Colin Cowherd: “Michigan is a great college football program and as good as they’ve ever been. What Michigan is going to do is very predictable... This is what happens in college sports and I totally understand it, though I would try to push back on it. When a legend leaves, and Harbaugh is certainly a legend -- a Michigan man and an all-time coach -- universities do two things: they either upgrade somebody on the staff, or they find someone who had a connection to the legend. That will work using the inertia -- the legend Saban, Harbaugh created -- it will work for about a year and a half, but then you will see cracks, because proximity to genius and proximity to greatness does not equal genius or greatness.
How many Belichick assistants have hit? The answer is NONE. I could give you 25 examples of this. My childhood -- Don James to Jim Lambright [Washington]. Lambright was considered the best defensive coordinator in college football. Steve Spurrier to Ron Zook, Tom Osbourne to Frank Solich, Barry Switzer to Gary Gibbs... Great programs, a familiar face, it looks like it works, and then it doesn't...
It doesn’t work because there’s only one Nick Saban, and as good as Kalen DeBoer is -- and I thought that coaching hiring was brilliant, rare, and took courage... Kalen DeBoer has no connection to 'Bama. THAT'S the way to do it, and that dude can coach but he won't be Saban. There are no more Nicks and there are no more Jims.
But I get why colleges do this. It's a no-win proposition. You lose a legend and the market rarely has another waiting to be hired. And it feels good -- you can keep the staff, the fans have their Natty and feel pretty good, everybody likes the assistant, the players like him, the recruits stay – I get it... But UCLA has been chasing John Wooden my entire life, and for ten years USC was chasing Pete Carroll. Finally they went and got Lincoln Riley; no connection to Pete. Whether it works or not, I appreciated the courage to do that.
What would I do? I would do the unpopular thing. I would hire somebody who makes people uncomfortable like Jim Harbaugh did. I’d hire Brian Kelly. Oh, I know you don’t like him, but many don’t like Jim Harbaugh. But yet Brian Kelly wins. Wins everywhere and wins instantly. He rubs people the wrong way, but even today after all his success, so does Harbaugh. Because we now live in a world with social media where people are just ‘anti’ things. Science, climate change, government, corporations, me, you, celebrities... EVERYTHING. And despite the data you can hand them on Harbaugh, people to the very end called him 'overrated.' People that covered the sport and have 'sources', that have written best-selling books, that are reputable...
Jim Harbaugh is an all time coach. Brian Kelly is not there -- he never got to a Super Bowl, he doesn’t have NFL offers, and doesn’t have a Natty, but he’s the closest thing to Jim... But he’s not going to hired and I get it. A young man [Sherrone Moore] who deserves a chance at Michigan will, and I wish him the very best, but in my lifetime the ‘easy’ and the ‘comfortable’ is almost never the perfect choice. But... Let's be honest, who needs 'perfect' at Michigan?"
Watch Colin Cowherd of FS1's The Herd warn Michigan football on the dangers of hiring in-house coordinators when a former legend leaves the program, as Michigan Wolverines offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore is expected to replace Jim Harbaugh after the Michigan icon bolted from Ann Arbor to the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers this week.
Colin documents the history of in-house hires failing miserably at major college football programs in the wake of a high-profile head coaching exit, saying they may work in the short-term for a roster who was still rallying around their coach, but says that honeymoon period will quickly come crashing down.
Check out the segment above as Colin says he would have hired LSU head coach Brian Kelly if he were the Wolverines, who has experience coaching and recruiting in the Midwest with successful stints at Central Michigan, Cincinnati, and Notre Dame.
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