NFL insider provides major update on Jim Harbaugh’s pursuit of NFL job

Jim Harbaugh’s name has frequented NFL head coaching searches this offseason, leading to growing speculation that he might leave Michigan and return to the professional ranks.

According to a Monday morning report from ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, that possibility is looking more likely with each passing day, as Harbaugh outwardly expressed interest in the Minnesota Vikings vacancy.

“Jim Harbaugh conveyed legitimate interest in the Vikings’ head-coaching job during his interview with the team, per source, with Minnesota coming away feeling Harbaugh is ready for a return to the NFL,” Fowler said, via Twitter. “As of now, he’s still considered in the mix for that job.”

Harbaugh, 58, has not coached in the NFL since 2014, when he last served as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Since then, Harbaugh has spent the past seven seasons as head coach of the Michigan Wolverines.

Harbaugh is coming off by far and away his most successful season at Michigan, a year in which Michigan once ranked as high as No. 2 in the AP Top 25 poll and finished No. 3 in the AP Postseason Poll. He helped the Wolverines pull off their first victory over Ohio State since 2011, win the Big Ten Championship and clinch a College Football Playoff berth — the first in program history — while finishing with a 12-2 record. Harbaugh’s spectacular performance, which came in a year where he won AP Coach of the Year, came after an offseason full of skepticism, given that he had failed to win a bowl game in five years.

Before his arrival at Michigan, his alma mater, Harbaugh spent four years as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, his last and only NFL head coaching gig. He finished with a 44-19 overall record, never posting worse than a .500 record, and made the playoffs in three of his four seasons at the helm. In 2012, Harbaugh led the 49ers to a Super Bowl berth, where they lost to the Baltimore Ravens, led by his brother Jim Harbaugh.

Harbaugh held two other head coaching jobs in his coaching career. His first, from 2004-06, was at San Diego, and then he coached the Stanford Cardinal from 2007-10. Harbaugh amassed a 50-29 record in four years at Stanford, and he helped win an Orange Bowl following a 12-1 campaign in 2010, his final year with the program.

A product of Michigan, Harbaugh played in the NFL for several seasons before hanging up his cleats and quickly pivoting into the coaching world. His first coaching role was with the Oakland Raiders in 2002, where he served two seasons as the quarterbacks coach.