Extension - The more likely scenario

This is the most likely option.

Extension for what? Occasionally beating psu and Wisconsin and getting destroyed by OSU? If Harbaugh is extended count me out of watching the season. The end of the year is as close of a guarantee as possible. 
 

2020 team sucks. 2019 had Notre dame and then proceeded to lose to all the best teams it played. 2018 meh can’t finish. 2017 Hoke season. 2016 couldn’t finish. 2015 decent first year. 
 

By all means give Harbaugh more money...

I have known Warde for several years. We worked together at UConn and have stayed in touch ever since.  There is zero chance he would fire Jim.  He won't even discuss assistant coaches or make suggestions about changes.  Jim will get an extension (3-5 years) if he wants to stay.

There is more than zero chance that Jim actually decides to retire or to take some time off after next year.  This and last year have taken a toll on him.

I am in the Harbaugh leaves on his own camp and moves back to the NFL in 2021. Given the near total collapse of this year's team, less two more games, there are too many problems that can't be fixed in time for next year's team to take the field.

Can we offer him an extension that reflects his current performance? Like 3 years, $6 million. If he asks why the lowball offer, then Warde can just ask him what his record was this year. Might as well try to save some money if this is the route that they take.  

If they extend Harbaugh, he’s going to run the program into the ground. It will get really bad here. 

Harbaugh could get extended...no doubt. But the details are difficult. Harbaugh is the 3rd- or 4th-highest paid head coach in college football. There are multiple lists, which don’t always agree, but he is certainly VERY high on any list you look at. Even before this season, it was hard to argue he had truly earned that.

In a year that the Michigan Athletic Department furloughed 21 employees to save money, how much can you really justify paying him? Can you really renew him at the same, or similar, pay? If not, how much of a cut would Harbaugh accept?

Then there is the question of how long? At the start of this season, Harbaugh had 2 years remaining, the least of any coach in the Power Five. Most coaches had 4 or more years remaining, which makes sense, because that is the time horizon of the kids you are trying to recruit. This seems to suggest that anything less than a 4-year extension simply does not make sense.

But what makes extensions have teeth is the buyout. Besides having one of the highest contracts, Harbaugh had one of the steepest buyouts in college football. Would you be comfortable guaranteeing another four+ years, with a cost of tens of millions if Michigan later wants to terminate?

We don’t know why Harbaugh did not sign an extension earlier this year, but I suspect the sides were far apart on some of the issues noted above. Almost nobody coaches in the second-to-last year of a contract. Something must be going on, besides “we had other fish to fry.”

I know it doesn’t make a difference, but if they do I will be done with Michigan football. I will find another team to follow. 

I came for the first logical, unemotional post in a while.  This is exactly what will happen.

IMO, there have been 3 blessings in 2020.

1. more time with family
2. The Mandalorian season 2
3. COVID enhancing and shining a light on the cracks JH created in this program over the last 3 years.

COVID should not be used to excuse the failure of the 2020 team. It should be used, rather, as an accelerant to viewing the problems of this program. An additional stress under which healthy program can sustain but some programs crumble. We know the 2017 class and subsequent attrition (including coaches like Shoop) would cause problems by now but w/o C19, Nico, Ambry maybe even Dylan McCaffery and the non-conf cupcakes would have ducktaped this team to a likely 7-5 season. W/o C19, we'd have fooled ourselves into saying, "this team is young, new starters, etc, etc leading into 2021 that would have had huge expectations on an offense with 3rd year OC, returning starters everywhere by FB and TE. The reality is that WE ARE SEEING THE 2021 team *NOW*. And it is NOT great, Bob. Anyone expecting a B10 title in '21? Anyone expecting this defense and this coaching staff to produce a league average defense next year? 

Is it fair to judge 2021's team a year early? Probably not. But it showed that the floor is waaay lower than what we could have thought otherwise under JH. And if the 1st 5 years of JH showed us, he's going to make a team produce at their absolute floor each year.

2020 is a hurricane hitting the bridge that is M football. It crumbled, luckily with no one on it since they evacuated. Without the hurricane, the bridge would have collapsed or slowly crumbled eventually but with people on it perhaps. 

For me, the biggest question is whether there are actual health issues or not... there's been a lot of speculation made by posters on this. Some posters seem reliable, while others not so much.

If there are issues, Jim should step down. For his health and the health of the program.

If not, i think that Warde extends him 2 more years, but with a much reduced buyout and guarantee structure...they won't want the disaster that is Franklin's contract... i think that this would be contingent on moving on from some of the coaching staff, a la Kelly at ND

My preference is to move on...

Honestly people cited the loss of Mayfield, Paye, Hutchinson, McGone as reasons for the poor year, which is fine... but those will be realities next year...do you have any confidence that this staff is going to be able to correct things with this roster?

All I know is that Harbaugh should send Shiela Ford Hamp a thank you card because the Patricia/Quinn firings have taken the local sports spotlight and have allowed the media to quietly sweep the PSU loss and questions about Harbaugh’s future under the rug for now. 

Most of the responses to this thread are confusing it with the dozens of other "Harbaugh must be fired" gripe threads over the last few weeks. Also confusing it with the countless hijacked threads taken over by "Harbaugh must be fired" gripes. 

Plus the conjecture on this thread that he will leave or will be fired is backed up by exactly nothing more than wishful thinking.

If the evidence of still reasonably strong recruiting, the past statements of the AD, zero actual evidence Harbaugh no longer wants to be here, his competitiveness, his deep love for Michigan, the youth of the roster, and Covid are all combined, it's pretty obvious the OP is laying out a compelling case for what might happen. 

He "appears" to not have fire or has medical issues is weak evidence. And whether or not he's lost the team assumes he can't change and reclaim the team. If it's even reality that he's lost the team. 

And we know Brian Kelly did reclaim the team through fundamental approach changes after an implosion year. As one example. 

It's reality the roster has been mismanaged. That the recruiting and player retention needs be more focused. The schemes appear rudderless.  The team isn't playing winning football. And they act lifeless. And we're all pissed and want blood.

But don't kid yourself into thinking those facts carry any weight versus the evidence we already know. 

In all these threads, we rarely see any credible evidence he wants to leave. Even less that the PTB want him gone.  

So all were doing over and over is debating whether he should be gone. I think it's fair to say he should be and wouldn't disagree with a firing. But we don't matter. 

It has nothing to do with "one bad season", even though I do not agree with that at face value. 2019 (9-4), 2017 (8-5) were pretty below par efforts.

It's about the trajectory. It is the fact that after Hoke's recruits have cleared out and Harbaugh got all of his guys into his program, the team looks worse and worse. He's a supposed QB guru who has got by with transfers and not developing his own guy. Once he FINALLY got his own guy into the mix (Milton), the dude looks absolutely lost. 

It is about the fact that he looks tired. He looks lost. He says the same boring crap at the pressers over and over again about how they are close and they have to keep working.

COVID has changed nothing, sorry. Every team is dealing with it. It does not explain why Michigan lost to a terrible MSU team, took 3 OTs to beat a team they beat 78 points a few years ago, why Wisconsin could have scored 80, or why Indiana beat Michigan for the first time in forever.

It's over. As soon as the administration can accept it, they can try their hand with someone new.

If he wants it, he'll get an extension because of LSU this year. He can easily point to last year's national champion having a down year. That coupled with the enormous deficit in the AD will mean that everyone punts.

"one bad season'--at best we've been Iowa.  I don't want to be Iowa.

Here’s what changed since Spring 2020. 
 

The fans are angry and embarrassed. If we could attend games in person, we wouldn’t. If we could come to reunions from far away with our family to watch games, we wouldn’t. If we could walk around AA and buy merch from Mden, we would buy a lot less... that’s what has changed. 
 

Bow, if Harbaugh signed a big contract extension in March, we all still be pissed, but would think that firing Don Brown and getting a few better recruiters on staff would be good enough, but that didn’t happen. 

I never felt like he’s getting fired. He will have to make changes. Defense for sure. The defense needs a complete 360 degree change. With that so does the defensive recruiting. The offense has gotten a pass but I’m not sold on Gattis. Probably needs an upgrade 

You make good points and an average or below average showing given all that has gone all around the world would have probably been given a lot of understanding - especially with so many top players choosing not to play.

But the general flat and inconsistent performance of the team in all phases (Beautiful long TD throws with balls that hit the ground 5 yards short, crushing tackles for loss with gaping lapses allowing for long runs and catch and run, kick returns for TDs and big gains with bad misses on FG) has really called into question the whole coaching unit ability to go further.

Maybe they have reached their peak - this is their ceiling? That is what a lot of fans and supporters are starting to feel. 

Given the financial situation of the athletic department they may have an excellent excuse not to extend but to see how next season goes. 

Hell no, no way he gets an extension! He should have been fired after the 2017 season.

If JH isn't fired or leaves, we will see too many players in the portal and recruits going elsewhere. He needs to go ASAP or next year might be worse. I know this year is an odd one with COVID and tons of injuries, but this team is soft and plays with no heart. Like many of his previous Michigan teams, they lack discipline and focus. 

At this point, I don't care who they bring in. Just give me a coach and staff that puts out a disciplined team that plays with heart.

If Harbaugh is extended then that means that it will be time for another grass roots revolt, similar to what we saw in 2014, and we will have to get Warde Manuel fired.  I wish that we weren't having this conversation.  I hate to imagine our athletic department being so out of touch with the fan base and the need to win football games that they would actually retain Jim Harbaugh with the program in full meltdown.   But I've seen enough to know that this nightmare scenario could actually play out.

I'd be OK with firing Warde Manuel today for letting this hilarious farce continue for as long as it has.  Harbaugh should have been fired after last year's Wisconsin debacle.   MSU fired Booby Williams the second that it was apparent that he had to go.  But if Manuel does the right thing after the inevitable OSU blowout, I'll forgive him, I guess. 

The only thing I have a hard time with is #3. The team has been regressing for more than this season. 

Outside of that, I really hope there was no extension or that one is given. Ton of respect for all of his accomplishments, but it's time to go a different direction. I don't really think it would take much for the situation to become contentious, which would be a shame, given what he has done for the program as a player and coach.

Could it be that Harbaugh is a good NFL coach but just can’t relate to the college kids any longer? Sure seems like he is out of touch. Going back to the NFL would help both sides