Michigan football: 'Never say never,' but Mike Hart happy coaching college over NFL

Michigan Wolverines football running backs coach Mike Hart reportedly received interest from the NFL last offseason, but he remained at U-M and was promoted to run game coordinator. Overall, it appears Hart is more than happy at his alma mater in which he’s the program’s all-time leading rusher.

“I did? Who told you that? People you know?” a smiling Hart questioned a reporter who stated he had NFL overtures, before telling him to continue asking.

“I would tell everybody this, every recruit, you never say never with anything. But at the end of the day, I coach for a reason. I coach because coaches like [former Michigan head man] Lloyd [Carr] changed my life, like [former U-M running backs coach and current analyst] Fred Jackson changed my life, and I love working with 18 to 23-year olds. You can impact them, you can change them, to become better husbands, better fathers, better sons. And that’s why I coach.

“I don’t coach to be in the NFL. I coach because I like changing these kids’ lives. My life would be on a whole different track if I didn’t play football, if I didn’t have the male figures in my life that I did — and that’s why I love college football.”

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Hart began coaching in the MAC, moved his way up to Syracuse, then Indiana, before returning to Michigan under head coach Jim Harbaugh. He’s steadily climbed the ranks, and there are surely other steps to be taken, but Hart says those are likely in college, where he prefers to be.

“Again, I would never say never, right? I could get fired next year — you never know — but at the end of the day, the reason I coach is because I like changing young men’s lives, and I think I can make a bigger impact for this age than I can for different ages,” he explained.

The Michigan assistant doesn’t seem to be very discouraged by the changing landscape of college athletics, either. In fact, he’s motivated to help guide his players through the sometimes murky waters that come with NIL and other novel aspects of sports.

“NIL and stuff like that, it is what it is,” Hart said. “Shoot, I wish I would’ve gotten NIL money when I was playing. There are a lot of 20 jerseys out there.

“I think they deserve it, it’s good, but again, that, to me, is an impact I can have now. It’s like, these kids have money. How do you handle your money? What do you do with your money? What do you do with these things? To me, that’s what coaching is. It’s not just A’s, B’s and C’s, playing Hawaii, playing all these teams. At the end of the day, how can I change their life, how can I help them change their life, how can I impact them off the field? And that’s what I love about college football.

“To me, it’s what I’ve done anyways, it’s just more clear now. It’s like, hey, you’ve gotta pay taxes at the end of the year. This money’s not free, and those types of things. That’s honestly why I do it, and that’s what I enjoy.”

Hart likely would’ve cashed in big if he could’ve profited off his NIL during his Michigan playing days from 2004-07. He joked about hoping to receive some of that money retroactively.

“I’m trying to get The M Den to pay me back a little bit,” Hart joked. “I’m here standing here right now because I came here. Times change, things change, but the reason my kids can have what they have now is because I went to this school. The rules were the rules then, the rules now are what the rules are now.”

It takes a ‘special kid’ to thrive as Michigan running back

Michigan has a strong running back room, led by Hart, who’s taken some heat for his recruiting, with fans concerned that the caliber of the position group could decrease going forward. The 2022 class — Hart’s first full cycle as part of the Wolverines’ staff — was the first time U-M didn’t land at least one four-star running back since all the way back in 2014, before Harbaugh took over the program.

Hart is doing things his own way, but he’s already proving to be successful at Michigan, with freshman CJ Stokes, a 2022 signee who arrived in June, being one of the season’s pleasant surprises.

“I started coaching in the MAC, and I couldn’t recruit five-star,” Hart explained. “There are good players, good kids. My thing is, who I am as a person, you want guys like that, in my opinion, because they have to fit with me, they have to work with me.”

Mentality is a huge part of the position, the Michigan assistant believes.

“And there are kids that, they don’t fit. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but it takes a special kid to come to Michigan, is what I tell every Michigan running back,” Hart said. “You’re [in front of] 110,000 [fans], the good, the bad, the Twitter, the Instagram, all these different things — and you have to be special.

“You have to be mentally strong, and it’s just those things I believe in that make a good running back, your personality has to be different to be a good running back here. Everyone can’t do it. Those are the kids you see that come and they transfer in a year, because they’re just not mentally strong enough. We’re going to have good backs here; it’s going to be competition every year to get on the field.

“You look at Donovan Edwards last year — five-star kid, the highest recruit at running back at Michigan in a long, long time, but he didn’t play that much. So, if that kid was mentally weak, he would’ve transferred. So, we need kids who believe in who they are, who know how good they are, and who want to stay here. You guys know how that saying goes, right?

“That’s just who I am. That’s what Lloyd taught me, that’s what Bo taught everybody. It’s who we are, and I believe to be great you have to want to be great, you have to know you’re great, and you have to want to compete.”