Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll could never escape one another.
From several player-coach battles throughout the ‘90s, followed by 3 years duking it out in the Pac-10 with a handshake heard ‘round the world, before hitting a crescendo throughout their 4 years together in the NFC West, these two men were obsessed with not just beating each other, but embarrassing each other.
Their first head-to-head battle as coaches was a Pac-10 battle that resulted in one of the greatest upsets in the history of college football. And when Harbaugh tried to run up the score on Carroll a few years later, a beef that wasn’t particularly juicy at that point would get cranked to the max
Carroll jumped to the NFL in 2010, joining the Seahawks — Harbaugh made the NFL move in 2011, joining Carroll in the NFC West with the 49ers. And the beef? Well, the beef followed. The beef always follows.