Michigan Football: It’s not time to fire Jim Harbaugh just yet

Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh has some work to do, but firing him right this second won’t do anything. He deserves one last shot to turn things around.

With the way the world of sports talk works nowadays, it’s not a surprise that people are calling for Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh to be fired.

Plenty of fans have been echoing those sentiments for the past few years, while others like Paul Finebaum have continued to preach that Harbaugh is overrated.

Finebaum certainly got enjoyment from Michigan football’s thrashing at the hands of Wisconsin, sending out a tweet that the Wolverines improved, losing to the Badgers by only 21 compared to the 23-point loss handed to them by Ohio State last November.

He’s an SEC homer that has some slight against Harbaugh for whatever reason. At the same time though, it appears like he might be right.

Another person joined the chorus of firing Jim Harbaugh Wednesday and that’s Shannon Sharpe from Fox. While I wouldn’t consider anything he says to be of value and because Sharpe seemed to emphasize now, it seems especially dumb.

I am not defending Harbaugh or saying that he shouldn’t be on the hot seat, but firing Harbaugh now would be foolish.

As rough as things have been so far, remember, we are just three games in and many, at least at one time, felt this team was a Big Ten title contender. So in that sense, Harbaugh at least deserves a chance to get this corrected.

In my eyes, he has until the end of the season, even if that’s wishful thinking. Unless things go terribly wrong, like Michigan only wins 6-7 games, I don’t see Harbaugh getting dismissed.

Like him or not, he earns a lot of money for the school and he has maintained the image of a clean program, albeit one that doesn’t win enough. He also has a huge buyout and an athletic director that is anything but bold.

On top of that is all the recruiting. Despite a lack of results on the field, Harbaugh’s recruiting operation has been successful and firing him could put a number of big-time commitments, including that of five-star quarterback J.J. McCarthy in jeopardy.

Some might say it’s worth it and that a few recruits isn’t worth keeping an ineffective head coach. On the whole, that’s true, but it’s also why Harbaugh at least deserves the rest of the season.

There is no one on staff ready to be a head coach and if Michigan football fired Harbaugh now, the season would be a disaster.

Don Brown? He should have been fired immediately. That would have been a wake-up call for the players and Chris Partridge seems ready to be a defensive coordinator.

Yet, this also Michigan. Those kind of moves aren’t generally made and they won’t be during this season. For better or worse, Michigan is riding with Harbaugh, Brown and Josh Gattis for the rest of this season.

The best-case scenario for the Wolverines is that Harbaugh turns this around because honestly, I don’t know who has the stomach for another rebuild.