Michigan’s Harbaugh, Ohio State’s Day clash on Big Ten coaches’ call

College football is back, in all its petty glory.

During a Big Ten coaches’ call Monday, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh reportedly interrupted Ohio State’s Ryan Day and accused him of breaking the rules. At issue was a photo Harbaugh saw that purportedly showed Buckeyes assistant coach Al Washington on the field with his players.

That’s a no-no right now — NCAA rules don’t allow for onfield coaching until Friday. Day’s response?

“How about I worry about my team and you worry about yours?” he told Harbaugh, according to Bucknuts.com.

But that wasn’t all. In a meeting with his team later that day, Day told his players that Harbaugh better hope for a mercy rule this season because his team was going to “hang 100 on them.”

Though is that really a threat? Or any different from what’s unfolded the past couple of seasons?

Boy, did we need this, if only for a moment, to remember what college football is truly about.

Now, before you — and by you, I mean every Michigan hater — accuse Harbaugh of being petty, remember the NCAA spends all its time devising rules for a reason, mostly to ensure everyone makes money but the players.

Yet ... rules are rules.

And, Harbaugh had every right to scoff at the photo of OSU assistants allegedly trying to break them, as if they needed the extra practice to beat Michigan anyway. The issue for Harbaugh is he chose to accuse Day directly, which is to say publicly, because no conference call among coaches exists in a cone of secrecy.