Though it’s still unclear where Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh will be coaching in 2011, it’s becoming clear where he won’t be going.
Michigan.
Word first emerged at the Big Lead earlier this week, prompting Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press to drop a deuce on the story -- before arguably swiping it without attribution.
On Tuesday night, Jim’s brother (who if you’re just beginning to follow football coaches the Baltimore Ravens) talked about the situation during his weekly Baltimore radio show.
“I don’t know what he’s going to do,” John Harbaugh said, via Ken Murray of the Baltimore Sun. “I think the Michigan thing is done now. I don’t think he’s interested in doing that, which is hard for him because he loves Michigan. But it says a lot about Stanford and we’ll just see what happens.”
Though John’s comment seems to imply that staying at Stanford is an option, every minute that passes without an unequivocal statement from Jim that’s he’s staying put and not jumping to the 49ers (or maybe now the Raiders) will have an increasingly negative impact on recruiting. College coaches can’t flirt or be wishy-washy. They either must stay and say they’re staying, or go and say they’ve gone.
It’s possible that Harbaugh’s decision hinges on quarterback Andrew Luck’s, which possibly hinges on Harbaugh’s. At some point, coach and quarterback need to sit down and devise a mutual plan for the future. Otherwise, each man could be making an uninformed -- and thus bad -- decision about the present.