Jim Harbaugh would 'prefer' Mark Dantonio not talk about the Wolverines

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh sure seems really annoyed that Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio brought up the Wolverines when talking about his team’s bowl placement.

Michigan State is heading to the Holiday Bowl while Michigan is heading to the Outback Bowl. The Outback is ahead of the Holiday in the Big Ten bowl pecking order and, as our Sam Cooper detailed Monday, Michigan State has a right to be scratching its head about the arrangement. The Spartans finished with a better record than Michigan and beat UM head-to-head.

After Dantonio remarked that “The records are what they are. I’ll just continue to concentrate on beating Michigan and let things sort of sort out,” Harbaugh responded with a tweet about Dantonio. Thursday at media availability for the Outback Bowl, Harbaugh had this to say about Dantonio when asked about the tit for tweet.

“I didn’t understand how he dragged us into his frustration about what bowl game he went to,” Harbaugh said. ” I would prefer that he didn’t talk about us.”

You can then see Harbaugh’s, uh, lack of agreement with calling their back and forth about the topic “healthy.”

This is a bizarre hill for Harbaugh to take a stand on. Michigan has a direct association with Michigan State’s placement in the Holiday Bowl. To pretend the Wolverines don’t is foolish. And you can bet Harbaugh would love the chance to do some trolling if he was the coach with the 8-3 record against his rival. Alas, he’s clearly still perturbed by the comment.

Or if he isn’t, he’s doing a heck of a job making something innocuous seem far more significant than it actually is.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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