Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has done some impressive things in Ann Arbor as of late, leading the team to the College Football Playoff in what was an impressive 12-1 regular season for the Wolverines in 2021.
Harbaugh has been impressive at every stop that he has had as a football coach, but he almost made a stop at what now seems like an improbable school. Back in 2009, Harbaugh had an interview with the athletic director of Kansas University.
At the time, Harbaugh was in his third season at Stanford, but many believe that he would have taken the job at Kansas if it were offered to him.
“Harbaugh would have taken it,” former Kansas assistant coach Clint Bowen told The Athletic on Tuesday. “I was talking to him at the time. He would have taken the job.”
There were reportedly a number of reasons that Kansas decided to give the job to Turner Gill instead.
Harbaugh was honest in the interview and said that if the NFL or Michigan came calling, he would be leaving for either of those opportunities (like he just almost did). Little did he know at the time that he would get the chance to coach at both places during his coaching career.
It appears that even if he’d taken the Kansas job, he wouldn’t have spent too much time at the program. But it is certainly interesting to look at how both the Kansas football program and Harbaugh has changed since this interview.
Harbaugh is now revered as a top college football coach and experienced success at the NFL level, while Kansas has been one of the worst Power Five college football programs of the past decade.
At the time, Kansas was just two years removed from going to the Orange Bowl, and it is fascinating to think about the possibility of where the Jayhawks program would be today if Harbaugh had been their head coach.
