Elston hire is official
Someone had commented in the other thread that it was odd that the Elston hire was not official yet. Well now it is. And there is also quotes from Harbaugh. His quotes certainly seem positive, but as we all know this is a situation where we just have to wait and see.
January 17th, 2022 at 1:29 PM ^
Even if he didn't love the program deeply, I think that just as a professional, Harbaugh would keep doing his job as well as he could for every second that he was still the HC.
Saying good things about the new DL coach is definitely part of his job.
It'll be a profound loss in so many ways if he goes.
January 17th, 2022 at 3:53 PM ^
I like how the PR team wrote the headline: “Harbaugh Adds Former Wolverine Elston as Defensive Line Coach.” It’s not “Former Wolverine Elston Hired as Defensive Line Coach,” or some other headline that is focused solely on the new hire. Last year, it was “Michigan Names Linguist, Helow to Defensive Coaching Staff” and “Mike Macdonald Named Michigan’s Defensive Coordinator.” They didn’t need to put Harbaugh’s name in the headline, but they did. Coincidence? Probably. But it seems deliberate that Harbaugh’s name is included - if he was out the door, wouldn’t the AD’s office want a more generic “Michigan Football adds Elston” headline that’s consistent with how they’ve written headlines in the past?
January 17th, 2022 at 1:29 PM ^
TK's post 15 minutes ago...
TK's latest post...
January 17th, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Doesn't seem like a guy would leave a good coaching gig at Notre Dame for another assistant coaching job unless he had some assurance his job at Michigan was safe, in other words, that no big shake up was coming.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:00 PM ^
Unless NFL is the plan and Harbaugh wants to take him with...
January 17th, 2022 at 2:03 PM ^
Or maybe he’s Harbaugh’s replacement???
January 17th, 2022 at 2:05 PM ^
Jagen - If that were the case why would JH complicate things for Mike or UofM by going through this intermediate step.
I can’t think of any good reason. Can you?
January 17th, 2022 at 2:18 PM ^
Just to screw over ND a few days sooner
January 17th, 2022 at 2:38 PM ^
Pretty simple, no NFL offer that is appealing, get to stay and coach at your alma matter - and JH is getting to dent a major regional rival. Get a Raiders offer and keys to the entire management office - you go into the NFL with a coach who has a winning track record and at least 2-3 years to implement his system and make playoff runs.
Not saying it's likely but if I played at Michigan and had NFL aspirations as a coach its basically a win-win. And if UM fans get pissy about it, pretty easy to spin the - likely true - story of NIL / Michigan not wanting to do what it takes to keep up with SEC / OSU so no point in staying.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:06 PM ^
At that point it’s just as easy to leave ND for the NFL. Why stop at Michigan in the middle?
January 17th, 2022 at 2:40 PM ^
See above. Would rather go to the NFL as part of brand new, highly desired staff with a probably decent roster to build or be a position piece in a random carousel at any possible organization?
Again, not saying this is likely but anyone that says no chance just doesn't understand a win-win scenario
January 17th, 2022 at 3:26 PM ^
Okay but that doesn’t answer the question.
You claimed “the NFL is the plan and Harbaugh wants to take him with him.” None of what you just said explains why he would come to Michigan. If Harbaugh wanted to take Elston to the NFL with him, he can hire him off of ND’s staff. There is literally no reason for Elston to come to Michigan in your scenario.
He’s turned Michigan down multiple times in the past. Now you’re implying he’s ready to leave ND to coach at Michigan for a week and jump to the NFL with Harbaugh… when he could just jump to the NFL with Harbaugh and coach at the same place he’s been for the past decade.
You’re explaining his possible path to the NFL but ignoring how Michigan fits in as a middle man.
January 17th, 2022 at 4:00 PM ^
What if Raiders (or whoever offer) doesnt come through? He's now getting to coach at Michigan...
Sounds like pretty good outcome either way. Not that hard.
January 17th, 2022 at 4:10 PM ^
He’s turned down the Michigan job multiple times in the past, implying coaching at Michigan isn’t a big deal to him, and he coached at ND previously. A school that is pretty much even with Michigan in terms of job prestige.
If his goal is to get an NFL job, there’s zero reason to come to Michigan. 25% of the league is going to have a new coaching staff. If he’s hellbent on coaching in the NFL with Harbaugh, Harbaugh can poach him from ND. There is zero reason for him to come to Michigan.
Once again, not that hard.
January 17th, 2022 at 3:29 PM ^
Well, unless he feels like now's the right time to come home with a coaching regime change in South Bend. It's possible it's more ND-driven than Harbaugh driven
January 17th, 2022 at 6:05 PM ^
Someone suggested Elston reached out this time. It could be that he decided it was time to come home after being passed over for DC again. If true it could be that he is comfortable with whomever the contingency plan is. It also allows for quick promotion to DC or co-DC if Harbaugh took Macdonald.
I think Harbaugh stays but I don't think this hire disproves the NFL threat either.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:20 PM ^
We all need to focus on BPONE. Otherwise you are not truly a Michigan Man (man = human man/woman).
All signs point to Elston linking himself to Harbaugh for their mutual move to the NFL. Ryan Day will be fired before the start of next season and be replaced by Saban who will lead the team to five no-loss seasons and National Championships and then retire. Why? Again, you are not a Michigan man if you don't understand BPONE. It makes no sense, but it's like the Trojan fumbledown, it just happens to us.
Meanwhile, at Michigan, the institution will bring us enough talent that we will win several games that will give us false hope. And then each January we will drink ourselves to oblivion.
Please negbang to show your optimism, but, 1997 aside.....
January 17th, 2022 at 3:47 PM ^
Enough with the BPONE already, what a stupid way to go through life.
And if Harbaugh really is thinking of leaving because he felt disrespected by fans last year, then this would be largely the fault of the BPONE crowd who seem to get some sort of weird kick out of it.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:20 PM ^
As stated by many regarding continued recruitment and now the hiring of a coach with Elston's status.....Coach Harbaugh cannot be leaving.
Would Elston even consider this position, if Coach was wavering?
January 17th, 2022 at 2:33 PM ^
All this Harbaugh drama...
January 17th, 2022 at 2:43 PM ^
Yeah, there's always a chance this is some massive smokescreen but in general a top-flight assistant coach doesn't leave a top-10 program to go back to his alma mater if there is uncertainty with the HC.
My guess is there were whispers about the Schlissel stuff coming down the pike and that slowed down things a bit across the AD, and Harbaugh is absolutely thinking about the NFL and how shitty he was treated last offseason (deserved or not) and wants to make the best move for him and his family. But I'd be very surprised if Harbaugh left, and all the actions this past week point to him staying at UM.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:54 PM ^
OR, Elston knows that IF Harbaugh leaves there’s a contingency plan in place and he’s comfortable enough with that contingency that he still wants to coach at his alma mater no matter which way Harbaugh goes. ?♂️?♂️
January 17th, 2022 at 3:00 PM ^
This is by far the most likely.
I think Elston reached out to Michigan. I think he probably assumes he will be coaching under Harbaugh, but was probably told there’s a plan in place if Harbaugh leaves and Elston would still have a spot at UM.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:28 PM ^
Just having a spot at UM doesn't seem definite enough to lure away a longtime ND assistant to an equivalent position at UM. In Elston's situation, would you do it, if you didn't know who would be supervising you?
January 17th, 2022 at 6:52 PM ^
See reply below.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:27 PM ^
But what sort of contingency would be good enough to draw Elston away from his job at ND in the face of the prospect of Harbaugh leaving? I think he'd have to know who the HC would be, not just that Elston himself would have a job.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:51 PM ^
Maybe he was told the contingency plan and was fine with it. It’s certainly possible, though none of us will know for a while at least.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:24 PM ^
So "they" and Elston know who will be head coach if Harbaugh leaves? I'm skeptical about that--HC job appointments usually result from a national search. Has such a search been conducted in secret, without any leaks, seriously?? For an opening that might not even exist??
Someone might have been sounded out--again, with risk of leak somehow circumvented?--but that's way too tentative to base a major mid-career change. Coach X might say he'd be willing to step in, then renege when actually called upon and details have to be negotiated. So Elston will have moved over to Michigan without knowing for whom he'll be working--I have a hard time believing that.
The other possibility is promoting a coordinator to HC, but would that really be a good move here? It looks too speculative, because (so far as I know), Elston doesn't have a history of working with either McDonald or Gattis. Okay, Gattis is the Broyles award winner. So was Jim Herrmann on the 1997 staff, and does anyone wish he would have become HC?
January 17th, 2022 at 8:08 PM ^
I'm purely speculating, but perhaps the contingency plan is that a current coach on the staff (most likely Gattis, in this scenario), has already been briefed that should Harbaugh accept an offer from an NFL team, they will be offered the HC job in an effort to maintain continuity with the current staff/roster/recruiting efforts, etc. Elston was assured by Gattis/MacDonald that regardless of what happens with Jim's situation, he will have a spot on the staff. That was enough assurance for Elston to know that, he will have a job in 30 days and can feel comfortable uprooting his family. to Ann Arbor.
Not suggesting this is definitely what is happening, just that it would align with Elston accepting a job on Michigan's staff with all the uncertainty surrounding Harbaugh right now.
January 17th, 2022 at 2:56 PM ^
Mike Elston was Brian Kelly's right hand man, assistant HC and lead recruiter for most of the last 17 years. My opinion is that Mike is being groomed as the successor to Jim Harbaugh.
The biggest mistake in the last 20 years of Michigan football was the complete lack of succession planning during the Lloyd Carr regime. The AD should have been asking Lloyd every year what happens if Lloyd decides to leave. We had a winning culture and that quickly dissolved under Rich Rod, and that was on the AD.
I believe that Warde understands the need for a large, successful organization to have a succession planning strategy and it looks to me like Jim is following through on this and Mike Elston would be the perfect guy to take the mantle from Jim in another year or 2 given his experience along with the young staff that Jim has already assembled.
January 17th, 2022 at 3:07 PM ^
You might very well be spot on in that assessment, fellow engineer. I thought about that too right after he was hired. If so, hopefully he's ready for the move up.
January 17th, 2022 at 3:31 PM ^
Well, the Domer fans seemed to love Elston as a recruiter & DL coach but thought he was meh as a DC. Hopefully he has a nice prove out period before we try to give him a DC or HC position
January 17th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
If this is about the next HC in waiting, why would all of this be for Elston and not McDonald/Gattis?
Not knocking you at all, but it seems more logical one of the two young guns that are both already at the coordinator level and have been here for a while with the existing coaches/recruits would take over after Jim leaves/retires instead of Elston.
January 17th, 2022 at 5:26 PM ^
Mike Elston is not going to be Michigan’s next head coach.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:08 PM ^
It’s amazing how easily some people around here can talk themselves into believing the most improbable stuff has a real chance of happening.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:57 PM ^
The AD should have been asking Lloyd every year what happens if Lloyd decides to leave.
Lloyd had a plan - have Mike DeBord succeed him. Bill Martin didn't like it and urged Lloyd not to retire after 2006.
January 17th, 2022 at 3:18 PM ^
I am not sure why someone said it’s odd to announce later than the gossip sites. Look back to last year and other times. UM rarely announced official hirings uber fast.
January 17th, 2022 at 7:27 PM ^
It would be odd if an official announcement came before being mentioned on the gossip sites.
January 17th, 2022 at 6:09 PM ^
Welcome home, Sir! GO BLUE!!!
January 17th, 2022 at 6:49 PM ^
I really think NIL is the issue. According to some reports Warde’s message to Harbaugh last year while cutting his salary was “just win” or something along those lines. Along comes NIL and it’s readily apparent that to be competitive we’re going to half to swallow our pride and step to the table. I have no doubt that at the higher administrative levels there exist a number of pearl clutchers, brushing the cat dander off their cardigans who find this distasteful. Sure it is. But it’s the hand we’ve been dealt. I suspect that Harbaugh is gauging whether the school will get with the program.