Extension - The more likely scenario
Trying to look at this dispassionately, the situation with Harbaugh, I think, leans much more heavily towards Michigan signing Harbaugh to an extension than towards giving him the boot.
1. They were working on an extension at the beginning of the year before COVID hit. Yes, this year weighs heavily on this, but much of the sentiments in the AD and the statistics they are looking at are the same or very similar.
2. The AD has said that "Harbaugh can stay as long as he wants" or something similar. I don't see one season changing that.
3. 2020 is his one truly bad season. I don't think they'll look at that and say that's enough to set the whole program back to zero. Yes, the performance against the rivals and top 10 stinks, but has that really changed this year? The math is the same when they were talking extension.
4. COVID has changed everything. From eliminating spring ball, stopping the season, starting it back up, dealing with the restrictions required to run a program during COVID, it's just been a mess. I'm sure the retort will be, "but everyone else (OSU, Bama, Clemson, etc.) has had to deal with it too". Yes, they have, and everyone of them has had a COVID outbreak. If we navigate this without an issue, I think that will be held up as Harbs "doing it right" and sacrificing the football for health sakes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm completely unsatisfied and was screaming at the set yesterday and vented a bit here after the game. I'm looking for a coaching change too, but I just don't think it will happen. I think they'll give him an extension with a reworked buy out and a requirement to change the staff, specifically the DC and maybe even the OC. Giving him a "second chance" to turn this around will be deemed fair by the administration.
November 29th, 2020 at 6:25 PM ^
And when JH came to college everyone said: ‘ do ya think he can’t relate to Pros with his total discipline style and needs kids who are gone every 4 years?’
November 29th, 2020 at 3:33 PM ^
I am sure you are correct in that Michigan will likely stay the course with Harbaugh and give him a 4 or 5 year extension. Why? Because we are fucking doomed to endure the BPONE that envelops the football program from now until eternity.
November 29th, 2020 at 3:35 PM ^
No matter what happens....
November 29th, 2020 at 4:04 PM ^
November 29th, 2020 at 5:48 PM ^
I agree the University no longer considers a competitive football program as important. Harbaugh will stay as long as he wants. Our only hope is that he is tired of this program and will jump to the NFL.
November 29th, 2020 at 7:26 PM ^
Yet I attended an event paid for by the i think the AD dept, at the Lincoln Center in NYC or all places, with fantastic food, and heard Stephen Ross talk about education for two minutes then segway into the football program, just before Harbaugh was hired.
November 29th, 2020 at 6:18 PM ^
If WM and the rest of the Admin look at it this way, then they have no interest in fixing the football program. Which means, people should stop with coaching names, ways to fix the culture, etc. as our own Admin doesn’t see issues.
November 29th, 2020 at 6:35 PM ^
If Harbaugh gets an extension, then Michigan deserves everything it has coming to it.
The amount of self sabotage the football program endures is baffling.
November 29th, 2020 at 8:17 PM ^
I think he will "leave on his own terms" and go to the NFL.
He'll do a Beilein-type exit to save face . . . "College football has changed too much to where you can't recruit and retain players without catering to external forces. A guy like Bo could not make it in today's game, and that's not where I want to be." Something like that.
The parting will be cordial. No money will change hands in anger.
November 30th, 2020 at 5:00 AM ^
We have to be the only major program in the country who would be in danger of seeing our coach return after performance this shitty. I do not understand why we are cursed with having people in charge who don't give a damn about the state of the University's Golden Goose. We have to be the only program in the country where the mere suggestion of extending Harbaugh wouldn't get you immediately laughed out of the room. What is it about Michigan that we get people in charge who are so out of touch with the passions of their stakeholders?
Or maybe that's not the case and all of this hand wringing is for nothing. Many folks thought that Hoke wouldn't be fired, and he was. There is a lot of speculation going on about what is going through Warde Manuel's head. He's got to be getting bombarded with pleas to fire Harbaugh both from ordinary fans and the huge donors.
November 30th, 2020 at 6:20 AM ^
I think you paint a very rational picture. If they were going to extend him before this season, they cannot reasonably use this season as a reason to not extend him.
Yet, I do think, if there is an extension, it will be perhaps more modest than it would have been before this season. So there will be some impact from this season.
Yet I use extension in the passive sense because you leave out a big part of whether an extension arises - maybe Harbaugh chooses to leave. I have always thought he didn't seem entirely happy coaching college, that the NFL was a better fit for him. He might choose to move on.
November 30th, 2020 at 8:42 AM ^
An extension? Hell yes, self inflicted neck wounds are always nice.
December 1st, 2020 at 11:53 AM ^
His resume prior to 2020 season is worthy of dismissal. 2 years in a row of being blown out of the sea by OSU was the final straw for many. Year 5 and no program identity or consistency, especially at the coveted QB spot.
Unfortunately, the AD might not view it this way. Not sure exactly what Warde's criteria is for coaching evaluation, but if he offers an extension at the end of this season, then we have to accept that the Athletic Department does not value a winning culture and things will never change.