Michigan Football: 3 realistic candidates if Jim Harbaugh goes to NFL

If Jim Harbaugh gets an NFL head-coaching opportunity and leaves Michigan football, here are three realistic candidates to replace him. 

Unfortunately for Michigan football fans, things got pretty real on Wednesday night as Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reported that Jim Harbaugh would leave his job at Michigan to be the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders if offered.

Feldman was the first to report about the rumored interest Jim Harbaugh had in the NFL and since then, there have been reports about him being interested in coaching the Raiders or Giants, as well as reporting about his desire to win a Super Bowl.

Harbaugh wanting to win a Super Bowl is easy to understand and he was just yards away with the 49ers so it’s not like it’s a pipe dream.

And it’s possible that the Orange Bowl was a wake-up call. The 2021 Michigan football team was the best in decades and still, it didn’t think look like it belonged against the Bulldogs.

So maybe Harbaugh feels he did what he came to Michigan to do and has achieved all he can. He beat Ohio State and he won the Big Ten title.

Anything else is gravy and in terms of winning a national championship, Harbaugh is right if he believes he has a better shot at winning a Super Bowl because he does.

Michigan football does some NIL stuff but it’s light-years behind the SEC programs and frankly, Michigan State is 2-3 steps ahead of the Wolverines too on NIL.

So maybe Harbaugh is sick of all that and is ready to be on a level-playing field in the NFL where teams don’t have the built-in advantage. Or, as some believe this is all just Harbaugh leveraging for a better deal from the University.

At this point, nobody outside of the Harbaugh family probably truly knows anything but if Jim does decide to leave for the NFL, here’s a look at three realistic candidates to replace him.

Michigan OC Josh Gattis

If Jim Harbaugh does take an NFL job, it’s going to make hiring a new head coach sort of difficult in the sense that the talent pool has shrunk considerably.

There are still some quality candidates and one close to home is offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. The Broyles Award winner in 2021 was a candidate for jobs at Virginia and Duke, so it seems like a head-coaching opportunity is eventually coming down the line.

Hiring Gattis would allow Michigan’s staff to stick together and would keep cohesion. One would also hope it would help limit losses in the transfer portal.

So if Harbaugh does end up coaching the Raiders, Gattis is a guy who deserves some consideration.