INDIANAPOLIS — As Michigan wrapped up its postgame celebration on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium after winning the Big Ten championship game against Iowa on Saturday night, Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt presented Jim Harbaugh with an opportunity to use his favorite catchphrase.

“You just won your third straight outright Big Ten championship,” Klatt said. “That’s never been done before by any coach. How does that make you feel?”

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Fans cheered and Harbaugh smiled.

“It makes me feel super great, and there’s no coach who could have it better than to have these coaches and these players and this staff,” Harbaugh said as he turned to the players and coaches who were on stage with him.

Then Harbaugh turned back to Klatt’s microphone.

“I got one question for you, Michigan Nation,” Harbaugh said. “Who’s got it better than us?”

“Noo-body!” his players, coaches and fans in the stands yelled.

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Harbaugh has said that plenty of times during his tenure at Michigan. But it was the first time I saw it live in action since his father, Jack, used it during a Wednesday news conference in New Orleans before the Super Bowl XLVII. I covered that Super Bowl for the Chicago Sun-Times.

“Jackie, who has it better than us?” Jack said loudly with his wife in a crowded hotel ballroom.

“Noo-body!” the Harbaughs shouted together.

Jack and Jackie then got the media to join in. It was different. I was in the back of the room. But that’s the Harbaughs.

That year was the Harbaugh Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens. Jim lost to brother John and the Ravens. It turned out to be the pinnacle of Jim’s NFL coaching career. The 49ers reached the NFC Championship Game the following season but lost to the Seattle Seahawks, the eventual Super Bowl champions. San Francisco went 8-8 in 2014 and Harbaugh was done.

As the story goes, the 49ers forced Harbaugh out. He left with a 44-19-1 record in the regular season and 5-3 in the postseason. There was friction between him and ownership and then-general manager Trent Baalke. It took the 49ers two years to recover from that decision as Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly each got one year before the team hired Kyle Shanahan in 2017.

The Chicago Bears are on their third head coach since Harbaugh left the 49ers, too.

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If team president/CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles decide that a change is needed after two years with Matt Eberflus, the Bears’ coaching candidates list should start and end with Harbaugh. Sometimes the best decisions made by NFL teams are those most obvious to everybody. That would include hiring Bruce Arians, the reigning coach of the year, not Marc Trestman in 2013. And it would include drafting Deshaun Watson, the decorated national champion from Clemson, not Mitch Trubisky in 2017.

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It’s not guaranteed that the Bears are moving on Eberflus. His first season was a teardown with Poles. Eberflus’ second is the first of the rebuild, and there are signs that progress is being made, specifically on defense under his leadership and with his play calling. Eberflus still has the locker room. Players will tell you that. Warren and Poles also celebrated the Bears’ last victory against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium with Eberflus.

Poles is playing the long game with Eberflus, and Warren knows that. But if Poles and Warren see Harbaugh as a potential upgrade — and if Harbaugh is seriously interested in leaving Michigan after this season — then it would be malpractice not to consider him.

Coaching is a brutal business, but that’s how professional sports work. In Chicago, there are always two moves worth mentioning — and many already have. The Cubs fired Rick Renteria for Joe Maddon and the Blackhawks removed Denis Savard for Joel Quenneville.

How’d those moves work out for those franchises? Harbaugh would be the home-run hire if the Bears want to step to the plate and take that swing.

Harbaugh last coached in the NFL nearly a decade ago, and there are questions about whether Warren and Harbaugh can co-exist after their tumultuous time together in the Big Ten. But those concerns won’t prevent Harbaugh from being linked to the Bears, who drafted him in the first round in 1987.

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In November, Mike Jones, a national writer for The Athletic, reported that two teams would interest Harbaugh: the Bears and the Las Vegas Raiders. Harbaugh has three years remaining on his contract with Michigan. But the Raiders were said to be an option for Harbaugh when his time was ending with the 49ers years ago. And Las Vegas already cleaned house, firing coach Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler.

With Harbaugh, there always seems to be something. Michigan’s sign-stealing controversy is the latest example. But the same is true for many successful coaches. They’re entrenched because they win. Good and bad things happen during their long tenures.

When the Bears hired John Fox in 2015, it was a break from the past. They didn’t hire a coordinator on the rise but an experienced head coach. It didn’t work out. But Harbaugh would be a different break from the past because of how commanding his personality and charisma can be. He might do some things that would anger the McCaskey family, but so what? They should be angry that the Bears have made the playoffs only six times since 2000 and have had five head coaches since 2012.

For better and worse, Harbaugh is a storyline all by himself. But that type of presence might be needed in Chicago not only to work but to flourish and endure for years. The city’s best coaches regardless of sport have been that.

Harbaugh won at Stanford and in San Francisco before rebuilding Michigan into a national powerhouse over nine years. They’ve won three Big Ten championships in a row. He knows how to coach and he knows good coaching. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio followed him from Stanford to San Francisco. Greg Roman was his offensive coordinator. Michigan also went 3-0 without Harbaugh this year because of his suspension.

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When you hear Harbaugh speak, he sounds perfect for the college. He has a bunch of sayings that his players repeat. But it was apparent during Michigan’s near-30 minute news conference after the Big Ten title game that players love playing for Harbaugh, too. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy, running back Blake Corum and nickelback Mike Sainristil literally told Harbaugh that as they sat by his side.

“Coach says he can’t have it any better — he has it better than nobody when it comes to players,” Sainsristil said Saturday night. “And as a player, I don’t think I could have it any better than a coach like Coach Harbaugh who loves us as his sons.

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“When you have a coach who loves you in that way, you’re able to … then love your coach as well as love your (teammates). We’re direct reflections of how Coach Harbaugh treats us.”

Can that love carry over back to the harsh world of the NFL? It’s something that the Bears have to ask themselves if they’re jumping back into the NFL’s ever-spinning hiring cycle for the fifth time in 12 years.

(Top photo: Jeffrey Brown / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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