ANN ARBOR, Mich. — On Sunday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported the University of Michigan had rescinded an offer of a contract extension to Jim Harbaugh, prompting questions on the severity of the potential looming punishment surrounding the ninth-year Wolverines coach.
The NCAA has not given Michigan any notice of allegations as it pertains to the alleged illegal sign-stealing affair that has certainly been publicly litigated on social media. So when the story broke that U-M was potentially pulling back its contract offer, that raised a lot of questions. However, some connected people such as John U. Bacon, Chris Balas and Sam Webb pushed back on, at the very least, the verbiage in the article, saying that perhaps the extension was put on hold while new allegations of impropriety arrived every evening via the media last week, but it was not rescinded as claimed.
On Monday, in his weekly press conference at Schembechler Hall, Harbaugh himself clarified the article’s primary thesis, but also said it’s university policy not to discuss contract details until they’ve been finalized.
“I wouldn’t say that’s accurate, no,” Harbaugh said. “And the university has a policy. I think they made a statement, right Dave? About the policy on contracts and publicly talking about them. I think it was worded something like they don’t comment about them until after they’re done.”
Though the general populace outside of maize and blue fandom have adopted a walls are closing in mentality regarding Jim Harbaugh, Michigan does not seem poised to shelve the contract extension. Whether Harbaugh signs one sooner rather than later remains to be seen, but the media firestorm is not believed to be quite so dire that the Wolverines will move on from their head coach.