Taylor Lewan lists suggests Matt Campbell could spurn Penn State to take Michigan job after Sherrone Moore firing

A scandal hit the Michigan football program on Wednesday, with head coach Sherrone Moore being fired for cause once a university investigation found “credible evidence that Coach Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a staff member.” Now, the Michigan Wolverines are searching for a new head coach very late in the cycle.

Michigan graduate Taylor Lewan appeared on Get Up on Thursday morning. There, he was adamant that the Michigan coaching search needed to be a quick one, sharing a list of names to consider. Among those names was newly-named Penn State head coach Matt Campbell.

“I think the first name that’s gonna come up a lot is Kalen DeBoer,” Lewan said. “He’s a Midwest guy, Midwest ties. Got a proven winning track record. Jesse Minter is another name that’s gonna come up in the NFL, whether he’s extremely interested in that or not, whether he wants to stay in the NFL or go to college. I think Michigan fans would really like to have him. Kenny Dillingham, a guy that’s at Arizona State University, took his team to the Playoff with a group of guys that were probably less talented than the rest of the College Football Playoff. He is a winning head coach.”

There are merits to all of those coaches, and likely issues with them as well, as is the case in most coaching searches. However, the most interesting name that Taylor Lewan would bring up would be Campbell. Many think that he would have been a top Michigan candidate had the job opened earlier. It didn’t, though, and after a long coaching search, Penn State landed on Campbell.

Lewan thinks that the optics of the Penn State search may have rubbed Campbell the wrong way. If that was the case, then he could make the jump to Michigan.

“Then Matt Campbell is probably the last name on my list. They’re probably not in any specific order. But I would look to Matt Campbell,” Lewan said. “And the way I hear Josh Pate, who is the commissioner of college football, Matt Campbell is a guy I would look how dry the ink is on that contract. Look at Penn State and how they went across their who coaching search. They hit about seven, eight, nine, ten people before they got Matt Campbell. If I’m Matt and I feel some type of way about Penn State and their process and if I’m one of Michigan’s top three calls, I’m listening to that call.”

It would be a very expensive move to try and hire Campbell away from Penn State. He has a deal worth about $70.5 million there and will have a base salary of $8 million next season. That makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country. So, beyond that salary, Michigan would have to buy him out of that deal.

Coaches have left for a new job after signing with a new school. Manny Diaz famously did it when landing at Temple before leaving Miami. However, doing it with two conference rivals would be much less precedented.