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SEARCHBITS XXXIII: HONEYMOON OVER! GRAARGH!
Brian •

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IT'S OVER [Bryan Fuller]

OMG HIRE SOMEONE. Noted failure Jim Harbaugh has yet to assemble his staff and has even seen a few dudes stay where they are once their schools belly up with big-ass raises and titles like King Of East Besserabia, and people are starting to notice. The always on point Football Scoop:

Srs. Get this jackwagon out of here so we can go after Joe Moglia, that's what I say.

(Also Bacon immediately said WHOOPS after his Harbaugh Big Game Hunter tweet, because he then read twitter. Protip: always read twitter before twittering.

Roussel is frosty after Bacon twitter-broke the hire to the point where he'll ignore the fact that Durkin was heavily rumored for weeks before Lance Anderson's name ever came up and that speculation about Greg Roman was extremely weak. But whatever. Guy was outstandingly wrong for a solid month.)

HIRE THAT GUY IN FACT. After weeks and weeks of Wheatley-related rumors, there is finally a concrete indicator that it's happening from Angelique:

…word is former Michigan running back Tyrone Wheatley, most recently an assistant with the Bills, is expected in Ann Arbor this week to discuss the opening.

Sam Webb confirmed. Need some sort of Ty Wheatley in a hat taking a sled through Canada gif for this.

Wheatley is of course in limbo after Doug Marrone quit the Bills. Marrone's interviewing with the Jets, and I find it hard to believe that he's not locked in there. You do not walk away from an NFL head coach job without something in your pocket. (This is why you shouldn't get all hyped up about Jim Mora interviewing there and perhaps knocking some recruits to Ann Arbor by leaving.) Would he take Wheatley with him? Would it matter? I don't know, but there's not much uncertainty at Michigan and about as much money these days.

WITHER THAT OTHER GUY. Angelique also has details on what's going down with Fred Jackson: he filed benefit paperwork because his contract is up but hopes to continue coaching. I don't think that'll be at Michigan if he does continue.

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THE OTHER OBVIOUS S&C GUY. People have been talking about Kevin Tolbert, an assistant S&C coach with the 49ers who was with Harbaugh at Stanford and worked under Mike Gittleson at Michigan from 2001 to '07 before that, since Harbaugh started happening, and he's supposed to be in town today as well.

Tolbert's a Navy alum who started at fullback for three years and has evidently impressed Harbaugh enough for him to have him around wherever he goes. Missing on Shannon Turley is a disappointment but he'll probably be fine—Harbaugh don't play around with guys who aren't hypercompetitive. Hopefully he's no longer a High Intensity Training advocate, if only to save us from people on message boards muttering darkly about the stone-age training Michigan is using. I don't think it'll be much of an issue with Tolbert's last eight years in the cutting edge Stanford and 49ers programs.

I'm not entirely sure but the internet seems to think that Tolbert was also this guy back in the day:

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So… okay. There is also a painting by Sandra Gittleson of a Kevin Tolbert-looking guy lifting that anvil.

IF NOT MORTON, THEN THIS GUY? This gentleman is also an old-time Harbaugh associate:

Before taking the SJSU job two years ago, Dougherty had been the WR coach at Washington for four years and QB coach under Harbaugh at USD before that—Harbaugh in fact inherited him. He'd probably just be coming as a position coach if he did end up here, but these days that's a major pay bump. Dougherty made under 200k last year and would probably be looking at a 50% raise even if he was just a plain old WR coach. He's very accessible.

FWIW, San Jose State was miserable this year, but that is nearly always the case. In 2013 the Spartans were 30th in FEI as they nearly scraped a bowl; their QB graduated and that was it for acceptable offense in San Jose.  In his lone year with the passing game coordinator title at Washington the Huskies were 13th in FEI, 38th in S&P passing.

UPDATED GUESSOCHART. As it currently stands:

OFFENSE Coach confidence DEFENSE coach confidence
OC Tim Drevno lock DC DJ Durkin lock
QB Jim Harbaugh lock DL Durkin lock
RB Ty Wheatley probable LB Greg Mattison lock
WR John Morton maybe OLB/DE Roy Manning probable
OL Bill Bendenbaugh none DB Greg Jackson maybe
TE ??? none ST ??? none

OTHERS: Mike Hart (RB), Jimmie Dougherty (WR).

Bendenbaugh is Oklahoma's OL coach; Sam brought him up as a possibility a little bit ago. With Oklahoma in the midst of staff turmoil he may jump over. This configuration currently has four guys on each side of the ball with Harbaugh being Harbaugh and a wildcard for TE/ST or possibly a CB/S secondary split. With Marrow out of the picture there's a spot for some guy to come in and recruit his ass off.

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