Michigan would not want to provide Jim Harbaugh one other elevate

There’s a distinction between “working on the pleasure” of your alma mater and holding it hostage, and Jim Harbaugh is slowly creeping towards the latter. The College of Michigan coach made an overt go on the Vikings opening a 12 months in the past presently, and spent components of this offseason chatting with the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers. Savvy U-M followers know that is one thing that Harbaugh does. It’s a persona quirk that you simply simply must let him get out of his system.

It’s recommendation just like what Cousin Eddie instructed Clark about methods to take care of his canine’s Mississippi Leg Hound syndrome. “It’s finest simply to let him end” isn’t good recommendation, however neither is the choice. Which is to reward him with a contract extension, and that’s precisely what’s within the works, in response to college president Santa Ono.

The man simply signed a brand new deal final season, and the one answer AD Warde Manuel can give you to appease Harbaugh is to throw cash at him?

The coach even acknowledged the contract discussions and thanked them for his or her continued help.

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That’s not weird at all. Has anyone asked him about this quote from final 12 months relating to his flirting with Minnesota?

“Warde, this won’t be a reoccurring theme yearly. This was a one-time factor. I instructed Warde, ‘From right here on out, I’m working on the pleasure of the College of Michigan, as a result of that’s, in my coronary heart, the place I wish to be.’”

Pay attention, I do know the system is damaged. It looks like each reasonably profitable coach will get a brand new deal from an anxiety-riddled AD, and Harbaugh has been method higher than reasonably profitable. All I ask is that one in every of these athletic administrators sees what occurs once they don’t do this.

Daryl Morey refused to maneuver Ben Simmons till he regained leverage, and as a rule, coaches are going to cede the benefit again to their employer. There are solely two ways in which Harbaugh can enhance upon final 12 months, and that leaves a large swath of room for regression.

Aside from Nick Saban and this small-ish pattern measurement from Kirby Sensible, applications and coaches have off years.

Why not name Harbaugh’s bluff?

When Harbaugh stands on the door with baggage packed, threatening to depart for the three,000th time, name his bluff. If he needed to go someplace, he would’ve already left. Don’t struggle him, ask what you are able to do in a different way, after which cave.

His program was not too long ago accused of recruiting violations, too. (Harbaugh refuses to say he lied to investigators, per stories.) Not that that issues, or that anybody ought to care, but it surely’s a minimum of one thing to provide Manuel and Ono pause. Or a minimum of justify not giving him one other pallet of cash.

What’s the worst that may occur if U-M didn’t present Harbaugh their “full help”? He truly leaves? That was possible the case already.

As a lot as I disliked Harbaugh reinforcing that the general public shouldn’t imagine a phrase that comes from the mouths of faculty coaches, I feel I hate Michigan’s response to again up the Brinks truck much more. All that does is incentivize this type of habits from a coach — and faculty — standpoint.

When faculty athletics comes crashing down, there received’t be some singular occasion — no meteor, no court docket case — at its core. It should simply be a bunch of on a regular basis, frequent practices that we settle for as a part of this taped-together enterprise. And giving coaches contract extensions like banks used at hand out residence loans can be Exhibit A.