Here's Why UW Fans Don't Want to See Harbaugh Leave Michigan
Jim Harbaugh doesn't seem long for Michigan. After serving a three-game suspension for self-reported recruiting violations to begin the season, the Wolverines coach now is under investigation for sign-stealing, something akin to what those sneaky Houston Astros did in baseball.
He's led Michigan for the past nine seasons, as the favored son and former Wolverines quarterback who triumphantly came home. He currently has a 7-0 team ranked No. 2 in the country by the Associated Press, sharing a majority of the first-place votes with two-time national champion Georgia.
Yet Harbaugh either seems distracted by it all or a little reckless in his actions to the point people such as notable SEC football radio host Paul Finebaum see the Michigan coach moving on in the not too distant future, possibly back to the NFL.
This should be somewhat alarming to Husky fans, and not because Harbaugh wouldn't be coming to Montlake next season when the Huskies host Michigan as fellow members of the Big Ten.
Consider the coach who hereafter is going to be heavily pursued to replace him, name-dropped, arm-twisted and urged to leave his job every time one of the FBS elites goes through a coaching change: Kalen DeBoer.
In August, DeBoer seemed a little amused when presented with a similar scenario making the rounds that departing athletic director Jen Cohen would someday try to hire him at USC to replace a potentially NFL-bound Lincoln Riley when that time comes. Harbaugh's name came up in that conversation, too.
"I love it here," DeBoer said in response. "You know, there's a lot of things holding me here. I have a daughter who's going to play softball here, right. Love it here. [Cohen] brought me to this place and It was a very attractive place in how I was persuaded to come here and you take that out of it — this place stands by itself."
Yet DeBoer, in a very short time, has become one of the hottest coaching properties in college football. He was on a sports talk radio show this week with the well-heeled Colin Cowherd, who watched the UW-Oregon game in person, and the coach spoke about how his Husky quarterback and Heisman Trophy candidate Michael Penix Jr. has the "it factor."
Well, Kalen DeBoer has the it factor, too. He knows how to put a football program together in a hurry, build great trust with inherited players, win at unprecedented rates and put an exceedingly entertaining team on the field. Even after Penix leaves for the NFL, DeBoer will continue to attract new players, fool opponents and please fans with his well-devised style of play.
Just as important, Michigan would want Kalen DeBoer to coach the Wolverines because he's a Midwest guy, which would greatly appeal to the Ann Arbor masses.
This sort of coach-poaching stuff with a geographical lure has happened before with the Huskies on multiple occasions.
When the legendary Don James, the Ohio native, became all the rage in Montlake in the 1980s, Ohio State went at him hard to come home and become the Buckeyes coach, and he resisted.
His Husky predecessor, Jim Owens, was an Oklahoma native who won a couple of Rose Bowls and suddenly Texas A&M, where he had been an assistant coach prior than coming to Seattle, made him an attractive offer to return to the Southwest. He, too, said no.
Finally, Chris Petersen wasn't at the UW long at all when USC, after coaxing away and firing a former Husky coach in Steve Sarkisian, tried to interest Petersen, the California native, into returning to his home state and cleaning up the mess Sark left behind. It didn't happen.
DeBoer seems genuinely happy with the Huskies for now — there's that daughter-UW connection to consider — but that wouldn't stop Michigan from making an all-out assault on him, offering a staggering financial package and imploring him over and over to return to his native Midwest.
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