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Inside The Huskies

Michigan Needs Coordinators; Could Lake Be Interested?

The former University of Washington coach ends up on another wish list.
Dan Raley|
Michigan Needs Coordinators; Could Lake Be Interested?
Michigan Needs Coordinators; Could Lake Be Interested?

Following a 12-2 season, Big Ten championship and CFP appearance in the Orange Bowl, Michigan football should be in a happy place.

Instead, it's an inconsolable mess.

Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh recently felt the need to announce he was back on the job in Ann Arbor, but only after he took part in multiple interviews in pursuit of the Minnesota Vikings' top coaching vacancy — an opportunity that eluded him.

On Sunday, his offensive coordinator Josh Gattis bolted for Miami, taking a lateral position on Mario Cristobal's staff largely because of Harbaugh's job-shopping that left everyone hanging and insulted.

Ten days earlier, Michigan defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald resigned to take a similar role with the Baltimore Ravens and Harbaugh's brother, John.

Well before the Wolverines' season was complete, recruiting coordinator Courtney Morgan left the Big Ten program to come work at the University of Washington for Kalen DeBoer. 

Harbaugh immediately hired a new recruiting director to fill for Morgan, but he has work to do in finding replacements for Gattis and Macdonald.

Every time a defensive coordinator position opens up just about anywhere these days, one thing is sure happen: Jimmy Lake's name comes right up.

People have put him on wish lists for Arizona, Texas A&M and even the Arizona Cardinals. Michigan is no different.

Wolverines Wire dropped seven names for Harbaugh's lingering DC position and the one on top was Lake, who was dismissed as the Husky coach in November. 

His firing came two months following the Wolverines' 31-10 pounding of Lake and his visiting UW football team.

Here's what Wolverines Wire had to say about a projected Lake candidacy:

"The former Washington head coach left the Huskies under not-so-great pretenses after reportedly striking a player in November 2021. So one big hurdle would be if Michigan football could look past that or not. But Lake was such a rising star as the former UW defensive coordinator that it was no surprise that he was named the head coach when Chris Peterson stepped down. Should the Wolverines decide that he could rehab his image in Ann Arbor, it would be a great hire in terms of having a solid teacher and X’s and O’s man that’s also relatively young at 45 years old."

Lake has kept out of public view since his termination, which UW athletic director Jen Cohen said was instigated for multiple reasons. 

His sideline shove of reserve linebacker Ruperake Fuavai seen on national TV began the separation procss. No doubt too many losses played a big part in it, too.

There's no indication whether Lake would have any interest in working at Michigan, or whether his past missteps would hurt him, but he's got to turn up somewhere in football eventually.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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