As Michigan football’s spring game approaches, head coach Jim Harbaugh is creating a bit more news than who might win the Wolverines’ quarterback competition between Cade McNamara and J.J. McCarthy.
Harbaugh invited his former quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers, Colin Kaepernick, to Michigan spring practice and named him the honorary captain for Saturday’s spring game. Additionally, Kaepernick spoke to the team after practice Wednesday and several pictures of him at the Wolverines’ facility were posted to Twitter.
On Detroit’s 97.1 The Ticket, new Michigan football play-by-play announcer Doug Karsch, who also hosts the midday show with Scott Anderson, revealed how he discovered the news of Kaepernick not only being at the practice facility but his role in Saturday’s spring game.
“I am preparing for the Michigan football spring game this week, been at Schembechler Hall all week, and I’m sitting in an office talking to [wide receivers coach] Ron Bellamy last night,” Karsch explained. “Down the hall, there’s some commotion… then here comes Coach Harbaugh, you can hear him, and I had my back to the door when somebody walks in the room, like right next to me, and gives the bro-hug to Ron Bellamy.
“I look up right next to me and I say, ‘Sup, Colin.’ I’m like, I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Sorry. It’s Colin Kaepernick. I was so shocked, like completely shocked, because it was so random. Suddenly, I’m in a small room and there’s Colin Kaepernick. He’s tall.”
As Anderson noted, the news was already out by the time Karsch & Anderson took the air on 97.1 The Ticket. But Karsch reported, along with several outlets later, that Kaepernick would also hold a throwing session at Michigan Stadium during halftime with several NFL free agent receivers. Which receivers will appear hasn’t been revealed.
“You gotta figure there will be some NFL scouts there,” said Karsch. “Most of the scouts are preparing for the draft, but there will be NFL people there. It completely caught me off guard, though. Did not expect it at all.”
Harbaugh coached Kaepernick for four seasons in San Francisco, compiling a 44-19 regular-season record and an NFC championship in his second season. (The 49ers eventually lost to the Baltimore Ravens, 34-31, in Super Bowl XLVII.) Kaepernick’s best two NFL seasons occurred with Harbaugh in 2013 and 2014, throwing for a combined 6,566 yards with 40 touchdown passes.