How Jim Harbaugh and Urban Meyer Can Save the Big Ten

There is no sound in one hand clapping. There is no interest or respect in a fight with one guy doing all the punching and the other guy doing all the covering up or lying down.        

To get noticed and stand out these days, with all the noise of TV networks, websites and social media outlets, you have to be seen, felt, heard. You have to make more noise than everyone else.

So at this point—to dream for a few minutes—imagine all the things Jim Harbaugh would bring to the Big Ten. All the noise. All the driving opposing coaches crazy and starting fights during postgame handshakes. It would take him about 15 minutes, tops, to start instigating things with Ohio State and Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer.

For that reason alone, the Big Ten might want to pitch in to help Michigan land Harbaugh. It would give the conference two marquee coaches at its two marquee football programs. Coaches and characters drive media interest, which drives dollars.

Harbaugh and Meyer playing off each other would save the Big Ten.

At this point, the conference can't even produce one national game. That would change immediately. These guys would make the noise that will get the Big Ten noticed again. (And if Meyer wouldn't join in, Harbaugh would make enough noise for both of them.)

Think about this: The biggest Big Ten-related story of the year might be the rivalry between Meyer and Alabama coach Nick Saban, about to be consummated in the College Football Playoff. By now, Saban has plenty of rivals. Meyer? He doesn't have one in his own conference.

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Saban and Meyer haven't actually faced each other in four years, since Meyer coached in the SEC. How pathetic is it for the once-mighty Big Ten that its best rivalry right now is a memory of a rivalry that existed four years ago in a different conference?

It's as if the Big Ten doesn't even exist.

Harbaugh would fix Michigan on the field, as he has done everywhere he's been. But also as Michigan's coach, Harbaugh would start out by picking away at Meyer. He has done this before. He points out the top dog, turns him into a bull's-eye and then starts firing away out of hatred. He does it as part of a strategy.

He also does it because he can't help himself.

He did it when he got to Stanford, going right for then-USC coach Pete Carroll. He told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports (via the Los Angeles Times) that he had heard Carroll had just one year left at USC. Eventually, he finally managed to get to Carroll, the laid-back coach who might take in a quick surf before a press conference and show up in flip-flops. The infamous "What's your deal?" moment after Stanford ran up the score on USC was a bit out of character:

What I can't predict is how Meyer would act if Harbaugh gave him a hard, extended handshake after a game that Michigan won. You'd think he could stay cool, but he doesn't like being upstaged. Still, you can't see him running down Harbaugh the way former Detroit Lions head coach Jim Schwartz did.

But imagine it!

Honestly, I still doubt Harbaugh will go to Michigan. But it's obvious that San Francisco wants to dump him as fast as possible. I've already written that I suspect Harbaugh is using his reported, via NFL Media insider Ian Rapoport, $8 million-a-year offer from Michigan as leverage to get more money for an NFL job.

But ESPN's Adam Schefter is reporting that Harbaugh is considering it and that his family is trying to talk him into it.

So it's possible. And this isn't all about a fun spectacle. A Harbaugh-Meyer rivalry would have very real benefits to the Big Ten. The conference could have been left out of the playoff entirely this season because while Ohio State was beating up the Big Ten, no one was fighting back. The rest of the league (not counting Michigan State) is basically Ohio State's tackling dummy. The selection committee needs to see more.

Harbaugh would bring instant credibility. And since the committee is going on the eye test and its own subjective measures, that would matter.

There is something missing from Harbaugh's social graces. It's as if he doesn't have a filter. He takes the anger of a football game and brings it out into the real world, as if he can't tell the difference. Coaches are overly polite publicly, out of some sort of code. In Big Ten country, that makes all the teams blend together.

The general public can't even name more than two Big Ten coaches. It takes more than good play. It takes a sales pitch.

Harbaugh's noise would matter. 

Greg Couch covers college football for Bleacher Report. He also writes for The New York Times and was formerly a scribe for FoxSports.com and The Chicago Sun-Times. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.