One important reason Harbaugh might leave Stanford

here's the link to the article http://bit.ly/hdbDO4

of interest:

Officially, Stanford averages 40,296 fans per game. (The only Top 25 team that has a harder time filling its stadium is Nevada.)

Stanford’s average reflects the number of tickets sold and distributed. The in-house crowds are often smaller by 5,000-10,000.

For the early-November showdown against Arizona — one of the biggest home games in Stanford history — the actual crowd was a shade over 37,000.

In other words: The stadium was 25 percent empty for a game featuring two ranked teams.

a vacacancy Jan 2nd.  If you don't think there have been conversations with Harbaugh, your a fool.

That aside, I'm not sure it's a given that a coach will really care about attendance.

Harbaugh has certainly raised concerns--in public--about attendance at Stanford. This was discussed in an AP article titled "Jim Harbaugh critical of BCS' priorities":

Harbaugh also expressed disappointment in Stanford's attendance figures this season. The school averaged just 40,042 fans at the 50,000-seat Stanford Stadium, selling out only for the game against Southern California.

Harbaugh said the university needed to put one person in charge of making sure there was improvement in attendance in the future.

"You want the players to have it all," he said. "They have most all of it here at Stanford. You talk about academics, you talk about the athletic department, etc. You want to see them have big crowds too. Hopefully we're moving in that direction."

Harbaugh would not answer questions about whether lackluster attendance would play a role at all in how long he would remain at Stanford as coach.

I especially think it will be hard for Harbaugh to reach 10 wins again without the services of one of the top QB's in the country in Luck.  Perfect timing to get out now before Stanford drops off a little bit and Michigan is all set to explode next year.  It will make him look like a genius and Harbaugh knows it.

When I lived there the Raiders were in LA and were still good and they couldn't come close to a sell out.  The fight for the entertainment is fierce.

I remember going to Stanford games as kid in the late '70's -- back in the Steve Dils, Darrin Nelson, Ken Margerum days -- and they used to get 70,000+ in there no problem. This was before the 49'ers were good though.

     Stanford also has a large number of international students who may not be terribly interested in American football.  There is no question that Harbaugh will leave Stanford-the only issue is whether he wants to jump to the NFL or come back and be a god.  I believe a verbal agreement is already in place for him to return to Ann Arbor.  Otherwise, there is no reason to let RR twist in the wind and damage the next recruiting class.  I find it disingenuous that Brandon needs additional data points to make his final decision.

Wait.. I mean seriously? Don't you have a bowl game coming up? You should be ashamed of yourself young man. 

you will never get the chill on the back of your neck when you walk out of that tunnel

It's a little late for 'never' there.

It's not like he starred there as quarterback, grew up hanging out at practices, or had a father who was on the coaching staff.   

Oh wise one, please impart more pearls of wisdom for Jim and the rest of us.

Thank you Mr Fife.

"What's $3m vs $6m?  Nothing to care about"

The only people who say this have neither.