Michigan will have a new football and basketball coach at the same time…again

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Win a national championship, lose the head coach. It might not be the most desirable situation to be in, but if we are being honest, the trade-off here is not completely unfair. No one wanted to see Jim Harbaugh or Dusty May leave, but they did what their predecessors could not, so only so much can be held against them. After all: flags fly forever.

The issue for the Michigan Wolverines is that somehow a college football national championship was followed by vacancies in both football and men’s basketball. History repeated itself just two seasons later, with a men’s basketball national championship leading to a coaching opening on the hardwood, just months after football went through a transition itself.

Hmm.

Those who are champions…might not stay

I have spoken before about how I do not fault anyone for the departures of Harbaugh and May. The coaches themselves did all that anyone asked of them, bringing titles to programs who had not seen one in decades. While both saw many of their stars lead for the draft and took some assistants with them, both of their programs were in much better spots when they left than upon their hiring.

I also do not fault the Athletic Department for being unable to tie these coaches to Michigan. It is not like either left for a lateral job or a gig at another college. It is hard to compete with the NFL or NBA, especially given the utter chaos that is college sports. It is unfortunate that Harbaugh and May decided to move on, but hardly unreasonable.

The actual issue were the hires of Sherrone Moore and Juwan Howard. Both had some moments of success like the 2024 win in Columbus and the 2020-21 Big Ten Championship. However, neither got the results that are expected at Michigan, and both had some…behavioral issues that were far from ideal. Their dismissals were warranted for many reasons.

The fact that the end of Howard’s tenure coincided with the culmination of Harbaugh’s return and that Moore’s monumental catastrophe came upon during May’s title-winning season is frankly just bad luck. Perhaps the risk of coaching turnover is elevated when bad hires are made – but perhaps the risk is also realized when excellent hires are made as well, as they will be the ones to move on.

So the fact that Michigan is featuring a new football head coach and a new basketball head coach for the second time in three years is remarkable (if I had a nickel…), but kind of just a strange quirk. Ironically, this could certainly happen again given where Kyle Whittingham is in his career and the uncertainty around Mike Boynton, but that is a conversation for another day.

Comes with the territory

Perhaps the frustrating part about this phenomenon is that it feels fairly unique, at least locally. Jim Tressel was fired and replaced by Luke Fickell/Urban Meyer during the middle of the Thad Matta era, Chris Holtmann replaced him after Ryan Day was hired, and Day has kept his job, making Jake Diebler the new guy in Columbus. The last time Ohio State had new coaches in both sports was 1950, a year before Woody Hayes.

The rundown for Michigan State is even more boring. Tom Izzo has been coaching for decades, with nine different men leading the football program during that time if the interim coaches and the arriving Pat Fitzgerald are included. Interestingly, Izzo’s introduction did come the same season as a new football coach as well. Someone named Nick Saban lasted four years in East Lansing and then went somewhere else, I guess.

While Michigan’s rivals have escaped this scenario, the Wolverines are not completely alone here. Texas brought in Steve Sarkisian and Chris Beard ahead of the 2021-22 seasons, as did Arizona with Jedd Fisch and Tommy Lloyd. The next year saw Billy Napier and Todd Golden arrive at Florida, Brian Kelly and Matt McMahon head to LSU, and Mike Elko and John Scheyer take over at Duke. Fisch later moved to Washington in 2024-25 at the same time as Danny Sprinkle.

I am not exactly sure what the lesson is here; perhaps this is just more of an interesting note more than anything. I would like to think though that perhaps the reason why the Wolverines are experiencing this more than most is because of their strength across multiple sports. The standards are high, as are the achievements, and that means coaches will come and go more often in Ann Arbor than at other institutions. Maybe there will be some stability in the future, but as long as the expectations, and results, are at the top, more turnover is likely to follow.

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