BEFORE YOU READ:
- Column: Like it or not, this is Jim Harbaugh
Jim Harbaugh will return to Michigan for his eighth season and vowed to stay for good after spending weeks flirting with a return to the NFL.
After a wild month for Harbaugh that started with a College Football Playoff semifinal loss to Georgia and ended with him in a Minnesota hotel room, the speculation surrounding his next move finally came to a close on Wednesday night.
The 58-year-old head coach talked with Mitch Albom of the Freep in a piece released on Friday morning.
Harbaugh spilled it all.
“There was a pull to the NFL because I got that close to the Super Bowl,” Harbaugh told Aldom, “but this was the time (to try and return.) And this is the last time. Now let’s go chase college football’s greatest prize.”
Following a month-long exploration of his options for 2022, Harbaugh, snowed in at a hotel in Minnesota following an interview with Vikings, called athletic director Warde Manuel to inform him of his plan to stay in Ann Arbor.
“I called Warde and I asked him if he wanted me to be the head coach. And he said, ‘Yes, 100 percent.’ And I said, OK then. That’s what I want to do.'
“And I told him, ‘Warde, this will not be a reoccurring theme every year. This was a one-time thing.”
After initial speculation surrounded the Raiders and Dolphins' connections with Harbaugh, Minnesota was the wild card to nearly pull him away.
The program's head coach since 2015 promised the rest of his career to Michigan following an interview with the Vikings that didn't go as peachy as anticipated.
“There was a tugging at me that I was once that close to a Super Bowl and I didn’t get it. Some NFL jobs came open. I was contacted by the (Minnesota) Vikings," he told Albom. "For better or for worse, it was something I wanted to explore. I went in thinking, ‘I’m gonna have 100 percent conviction on this, and if they (Minnesota) have 100 percent conviction on this, then it’s something I’m gonna do.”
Albom went on to explain that the two sides didn't see eye-to-eye and following the interview, he called Manuel knowing there wasn't an offer from the Vikings or a commitment from him. It was over. He was returning to Michigan.
“In a nutshell, I love Michigan,” he explained in a phone call to me Thursday evening. “I love every player. I love every family.”
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