebody else that gets in there as well.

“Kenneth Grant had a dominating game. So did Mason Graham and Kris Jenkins, Cam Goode, those interior guys. The edge guys were incredible. But these three every week, it’s every week these are the three guys. Then it’s always a multitude of other guys that step up and make the magic happen.”

Andrew Olson

A former Florida beat reporter, Andrew writes for the Saturday Tradition News Desk.