Give Larry Foote a microphone and a platform, and more times than not he’ll entertain. And very often stir things up in the process.
With most considering Brady Hoke a dead man coaching at Michigan, much of the attention has turned to potential replacements for the beleaguered head coach. Specifically, the focus has centered in many ways on Jim Harbaugh, the former Michigan quarterback and current San Francisco 49ers head coach, returning to both the college game and Ann Arbor to resurrect the flailing football program.
Because of the reported tension with 49ers management, Harbaugh is viewed as a potential, albeit somewhat unlikely, replacement if/when Hoke is canned. Foote, though, is not one of those people.
“No, no, no,” the current Arizona Cardinals linebacker told Detroit’s WXYT-FM when asked if he thought Harbaugh would be UM’s next head coach. “When you have an NFL job, college will always be there. Just by his body of work and what he did already at Stanford, I don’t see that happening.”
That, however, wasn’t the most interesting part of Foote’s interview, which took a bizarre turn when the talk came to the problems under Hoke and the coach’s recruiting tactics.
OK then. That’s an interesting way to frame the discussion, to say the least.
As for Foote’s assertion that he doesn’t see Harbaugh returning? That may very well be the case, but that shouldn’t preclude UM from making a run at him, again if Hoke is let go. Same goes for “Michigan Man” Les Miles; it doesn’t hurt to ask. And, yes, even the guy roaming the sidelines in Norman.
Whether the answer’s a positive one for the football program on either front, however, is another matter entirely... especially when UM’s president is busy jamming both feet into his mouth when it comes to the academic side of the football program.