James Burrill Angell

December 9th, 2014 at 9:20 PM ^

I believe it. But it's not swim lanes. This is the search firm seeing who's available in case Harbaugh says no. If so, the search firm can tell Hackett which of Mullen/Miles/Cutcliffe/Stoops/Payton/Patterson/Schiano/Tom Herman/Mora Jr./Jerry Kill/Mike Trgovac/Mike Tomlin/Teryl Austin/Al Golden/Bill Belichek/Jon Gruden/Jay Gruden/Gru the guy from Despicable Me/Joe Lombardi/Vince Lombardi/Dale Earnhardt/Dale Earnhardt Jr./Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Or Bevo the Texas Mascot might be interested if it gets to that.

johnthesavage

December 9th, 2014 at 6:58 PM ^

You know you likely have to wait until January for JH. You know it isn't a sure bet. You told the team you'd have a guy by shortly after that -- and for the sake of the program you need a guy by shortly after that anyway.

If you're not reaching out to anybody else in the meantime, you're just being foolish. There has to be a plan B, of course.

Khrothgat

December 9th, 2014 at 8:20 PM ^

I find it funny that when I first read this headline, I got a sinking feeling in my gut.  After reading the comments, I guess most everyone else also got that sinking feeling, as if: "they would only reach out to Les if Harbaugh had fallen through."  On the contrary, however, reaching out is not offering the job, and they should reach out to Les.  It's time to move beyond old wounds. 

Champeen

December 10th, 2014 at 8:22 AM ^

Well, like someone below stated, you do need a thorough search.  You cannot put all your eggs in one basket to have that egg tell you no at last minute...then you scramble to grab a plan D which sets the program back to the stone ages.

However, it 'could' also be bad news.  We don't know.

TheWoodlandsWo…

December 9th, 2014 at 6:38 PM ^

Means Harbaugh has said no. Coincidence that we don't hear much of any leaks about people being contacted and then in one day we get word that two people (Cutcliffe and Miles) are contacted?

TheWoodlandsWo…

December 9th, 2014 at 6:49 PM ^

And Michigan just waited a week for the heck of it? I can understand waiting a week on Miles bc there are internal issues/approvals to get figured out before you reach out to Miles (based on what has been reported about the internal disagreement on him as a candidate), but no reason to wait a week to reach out to a guy like Cutcliffe other than because it has been decided that "Plan B" needs to be set into motion.

RHammer - SNRE 98

December 9th, 2014 at 8:46 PM ^

there are plenty of reasons to reach out to Coach Miles now, and as indicated above, doing so does not have to have any sort of exclusionary effect on the Harbaugh of Harbaughcisco... in most business scenarios (and coaching searches as well), if you failed to check off an obvious box on your to-do list for candidates, you would be accused of not having done your due diligence in properly weighing all your options.  i am clearly on the Harbaugh-train, but i really can't read "UM reached out to Miles" as anything other than "we were always going to talk with him at some point, and today became that 'some point'"... if there was an offer involved, that would be different, but there's no indication there was discussion of an offer; moving on...