Both Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll say the media has completely misrepresented their relationship.
USA TODAY Sports reported that the rival NFC West coaches don't have a volatile relationship; in fact, they don't even have a relationship.
Harbaugh's San Francisco 49ers fly to Seattle to meet Carroll's Seahawks on Sunday in the NFC Championship Game. The two have been longtime rivals, going back to their collegiate coaching days when Carroll coached at USC and Harbaugh coached at Pac-12 rival Stanford.
After a 55-21 Stanford rout of USC in Los Angeles in 2009, Carroll asked Harbaugh, "What's your deal?" when the coaches met for the postgame handshake. Harbaugh then asked Carroll, "What's your deal?"
But the two coaches deny any lingering animosity from their rivalry.
"Animosity? No," Harbaugh said, as reported by USA TODAY Sports. "That's erroneous. Erroneous. It's football. It's competition. It's winning."
Asked whether he gets along with Carroll, Harbaugh said, "We've had football. Competition. Winning. That's sports. That's what we've had. Great competition."
The report said Carroll also was asked "What's the deal" with their relationship?
"What's the deal, huh?" Carroll said. "We have not been friends over the years. We don't know each other very well. It's a very, very confined relationship in that regard.
"For whatever reason, you guys have had a field day with thinking that it's something other than it is. I have great respect for what Jim's done. I think he's a tremendous football coach. So that's it. That's where it stops and starts. All the rest of this stuff, you guys have had a blast with it. But there's nothing there, you know?"
Yogi Roth, an analyst with the Pac-12 Networks who played college football with Carroll's son at Pittsburgh, coached under Carroll at USC and wrote a book about Carroll, suggests that the two coaches need each other to fuel the rivalry and bring out their competitive natures - which is a key ingredient in the football teams both men run.
"The angle to me is, here are two of the most competitive guys in all of football, and we think they hate each other. But competitors love what the other guy brings out of them," Roth told USA TODAY Sports. "I think these guys thrive on the stuff that is said about them, because they want the biggest matchup, the biggest game and the biggest moment. It's like in basketball, you want to take the last shot. Both of these guys, in a pickup basketball game, would want to take the last shot."
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