The Michigan Wolverines have struggled to start the 2020 football season and it also comes in conjunction with the time of year where another popular plot thread emerges. Being that the calendar has flipped to November, it usually around the time when those pesky NFL rumors appear for Jim Harbaugh, who has one year remaining on his Michigan contract.
He was asked to address his deal and the talk of a contract extension that has been the elephant in the room for quite some time now.
“I don’t really have anything to really say to that, because I don’t have an interest in listening to that kind of stuff,” Harbaugh said on Monday. “I think you know me by now, I always like letting the action speak for what you have to say. I’ve always thought this; (let) your actions speak so loudly that they can’t even hear what you’re saying. I’ll let the actions speak as they have in the past.”
Right now, the actions are speaking loudly in that the Wolverines have lost four of the last five games they have played in and that they are off to their worst start since the 3-9 season in 2008. The actions that Harbaugh apparently wants people to interpret is the insinuation from his end that he wants to be at Michigan for a long time.
“Yeah, those are the actions that I’m speaking (of),” Harbaugh said. “No matter what I say to you, I’ve been here five and a half, six years, and experienced that no matter what I say, the next day, something else is said or the next year the same thing comes up. No matter what I tell you, tomorrow something else will be written by someone else. So I’m going to let my actions speak loudly, hopefully. Knowing me, my actions have been consistent.”
Angelique Chengelis of The Detroit News pressed him on this topic and asked how long he wants to be at Michigan, but the refrain was the same from Harbaugh.
“We’ve been doing this for six years, that’s my point,” he said. “I’m not answering that question. Our focus is to win the next game. You can write whatever article you want, because I know that that’s what has been happening for the last five and a half, six years since I got here.”
Harbaugh is currently the only head coach in the entirety of the Power Five conferences that does not have a deal past the 2021 season and he is in the sixth year of a seven-year deal. Even in a pandemic-altered landscape of college sports, this is far from normal. The questions will continue with each day that passes without clarity on Michigan’s future, especially if the losses pile up through the rest of the year.