{"id":364873,"date":"2025-12-23T03:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T03:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364873\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T03:47:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T03:47:21","slug":"paul-finebaum-claims-no-one-really-wants-michigan-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/364873\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Finebaum claims no one really wants Michigan job"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan has seemingly struck out on Plans A and B for its next head coach, with Kenny Dillingham taking an extension at Arizona State and Kalen DeBoer leading Alabama to the College Football Playoff quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

And ESPN\u2019s Paul Finebaum wonders whether they will be able to find any sort of top-tier coach at all, given the school\u2019s inability to get out from under the chaos Jim Harbaugh left in his wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would anyone want that job?\u201d Finebaum questioned on Sunday\u2019s episode of The Matt Barrie Show podcast<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s simply no leadership there, there\u2019s no alignment, and the stench of the Harbaugh regime permeates the air in Ann Arbor. And it\u2019s made it more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While Harbaugh (who has largely stayed quiet<\/a> about the fallout from his departure) delivered a national championship, he also oversaw an alleged sign-stealing scandal that resulted in multiple suspensions and departures, as well as significant financial penalties and recruiting restrictions. Before that, Harbaugh and the recently fired Sherrone Moore<\/a> were also found guilty of recruiting violations during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Harbaugh left the school in 2023 amid threats of NCAA sanctions to coach the Los Angeles Chargers. Moore took over and, after landing five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood, led Michigan to a solid showing in 2025. But Moore was fired and arrested this month following allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a staffer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, many of the program\u2019s key figures remain in place, including athletic director Warde Manuel and interim head coach Biff Poggi.<\/p>\n

Michigan seemingly targeted Dillingham and DeBoer in their search, but both top coaches turned them down.<\/p>\n

Finebaum stated that DeBoer made a mistake by not being prepared to discuss the Wolverines\u2019 pursuit, but that this version of the Michigan program is out of its league, targeting coaches of that caliber:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey needed a Kalen DeBoer or a Dillingham, but they\u2019re not going to get either one, so good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for a backup option, Barrie suggested former Utah coach Kyle Whittingham, which Finebaum agreed could be a good idea. For a program that is used to competing for Big Ten championships and national titles, Michigan will have to settle for merely getting back to normalcy before it looks to the mountaintop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan has seemingly struck out on Plans A and B for its next head coach, with Kenny Dillingham…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,1777,398,396,397,8021,580,99,179574],"class_list":{"0":"post-364873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-michigan-wolverines","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-paul-finebaum","14":"tag-sherrone-moore","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-the-matt-barrie-show"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}