Michigan’s Top HC Candidates After Jim Harbaugh Agrees to Chargers Contract

Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images

Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh’s long-rumored exodus to the NFL has become a reality as he’s reportedly leaving Ann Arbor for the Los Angeles Chargers.

Now the question is who the defending national champions will turn to in hopes of keeping the great vibes going for a team that has made three straight College Football Playoffs and just turned in a 15-0 season.

The easy answer is offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore, who registered wins over Ohio State and Penn State while Jim Harbaugh was suspended. The 37-year-old Moore just oversaw an efficient and powerful offense that averaged 35.9 points per game.

Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic and NBC reported that Moore is “considered the favorite,” also noting that his potential promotion gives the team the “best chance” of preventing a roster blowup courtesy of the transfer portal.

Others have noted that Moore is the clear clubhouse leader for the job.

As far as other potential candidates go, ESPN’s Pete Thamel provided a list.

That includes Kansas head coach Lance Leipold, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman, Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule and Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell.

Leipold, 59, has turned around a previously moribund Kansas program and just led the Jayhawks to a 9-4 record, a win in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl and a No. 23 finish in the polls.

The 56-year-old Klieman led North Dakota State to four Division I-FCS national championships in five years. He went to Kansas State in 2019 and has gone 39-24 ever since, including a 19-8 mark over the past two years. KSU won the Big 12 in 2022.

Clawson, 56, has coached Wake Forest for the past 10 years. He’s also made stops as head coach at Fordham, Richmond and Bowling Green. Wake fell on hard times in 2023, going 4-8, but the team has been over .500 since the 56-year-old’s arrival. That includes an 11-win season in 2021.

Rhule, 48, resurrected college programs at Temple and Baylor before heading to the NFL with the Carolina Panthers. His pro stint did not go as planned, as he went just 11-27 before being let go five games into the 2022 campaign. Rhule returned to college with Nebraska in 2023, leading the team to a 5-7 record this year.

Fickell, 50, parlayed a tremendous stint at Cincinnati into the head coaching job at Wisconsin. The Bearcats went 57-18 under Fickell from 2017-2022, including a 13-1 mark in 2021 alongside a Cotton Bowl appearance in the College Football Playoff semifinal. He guided the Badgers to a 7-6 record in his first season.

All of those coaches have solid resumes, but it seems far more likely than not that Moore will be the choice at Michigan in hopes of extending the Wolverines’ championship window.