What they're saying about Jim Harbaugh's return to Michigan

Jim Harbaugh’s potential return to the NFL was put to rest this week after the Minnesota Vikings elected to go in another direction. That means Michigan football gets its head coach back, presumably for the long-term with a new contract on the table.

Here is a sampling of takeaways, what happened and more from both sides of the Vikings and Michigan media landscapes.

RELATED: Jim Harbaugh tells his side of the story from crazy week, return to Michigan

Anthony Broome, The Wolverine: Why the latest dance with uncertainty can’t happen again

There are plenty of fans that are turned off by what took place this week and over the last several. They are entitled to that. Ultimately, this will disappear if Harbaugh keeps winning at Michigan. The Wolverines have a tremendous young core that they are excited about moving forward. This was not a Cinderella campaign that was an open-and-shut storybook season. At least, it does not have to be. Winning Big Ten Championships and getting to the playoff should always be the goal at Michigan. They will keep building towards that. However, it is going to take some time to dissipate the optics that Michigan was Harbaugh’s second choice.

The quickest path is to stay on the right side of the win-loss column.

The attention turns back to building for 2022. There is a lot that needs to be sorted out, but Michigan moves forward. It is just going to feel a little weird for a bit around these parts.

Michigan fans can take solace in its Big Ten Championship-winning program getting its head coach and staff back. That should be enough to carry people through the offseason. When the toe meets leather when the season starts, it is time to figure out a way to do it again.

Tim Verghese, The Wolverine: Notes: Harbaugh thoughts and recruiting tidbits

In regards to recruiting, Harbaugh staying is the best possible outcome all things considered. Michigan lost some momentum from the 2021 season because of the rumors surrounding Harbaugh’s status over the last month and even with Harbaugh returning, it’s impossible to regain all of that momentum in an offseason. A sentiment I’ve heard from recruits recently has been that coaching stability is a key factor in their decision and coming out of December, recruits, coaches and parents assumed was that Michigan would offer them that stability. This last month has destroyed that image in recruits’ minds and Harbaugh will have to prove one way or another that he’s going to be in Ann Arbor for the foreseeable future.

Michigan has a chance to regroup and adjust their recruiting pitch to best spin this whole situation as we’re in an NCAA-mandated dead period this month. How the staff attacks recruiting in March will be fascinating. In the meantime, I have no doubts Harbaugh and the staff will be working the phones the next few weeks to get momentum rolling in Michigan’s favor. A public commitment by a 2023 recruit (looking at you Cole Cabana) would be a good start in getting things moving in the right direction again.

Chad Graff and Jon Krawczynski, The Athletic: An inside look at a shocking day amid the Vikings’ coaching search

At first, the interview seemed like it was going well. Harbaugh saw the Vikings’ gleaming new practice facility and the team started to see some of the coach’s most redeeming qualities.

A buzz reverberated through the building. Is this really happening? Are we really going to hire Jim Harbaugh?

Harbaugh started to feel it, too. He left Ann Arbor believing he was not coming back, and as the process got rolling, it started to look like he would be in Minnesota to stay.

But the Vikings had some hard questions to ask. They wanted to know more about his style and ability to work with others. They wanted to know more about how things ended with the 49ers. And they wanted to hear his vision for leading this team back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1977.

Sometime around 3 p.m., for reasons that are not exactly clear, things started to take a left turn. The tenor started to change, and if there was any momentum at Harbaugh’s back as he tried to secure the job, it disappeared.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. CT, ESPN first reported that Harbaugh called Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel to tell him he was coming back to the Wolverines for the 2022 season and beyond.

The reason had nothing to do with money or a contract because the Vikings did not offer Harbaugh the job, sources said. There do not appear to be any hard feelings on either side — just a realization that this was not the right fit.

ESPN’s Courtney Cronin weighed in on the Harbaugh saga

My read on the Harbaugh/Vikings situation in speaking with sources: Harbaugh was in the mix for the Minnesota job because of his connection to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. He operated under the assumption that the job was his and prepared for the interview as such. The Vikings saw this very differently and not as a ‘slam dunk’ as a source put it to me, the way they felt Harbaugh viewed the situation coming into Wed. There was no offer extended. This isn’t necessarily a matter of who said no to who, but 2 sides that did not align on the nature of what the in-person meeting was all about. The Vikings brought Harbaugh into Minnesota to interview, just like they did with Pat Graham on Tues. Followed the same format and everything.

Nick Baumgardner, The Athletic: Jim Harbaugh’s return is good for Michigan football — but only if the dramatics stop

This could be terrific news for the Wolverines in 2022. Michigan lost defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald to the Baltimore Ravens, but it now has a chance to retain the core of what was an outstanding staff built by Harbaugh before last season. Many of those coaches did outstanding work in new, first-time roles last year, helping pick Michigan’s program up off the mat and put it back in a trophy case that matters. That same staff also worked to keep Michigan’s 2022 recruiting class completely intact during Harbaugh’s job hunt. Michigan will return a lot of talent, notably on offense, next season. The defending Big Ten champions will have to make adjustments, but they should have enough ammo to contend again.

The man leading that charge a year ago, of course, was Jim Harbaugh. He hired every one of those coaches. He took chances on guys before many others thought they were ready and was proven right in the end. When you strip away all the drama, all the nonsense and everything that makes people want to pull their hair out — Jim Harbaugh football, when all parties are rowing in the same direction, is a very good thing for the University of Michigan.

If everyone has now decided to stay in the boat together, those paddles need to start hitting the water in unison. Administration and head coach. Because if what we just witnessed ever repeats itself with Harbaugh again, Michigan’s conversation about its football coach may need to take a different tone.

Michigan football can have everything it wants with Harbaugh in charge. But the self-inflicted stuff, the drama, the cryptic messaging and the palace intrigue … it’s played.

And no one’s interested in an encore.

Bob Wojnowski, The Detroit News: Harbaugh is back at UM, and it makes sense for all parties

Jim Harbaugh took a look, as he said he would, and the Vikings looked too. Whatever they saw in each other wasn’t enough to make a fit, and the conclusion may have stunned some.

It probably shouldn’t. Harbaugh will be back at Michigan, and the truth is, it likely worked out best for both sides. Michigan needed to know definitively and quickly, and he announced it Wednesday night, the same day he interviewed in Minnesota. The Vikings needed a stabilizing coach for a new regime, and perhaps found Harbaugh’s unpredictability or peculiarity (or price), more than they wanted to handle.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who spurned who, or if it was simply a mutual exploration. Harbaugh got the NFL dalliance out of his system for now, although you can never say forever. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Harbaugh told AD Warde Manuel “this would not be a re-occurring issue and he would stay at Michigan as long as it wants him.”

It ended before it became a problem, and halted rising angst in Ann Arbor. Obviously, this can’t keep happening, and Manuel showed the requisite patience to let it unfold this time. So did most Michigan fans, although some surely wavered. Now Harbaugh has to show renewed commitment and determination, and if he proves last season’s 12-2 championship run wasn’t an outlier, all will be forgotten.

Angelique Chengelis, The Detroit News: With Jim Harbaugh staying put, what happens now?

Q. So, now what? (That’s it — that’s the question) — @Ryan_J_Lewis

A. Ryan, there are plenty of layers to this, but let’s focus on two. Now what for the players? There is zero doubt in my mind Harbaugh has some work to do here, and it absolutely needs to be his first order of business. Trust is a big thing in any relationship and that holds true for head coaches and players. Yes, Harbaugh was forthcoming when players and recruits asked about his NFL interest. But this dragged on for nearly five weeks when the glow should have been on the players and their 12-2 season.

It must have been confusing, too, for the players to see Harbaugh in the office, business as usual, until the moment he left for his Vikings interview. For the fans, some are elated Harbaugh will be coaching in 2022, while others feel the limbo of the last month-plus of waiting for his next move have tarnished their opinions of him. Harbaugh had seemingly generated a great deal of goodwill this past season. He will have to work to get that back. How? Don’t know. 

John Niyo, The Detroit News: If Jim Harbaugh is back at Michigan for good, he’d better prove it

Given his track record, and the season Michigan just enjoyed — with a rejuvenated Harbaugh leading the Wolverines to a 12-2 record, a Big Ten championship and a berth in the College Football Playoff — there’s no reason to expect anything different, of course. That’s the way Harbaugh has always operated, quite frankly.

But all the same, this latest dalliance with the NFL — and not just the optics of it all, culminating with a lengthy job interview in the Twin Cities on National Signing Day — has left some constituents in Ann Arbor feeling a bit unenthused, and understandably so. That includes some of his coaches and players, not to mention university administrators and alumni and many of those former players that should be the lifeblood of a tradition-rich program like Michigan.

So it’ll be up to Harbaugh to mend some of those fences in the coming weeks and months, both in words and deeds.