For years, Jim Harbaugh has seemingly made it his mission to make Michigan fans sweat out his tenure. The former NFL quarterback turned Stanford coach turned 49ers coach has been a mainstay in the rumor mill regarding making a jump back to the big leagues.
And for a short period early in this NFL off-season, it looked like he finally might make good on his wish to coach professional football players again. Harbaugh was a reported finalist for the Vikings’ opening at head coach and even flew into Minnesota’s facility for a formal interview (on National Signing Day, no less).
In the end, with the drama and indecisiveness behind him, Harbaugh made a prudent move: He elected to stay in Ann Arbor, after all.
Jim Harbaugh called Michigan to inform the school that, despite interviewing with the Vikings today, he will be returning to school for the 2022 season, sources tell ESPN. Michigan was, in the words of one source, “elated” to get Harbaugh’s decision.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 3, 2022
No one will ever know for sure why Harbaugh chose the Wolverines, who made the College Football Playoff this past season, over the Vikings, who have one playoff win in the last four years.
I mean, if you had the opportunity to coach the embodiment of ranch dressing in quarterback form, Kirk Cousins — a known winner and clutch player in big games that everyone definitely doesn’t make fun of consistently every fall — why wouldn’t you take it? It’s not as if the Vikings are likely in need of a full rebuild, with an aging defense past its prime, under new general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, but have to stick with Cousins for at least a year on a fully guaranteed deal that eats up an exorbitant amount of their salary cap. What a nightmare that would be.
Never mind that Harbaugh can essentially be a maize and gold king for the rest of his life as deemed by Michigan administrators and boosters. It’s not as if he has full recruiting control and can do basically whatever he wants with really only Ohio State as his one obstacle toward a playoff berth every year.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
(A lightbulb flashes in my mind.)
Why was this ever a conversation? Harbaugh is a professed Michigan man through and through. If he wants to coach there and have unmitigated control of one of college football’s most prestigious programs, he can probably do it for the rest of his life. Who are the hapless Vikings, who are likely years away from Harbaugh’s other well-known dream, winning a Super Bowl, to get in the way of college royalty?
Make or hover around the College Football Playoff every year in Michigan, and you’re a Football God. Tipico Sportsbook has the Wolverines at +5000 to win next year’s National Championship, only behind Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, and defending champion, Georgia. To say, even despite a reported almost-break-up that cut Harbaugh’s contract in half, Michigan very well will likely be in the December playoff picture again.
Make or hover around the NFL postseason every year in Minnesota (while being compensated considerably less), and they’ll want you gone, buried. The Vikings organization needs an overhaul, not an egotistical supposed savior who will never be appreciated the way he so prefers.
Harbaugh built his vaunted reputation on a 49ers team littered with All-Pros on both sides of the ball. The Vikings do not have such a luxury of established star power on that same level, and he would have to stick out for the long haul while (probably) slowly losing his love for the game (and mind). I don’t know about you, but turning to Mitchell Trubisky or Teddy Bridgewater or “maximizing” Kirk Cousins and resigning yourself to NFL Purgatory doesn’t exactly scream Super Bowl to me.
Mike Zimmer was fired (and probably should’ve quit) for far less.
The math and logic are simple: Jim Harbaugh made the right choice to stay at Michigan because of the Wolverines themselves, and because no one wants to coach Kirk Cousins.
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