At this point, it appears Michigan football is weighing two candidates: Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer and Arizona State’s Kenny Dillingham. Yes, other coaches across college football appear to be under consideration, including Washington’s Jedd Fisch and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea. Former Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who is now with the LA Chargers, has also been mentioned frequently. However, most of the smoke seems to center around DeBoer and Dillingham.
And they could not be in more different positions.
DeBoer is coaching the Crimson Tide in the first round of the College Football Playoff on Friday. He has already denied he’s interested in talking about any job other than the one he has. That hasn’t stopped the speculation in and around Ann Arbor. Dillingham, an ASU alumnus, appears much more open to leaving Tempe. If Michigan offered, it feels like he could accept. With DeBoer, if feels as if he would likely have to lose on Friday against Oklahoma in order to end up in Ann Arbor.
On Tuesday, ESPN had a roundtable of Pete Thamel (who is not exactly a Michigan fan favorite due to his coverage of the Connor Stalions saga), Dan Wetzel and Rece Davis. They discussed the opening and where the search might stand.
Thamel set the stage rather accurately, from what we’ve heard, about the timeline and where the Wolverines appear to stand.
“Well, Michigan right now, Rece, is in the throes of a coaching search — one of the most compelling coaching searches I think I’ve covered in my whole career,” Thamel said. “They are a program that hit an apex in 2023, and in trying to recreate that, were decent but not great. Sherrone Moore was never able to resuscitate Michigan to those highs, and really Michigan hadn’t been at those highs in a generation. And then, obviously, the fall of Sherrone Moore was swift, sudden, and just generally shocking in the way it unfolded.
“And here’s Michigan, this proud program that’s kind of re-found itself, throughout the three straight Big Ten titles under Harbaugh, trying to hit reset and revive that caliber of success. They’re doing it essentially at the very tail end of what will be remembered as the busiest coaching carousel in modern college football. And they’re not in a particular hurry, I would say. We’re sitting here on Tuesday morning. They are set to begin Zoom calls, just introductory, like their first interviews with candidates this week. I’d expect five or six of those. I would not expect anything by the end of the week for certain, which obviously leads to some compelling drama if Alabama does end up losing its game on Friday night.
“Kalen DeBoer has, both in a statement and behind a microphone, pledged his fidelity to Alabama. I would be curious how convinced you guys were of those pledges. And from there, we have what we would call, like, the list for Penn State, right? Like, very good coaches who have had a lot of success here. Jeff Brohm, Eli Drinkwitz, Jedd Fisch, Kenny Dillingham, that caliber of list — I’m forgetting one. Oh, Clark Lea. And, that’s not a definitive list, but it’s that category of coaches. Very good coaches. Honestly, you could make a good argument for all of them.
“I think they are a bit of a muddled group right now in the eyes of Michigan. And, we’ll probably, a week from today, have a new coach at Michigan.”
Wetzel, for one, isn’t buying DeBoer’s Sunday statement and comment on Monday about remaining in Tuscaloosa. While he does agree that his focus is on the game this Friday, a loss could put him up north, Wetzel implies.
“I mean, the big drama is DeBoer, right?” Wetzel said. “Obviously, we’ve had statements. We had a, ‘Yes, I’ll coach Alabama next year.’ I recall Nick Saban saying, ‘I will not be the coach of Alabama,’ once. So I’m not saying anybody isn’t being honest. I like to wait to see at the end, whether all of the statements and stuff come out true or not.
“I do believe Kalen DeBoer is focused on trying to win the game, which, if he beats Oklahoma, makes it almost impossible for him to end up being Michigan’s coach. He would then coach New Year’s Day. I don’t think the Wolverines would wait that long. It just would be too much. So I don’t know. And I don’t know that he’ll even talk to them, even if he loses. But if he loses, it may change the mood of whether you want to be in Alabama, too. That would be another — you would be going two straight years without a playoff victory, get in a fourth loss for the second straight time. So Kalen DeBoer drama adds to it.”
Davis, an Alabama alumnus, doesn’t agree with that sentiment. His take is that DeBoer doesn’t want to back down from the job he started, and that’s enough to keep him in the SEC compared to the Big Ten.
“I don’t think it’s going to be DeBoer. And I don’t think he’s going to talk to them,” Davis said. “And I’m going to tell you why. It is my understanding that when Kalen DeBoer went to Alabama that he was fully aware that the Michigan job was going to open. It did, in fact, open the time. He didn’t line up. Now, it is also accurate to say he would have had to say no to Alabama without the absolute guarantee that the Michigan job was going to open or that it would be his, though I believe that it would have been his had he waited for it. And perhaps in a vacuum, both jobs opened at the same time, given his disposition at that time. And maybe even if he were still at Washington and he were making that choice now, maybe he would choose Michigan.
“But I think one of the big reasons Kalen DeBoer took on the challenge of following Nick Saban, at least to some degree, is because of his hyper-competitiveness that people underestimate and the fact that he got so many warnings. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? Are you sure you can follow Nick Saban? Do you realize the pressure? Do you realize how mad the fans are going to get if you don’t go 14-0 or 15-0, whatever it takes now to win the game? Are you sure you can handle that? Oh, you’ve never been to the South. Could you do that? I don’t know if you could do that.’ I think it’s stuck in his craw.
“And if he left now, even if they lost to Oklahoma, because they’re not firing him. Nobody in that administration — that administration wants him there. They want him there, and they want to pay him to keep him. If he goes now, it looks like they were right. And you know what? They will be if he leaves for Michigan.
“Michigan is an unbelievable job. I’m not saying that. The resources, the billionaire in the NIL for as long as you can use that, all that stuff, fantastic. You can even make the argument that in some quarters this infuriates Big Ten fans, but until you get a little bit more of a few more programs into the upper echelon of the league, it’s easier to make the playoff. It just is. The teams at the top of the Big Ten have been better than the teams at the top of the SEC. The elite teams the last two or three years have been better than the top, but the middle is not. And it’s not nearly as deep. You can say what you want. It’s not. It’s not the same thing, but the top has been better. So in that regard, at this point in time, that may not be true two years from now, but right now it’s true. It’s easier to get through and get to the playoff there.
“It’s Michigan — winningest program in the history of the sport. Everybody understands the allure. Alabama’s got some allure, too, but I believe this will be more personal. I believe he won’t do it because it will be perceived as backing down. And for as nice a guy as Kalen DeBoer is, he does not like to back down, and I just don’t think he will. I mean, like I said, maybe after five years, maybe if this had come up at the same time two years ago, or if both jobs were available to him from Washington at the same time, maybe he chooses Michigan. I think at one point some close to him had said this was a dream job type thing for him, Michigan. Probably not thinking of Alabama at that time, or maybe just Michigan is the dream job. But I believe the perception of him backing away from the challenge will keep him in Alabama as much as anything. Now, I may be proven wrong, but I believe that will carry the day.”
