What They're Saying About Michigan Football, Jim Harbaugh's Future
With the last two games being canceled due to a COVID outbreak within the Michigan football program, all eyes have turned to head coach Jim Harbaugh and his future with the Wolverines. He has one year remaining on his contract, and he and athletic director Warde Manuel said last week the two will sit down after the season to discuss where to go next, with a rough 2-4 season so far and department deficits due to the pandemic surely being factors that will weigh in.
With signing day looming on Wednesday, Dec. 19, it's important something happens, and soon. The media not only around Ann Arbor but nationally has taken notice of the fascinating situation.
Here is a look around the internet at what they're saying about Harbaugh and the Wolverines:
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Chris Balas, The Wolverine: Michigan Football News & Views: What’s Next For U-M?
NEWS: Harbaugh and director of athletics Warde Manuel refused to elaborate on Harbaugh’s contract extension Tuesday.
VIEWS: And while Harbaugh continues to say all the right things about being back next year — and as we’ve maintained — the longer this goes, the perception he won’t return increases.
"There is one more game currently scheduled. That's when the conversation at the end of the season will begin," Manuel said. "Just to clarify, Jim and I have always talked at the end of the season. Always. It's not like we're making this up this year. Sometimes we talk in November just to get a sense ... but we've had lot of conversation in between. It's not like we don't talk.”
So, we’re supposed to believe they talk about everything except the second-most important item on the agenda after keeping the players and coaches safe?
Come on.
Manuel says the right things about Harbaugh publicly, calling him a “leader” and “phenomenal in his efforts with his team [and] COVID."
“He has led that, been there, committed to the team, the department, the university. From my standpoint, he has been doing everything at a high level, including his efforts with the team,” Manuel added.
The latter, for certain, is debatable, especially this year. It’s been a disaster on the field, and there’s no denying it.
But people are asking questions, and ‘take my word for it’ is a tough one on the recruiting trail.
A decision needs to be made and announced sooner than later, but Manuel is in a tough spot. If they cut Harbaugh and his staff loose, they have to pay $10 million-plus in buyouts. If Harbaugh doesn’t accept but stays, they’re on the hook for his $8 million-ish salary and have, essentially, a lame duck coach for a year.
The ball truly appears to be in Harbaugh’s court about whether or not to accept an extension for much less money.
Any coach can suffer a disappointing season, even Harbaugh, the prodigal son. But given the high character I’ve witnessed in both men, I’m stunned they will now force their recruits to decide on Michigan before Michigan decides who’s going to coach them -- – especially after cancelling Michigan’s last two games due to COVID, which should free up time to settle this one way or the other much sooner.
Michigan’s coaches often tell recruits, “These four years will determine your next forty.” So how can they expect recruits to decide on their all-important next four years without knowing who their coach will be?
Making matters worse, Michigan President Mark Schissel is of little help. Michigan’s faculty this Fall narrowly passed a vote of no-confidence in Schlissel. Some deans now quietly ignore him. By all accounts he’s eager to leave, and Michigan is just as eager to let him – but that’s another decision both sides are delaying, with the students caught in the middle. Warde Manuel is not likely to receive valuable guidance from this president, who never expressed much interest in athletics even before he had bigger problems of his own.
The best argument against delaying Harbaugh’s decision comes from Warde Manuel himself, when he told me two years ago, “If we say we really care about the athletes, we’ve got to care about everything. We can’t pick and choose— we care about this, but not that—or wait until the timing’s most beneficial to us.”
But that’s exactly what Michigan is doing now.
And that is not the Michigan I know.
Two weeks ago, Urban Meyer, who was 7-0 against Michigan before retiring following the 2018 season, said “it’s time to blow it up” at Michigan. “I think it’s time to really evaluate the culture and dig deep. There’s something going on.”
Meyer revisited those comments during Saturday’s show as the group of Fox analysts discussed Harbaugh’s future. He entered this season as the only Power Five coach with fewer than two years left on his deal.
“Is Jim Harbaugh a good coach? He’s a heck of a coach,” Meyer said Saturday. “He’s won 70 percent of his games in the NFL. I made a comment, ‘You blow it up.’ I didn’t say change coaches. Blow it up. Evaluate your recruiting strategies, evaluate your player development and get that right. Do not lower your standards. I’m telling you, don’t do that, because that’s a tremendous history in that organization, in that university. Get it right.”
Reporter Bruce Feldman opened the segment discussing Harbaugh’s future and discussed “preliminary contract talks” for an extension between Harbaugh and athletic director Manuel that would feature a lower base salary with big incentives.
“To put this bluntly, people close to Jim Harbaugh have told me they wonder if Jim Harbaugh’s ego would allow him to accept this deal going forward,” Feldman said. “The question is, what are his other coaching options? Right now, is his NFL stock that high? It wasn’t a few years ago, and it’s only seemed to have gone down a little more. So what Jim Harbaugh is gonna do going forward is a big question hanging over Ann Arbor right now.”
A pay cut was referenced at the end of the show and Meyer was heard saying, ‘Oooo, oooo,” suggesting that would be a blow to a head coach. But with the Michigan athletic department facing what Manuel has estimated to be an $80 million hit because of the pandemic, offering a lower salary always seemed logical.
Nick Baumgardner, The Athletic: Jim Harbaugh contract resolution nears with Michigan-OSU now off
Meanwhile, though, Manuel also has a long-term issue — Jim Harbaugh’s contract situation — to finalize. Sources confirmed to The Athletic that Manuel and Harbaugh have discussed within the last week a new contract for Michigan’s head football coach, who is at the end of Year 6 of his original seven-year contract. The proposal was for less money (with a lower buyout figure) than the original deal Harbaugh signed in December 2014. The new deal would also include performance incentives.
Sources said Michigan would prefer to have resolution by Dec. 16, national signing day. At this point, the ball is in Harbaugh’s court. He can agree to Michigan’s proposal, counter it or decline and move on.
One lingering question is whether the new deal/extension will include the money Michigan is scheduled to pay Harbaugh through 2021. Harbaugh’s current operating contract, which includes deferred compensation agreed to via an addendum in 2016, calls for Michigan to pay him approximately $8 million next year. The exact base salary in Michigan’s new proposal to Harbaugh is unclear, but sources confirm it’s less than $8 million.
Michigan athletics, keep in mind, is anticipating a pandemic-induced budget shortfall of more than $25 million for the upcoming fiscal year. A lower salary and buyout would, in theory, make it more cost-effective for Michigan to move on from Harbaugh earlier in this next deal if on-field results continue to regress. That regression started before this season but has certainly been escalated during a challenging 2-4 campaign. Same time, Harbaugh is under contract for next year and could demand any extension include that money for the 2021 season.
Theoretically, Harbaugh could offer to coach next season without an extension, a longshot that’s virtually unprecedented for a major program. Among other possible hangups: Manuel likely will require Harbaugh to make significant changes to his staff, and he should. It needs to be shaken up, especially on defense with coordinator Don Brown, but that can’t be an easy conversation between Manuel and Harbaugh. It also could be a conversation that’s already occurred.
“Just to clarify, Jim and I have always talked at the end of the season, always,” Manuel said. “Sometimes we’ll talk in November and just in general, to get a sense, and we’ve had a lot of conversations in between. … I don’t want to make anybody think that Jim and I have just been sitting around just waiting and not talking to each other about things.”
Manuel went on to praise Harbaugh for “phenomenal” leadership through the season’s travails. Harbaugh praised his players for maintaining the protocols, right up until the virus delivered yet another humbling defeat.
So to recap the possible scenarios:
►Harbaugh signs a modest, incentive-based extension with a lower salary and staff adjustments, and bets on himself to turn this around.
►Or, Harbaugh doesn’t like the offer and says he’ll just finish out his final season.
►Or, Manuel declines to let him reach “lame-duck” status and parts ways, and starts looking for a new coach.
►Or, Harbaugh gets an enticing NFL nibble and opts to return to the league where he had his most success.
Harbaugh does have a tendency to burn out, or burn others out. But he’s always up for a good fight, whether against perceived cheaters, or restrictive player-movement rules, or Twitter tiffs with SEC coaches. Right or wrong, obsessively or honestly, he sees enemies around every corner.
To continue that fight at Michigan, he needs to be fully, emotionally invested, and Michigan needs to be invested in him. I think both sides are trying to reach that spot, but if they can’t agree soon, it should be over.
Let’s start with Jim Harbaugh’s future. There are reports out there that Michigan has put a contract proposal in front of him (2021 is the last year of the deal he signed to go back to his alma mater in 2015), and that would put the decision at his feet. I can say with confidence that his options at the NFL level have been explored. That means, one way or the other, the likelihood is he will either renew his vows or go back to the pros, rather than coach in a contract year.
Now, why would he be attractive to NFL teams? To me, that’s obvious—very few coaches have the track record of consistent turnarounds that he does. You can check the scoreboard on it.
• The University of San Diego had three winning seasons in the nine years before Harbaugh’s 2004 arrival. He started 2–4 in ’04. From there, Harbaugh went 27–2 with back-to-back 11–1 seasons.
• Stanford had endured five straight losing seasons and was coming off a 1–11 year when it hired Harbaugh in 2007. That first year, the Cardinal went a respectable 3–6 in Pac-10 play with an upset of second-ranked USC. By Year 3, they were 8–5. In Year 4, they went 12–1 and won the Orange Bowl.
• The Niners didn’t crack .500 from 2003 to 10, with a single 8–8 year as a high-water mark. Harbaugh took them to 13-3 and the NFC title game in his first year, 2011, and to the Super Bowl after the 2012 season. Even when things crumbled in Year 4, his team managed to go 8–8.
• Michigan was coming off one of the darkest (maybe the darkest) seven-year runs in program history, posting three losing records between 2008 and ’14. Harbaugh went 10–3 in each of his first two years, ’15 and ’16, got to 10 wins again in ’18, and only now is staring at the prospect of landing under .500, in Year 6.
So if an NFL team were to land Harbaugh, what would they be signing up for? It’s all right there. He’s Bill Parcells. He’ll come in, shake things up and offer an immediate return on your investment. Yes, maybe four years down the line, he’ll have worn people out and started to eye the door. But there are lots of teams that would sign up for a couple of 11- or 12-win seasons, understanding that things might get awkward down the line.
Bottom line, if you’re a team with a win-now roster looking for a coach, there’s a lot of merit to the idea of pursuing Harbaugh.
As for your second question, Danny, I think it’s close to 100% certain that Trevor Lawrence will enter the NFL draft. My understanding is that a lot of details have been worked out (i.e. he knows which agent, marketing team, etc. he’ll sign with) already, which is common for high-end guys—which means at least you don’t have to worry about him pulling a Peyton Manning on the Jets.
Would he pull an Eli Manning on them? I can’t say for sure. While I don’t know Lawrence personally, I have heard from people who do that forcing a trade wouldn’t really be in his nature. Thing is, I don’t know that it really was in Eli’s nature, either. But it was, in Eli’s mind, an important enough thing to step out of character for in 2004. We’ll see soon enough, if the Jets keep losing, whether Lawrence will see this one that way.
Aaron McMann, MLive: Contracts for six of Jim Harbaugh’s assistants expire next month
MLive recently obtained contracts for all 10 of Michigan’s assistants and found six of them are set to expire next month, Jan. 11, throwing a monkey wrench into the idea of Harbaugh returning with just one year left on his deal.
Those assistants are:
— Ed Warinner, offensive line coach;
— Jay Harbaugh, running backs coach and Michigan’s special teams coordinator
— Sherrone Moore, tight ends coach;
— Mike Zordich, cornerbacks coach;
— Ben McDaniels, quarterbacks coach;
— Shaun Nua, defensive line coach
Meanwhile, four coaches, including Michigan’s two highest-paid assistants, are under contract through Jan. 10, 2022: Defensive coordinator Don Brown (with a $1.7M salary in 2022); offensive coordinator Josh Gattis ($900K); safeties coach Bob Shoop ($450K) and linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary ($415K). Shoop has been working remotely and not been in the presence of the team for months for undisclosed reasons, reports say.
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