The remaking of the Michigan football program began in, of all places, Columbus, Ohio.
Interim athletic director Jim Hackett, on the job just under a month, was in the area for the Michigan-Ohio State football game Nov. 29 and arrived a few days earlier to visit relatives.
Instead of engaging his family and friends, he spent significant time alone, eventually deciding to fire then-coach Brady Hoke, ending what he called the era of experimentation.
"What did the institution need?" Hackett said Friday in an extended interview on the "Huge Show" radio program. "I came away thinking, UM can't afford to experiment more. If you look at the last seven years starting with Rich Rod's arrival – Brady had a good year in there, but there was a seven-year period where it felt like these were experiments, we weren't sure were going to turn out. So there was a gradual decay of 'something' because of that. You can call that fan support, you can call that winning, you can call it enthusiasm for Michigan's history. This is the winningest program ever in this sport and it carried the day for a long time. It certainly wasn't behaving that way now, though.
"The final junction of this weekend, that Sunday night I called the president (Mark Schlissel) and told him that I don't think we can experiment anymore. That's the thing that led me to thinking about the next candidate. If there's someone at an upstart program that has great promise and is very young, probably wouldn't cost as much. I didn't think Michigan could take that risk."
"(Jim) was willing to consider Michigan if he could get comfortable that Brady had been taken care of and wanted to make sure I didn't do something rash," Hackett said. "We started to talk about the program in ways. Now, as I'm experiencing what he's doing, I'm really glad we started there."
Comparing it to courting his wife, Hackett said, "That's what I wanted. I wanted to know him at a much more intimate level before I took the next step."
There were similar conversations occurring with other candidates, not to string them along but to have a relationship if they became Hackett's choice. This was important given he had not offered or specifically discussed the open job and future with Harbaugh.
Hackett knew that if Harbaugh or the other NFL or candidates coaching in major bowls were restricted by their timeline, he would have to make a decision. With Harbaugh, he figured he would at least need a promise and expectation with his word for U-M to wait through a possible playoff run.
But it was never verbalized to Harbaugh because it didn't have to be. The 49ers were eliminated from playoff contention with a Dec. 14 loss to the Seattle Seahawks and the wheels were quickly in motion.
"The minute we learned the 49ers weren't going to make it, I called their organization and said I would like to talk to him," Hackett said of reaching out to 49ers owner Jed York. "There's a gentleman's decorum in this sport. I like it … Jed said, 'I don't mind if you talk to him, but I'd like to talk to him first.' Once those traps had been cleared, so to speak, I had these discussions about Michigan. I had not talked to Jim about the job. Once I got Jed's OK, then we started more serious negotiations. Up until knowing the playoff (situation), there was no offer, there was no financials. It was just two people."
Hackett began to move in other areas as well.
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He approached the U-M Board of Regents and Schlissel about the money necessary to land a high-level coach, though he didn't specifically say it would be Harbaugh. He figured they had a good idea when he told them "the kind of people we were after."
From there the sides kept coming together, already with a bond built before an offer was there.
According to Hackett, even though the financial figures were being traded back and forth between the sides, Harbaugh refused to agree to any deal until the 49ers' season was officially over.
Yet as he was in the locker room following the final game against Arizona on Dec. 28, the deal was being exchanged.
Hackett got a bit concerned with the actual contract as they reached the final days.
"We had this comical thing, where I was flying back from California – another part where I was doing something else -- I can't get my computer to work on the airplane," he said. "I get to the hotel and they don't have .pdf software on their business computer. It was a disaster. I'm trying to get in front of him my signed document that I've agreed to. The great news about that, the iPhone, I was able to take a picture of the contract and text it to one of his colleagues that was helping. After that last game … he signs the deal Monday and gets on a plane to come to the press conference."
Even that Monday (Dec. 29), though Hackett was confident, he also understood it wasn't done until signed.
He knew that Monday other NFL teams were officially allowed to talk to Harbaugh and feared someone making a massive contract offer that could sway Harbaugh.
But his confidence in the deal came from a few areas – Harbaugh's honor that he had seen, Harbaugh's insistence that he did not want to be college football's highest-paid coach and that Hackett had been the one pushing the ball forward with Harbaugh during the conversations, initially telling him that he needed to decide on college vs. the pros before getting deep into the Michigan decision. So he believed that had already been decided in Harbaugh's mind.
It's a mind that fascinates Hackett, who has dealt with business titans and still sees Harbaugh as unique.
"One of the things I learned about him and love about him is this is a very cerebral guy," Hackett said. "He doesn't talk in anecdotes. He's not passive about wanting to understand things. He slows things down in a way that makes the intensity go up. He really understands every nook and cranny of something, he has an amazing skill to focus. I don't know Tiger Woods, but I hear he has that skill. I don't know the famous downhill skiers, but I hear the best people in sport are like this … competitors."
From Day 1, Hackett apparently had a plan, one that he believed in and was finally validated when the hiring occurred.
"A famous broadcaster that the world would recognize, who's not on sports anymore, said to me, 'You didn't get a great coach, you got the best coach in football today,' " Hackett said. "When he told me that, I had to decide whether to land on this seven-year deal and when I heard that, (I thought) that's what I need to know.
"We're not taking the risk of an experiment here."
