Opinion: Jim Harbaugh’s calculated tweets keeps him ‘relevant’

Jim Harbaugh is at it again. Which means we are at it again, too. And by “we,” what I really mean is journalists who pounce on Harbaugh’s Twitter bombs every time the Michigan football coach launches them.

We are doing his bidding, as I am doing now. We can’t help it. He’s news, and turning away feels like an abdication of responsibility. Call it the Donald Trump effect, in reference to the man who has become must-watch television not on the strength of those who admire him, but on the backs of those who abhor him.

Not that Harbaugh is Trump. The U-M coach isn’t vain; he manages to stay in the news without making it about him, keeping the focus on the Wolverines — or the program’s opponents.

As he did Tuesday, when he launched his latest fusillade by responding to a quote from Ohio State’s athletic director Gene Smith.

For some context, here is the full Smith quote (which was in response to a question about Harbaugh’s trip to Florida for spring football practice): “Is it creative? Does it help from a recruiting and marketing point of view? I get that,” Smith told a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “If we were jump-starting our program, I’d probably try and do that, too. But we’re not jump-starting our program. We’re in a different place.”

The Ohio State AD also suggested that taking a football team on a trip during spring break might be disruptive to the players’ schedules, which was a similar response to some in the SEC, as if this really were about the integrity of the student-athlete.

So, in light of that, Harbaugh tweeted this: “Good to see Director Smith being relevant again after the tattoo fiasco. Welcome back!”

That’s a reference to the NCAA scandal in which some OSU football players had a memorabilia arrangement with the owner of a tattoo parlor, a relationship that led, in part, to former OSU coach Jim Tressel’s resignation.

It wasn’t the first time Harbaugh had taken a shot at Ohio State. Nor taken a shot at another program, nor conference.

Here was his tweet to SEC heavies who were questioning Harbaugh’s Florida trip: “Question of the day: Does anyone find whining to be attractive? Just curious.”

And here was his tweet about Ohio State during last year’s recruiting period, when a Detroit running back, Mike Weber, committed to the Buckeyes over U-M, only to find out that Ohio State’s running backs coach had just accepted a job at another school. “Thought of the day — What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! — Sir Walter Scott.”

Funny how, in the SEC tweet, he uses the phrase “just curious.” He isn’t really curious, he’s trolling.

Whether it’s through phrases like “Question of the day …” or “Thought of the day …”

You have to hand it to Harbaugh — or maybe blame us — for getting in the news cycle whenever he sees fit. His Twitter shot at Smith — along with every Twitter shot he takes — surely plays well to his base.

And if that sounds like the sort of banality you might hear on CNN about an election, well, of course it does. While Harbaugh may be a damn fine football coach, he has proved to be an equal politician.

I’m not so sure that’s a good thing, necessarily. But it is an entertaining thing. It’s also relevant to an integral part of his job: recruiting. While he may come off to some as boorish and thin-skinned, to potential recruits — not to mention to his own team — he looks like a scrapper who understands their tools of communication.

It makes him the first Twitter coach, not unlike John Kennedy was the first television president. Harbaugh understands its reach and power and how it effectively cuts outs the middleman (the media) and turns us into not much more than an echo chamber. It’s a savvy strategy, of course.

So far, it’s working. Just look at Twitter the last couple days and the resulting news stories, of which there will be more now that Smith, the OSU AD, has apologized.

Imagine that?

Here’s betting Harbaugh did.