It's got to be a great week for Jim Harbaugh. A few days ago, his Stanford Cardinal seemed to be on the verge of being another grand snub for a premier Pac-10 football team. They were at sixth in the BCS rankings and possibly not getting an invitation as an at-large bowl game, because the TCU Horned Frogs and Boise St. Broncos were perched ahead of them at third and fourth and hogging two of the at-large bids. The LSU Tigers also stood above them at fifth, and seemed the team best poised to replace TCU or Boise if either of them fell. The Alamo Bowl sounded like a pretty miserable destination for a team that had beaten everyone on their plate except the top-ranked Oregon Ducks.
Before their final game against the Oregon St. Beavers, the attitude must have changed considerably. With Boise State falling to Nevada and LSU losing at Arkansas, the Cardinal only had to win on Saturday to punch their ticket to January and they were probably going to be one of the top four teams in that week's BCS rankings (turns out they were), maximizing their chances that they'd be an automatic qualifier for the Bowl Championship Series.
So Harbaugh seemed unusually fired up before Stanford's 38-0 romp of the Beavers. Fullback/linebacker Owen Marecic and reserve receiver Sam Knapp were the objects of Harbaugh's enthusiasm unknown to mankind.
Jim Harbaugh Fired Up (via RuleofTree)
Michigan fans have to be salivating at that clip, don't they?
Rule of Tree also was happy to break it down frame-by-frame . Check them out for a fun analysis of what's going on in this video.