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Report: Jim Harbaugh In 'Striking Distance' Of Leaving Michigan For Chargers Job · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to buck Eyes Tomorrow Morning for Wednesday, January twenty fourth. I'm your
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  host, Tom Moore. The Akron game is in two hundred and twenty days.
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  The game gets Michigan in three hundred and eleven days. Who will be
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  the head coach for Michigan when the Wolverines come down to Columbus at three hundred
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  and eleven days. Well, that's a little bit of a question. At
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  this moment, Jim Harbaugh may be closer to leaving Michigan for the NFL than
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  he has been at any point in the last couple off seasons, and he's
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  been sort of close to doing that for the last couple of years now.
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  This is one of these morning shows where I'm going to record it with the
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  recording on one tab and Twitter on the other, because you never know when
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  news might just break. I'm joined by Kevin noon if bucke Huddle dot Com.
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  Kevin, there was a report from the NFL network that Jim Harbaugh and
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  the Los Angeles Chargers are in quote striking distance of a deal. I know
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  we've kind of been on Harbaugh to the NFL watch for several off seasons.
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  Now, this does feel like it might be about to get real for the
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  folks up in Ann Arbor. Is this more real than the time that he
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  thought he was going to Minnesota and pretty much told everybody that he was going
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  to Minnesota and sat by the phone and waited and waited and never got that
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  call. I tend to think this one is more mutual. I think it's
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  further down the line. Started hearing some stuff on Monday night that things were
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  trending right. Nothing that we heard on Tuesday really dissuaded me from any of
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  that. So it appears that this could be the case. But I thought
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  he was signing an extension with Michigan, so I don't know. Maybe he
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  did not get the types of assurances that he wanted there, But we know
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  that his end game is to get back to the league. And there are
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  a lot of upsides to the Charger situation. A lot of times jobs come
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  vacant because you know, it's just a disaster, the Chargers not as big
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  of a disaster as some other places, and it'll be put up or shut
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  up time for him, and this will probably shut up a lot of people
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  north of Toledo as well. Well. And he has actually I think he
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  played with the Chargers briefly, but he actually coached at the University of San
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  Diego, not San Diego State. That was where Brady Hope coached the University
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  of San Diego. That's where he was before he went to Stanford way back
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  when. So this would not be a brand new thing from Jim Harbaugh to
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  be coaching in San Diego. The Chargers are in Los Angeles. They're not
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  in San Diego. My friend old man anyway, the formerly San Diego Chargers.
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  I was talking about southern California. Kevin. You know it's fine.
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  I'm from there. I know the differences. I followed the NFL very closely.
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  Anyway, The point is Kevin the Chargers. This is from Jonathan Jones
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  from CBS Sports. He's one of the NFL insiders for CBS Sports, and
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  this is this is one of the things where when you've been following these coaching
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  searches for a while, you learn to click on the sources to make sure
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  it's not you know, Jonathan with a zero instead of an O, or
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  you know that it's not a parody account that it's not or whatever. This
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  is one that's followed by a bunch of people. I know, followed by
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  Pete Thammell. Okay, so this is probably a legitimate source. I said
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  the Chargers have interview fifteen candidates. Harbaugh is the only known second interview.
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  Chargers told one source they expected to issue second interview requests at some point later
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  this week, but that hasn't happened yet. So that's just a little more
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  confirmation that you know, this is this is a little further down the line
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  than you might think. Harbaugh is meeting in LA today with the Chargers.
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  If I just read that tweet first, I would have gotten the city correct.
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  That again from Jonathan Jones. Jim Harborough's meeting in LA today with the
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  Chargers, the Jones reports, quote he's been the leading candidate there from some
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  time. Should he make the jump back to the NFL, I would expect
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  Michigan d C Jesse Minter to join him. Quote. Now this is where
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  things start getting a little more dicey for Michigan, because I think you could
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  if you just took Jim Harbaugh off the Michigan staff and said you just slides
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  you're on more in there to be head coach, and you bring in someone
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  else to be the offensive coordinator and you keep the rest of the staff together.
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  I think that's one conversation. Now, when you start pulling other members
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  off the staff, especially someone like jesse Minder who's been so integral to their
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  success, that's where this then starts to become I think a bigger issue for
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  Michigan where you're not just replacing one guy, you might be replacing a decent
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  chunk of your staff at that point, right. I've also read reports that
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  Jay Harbaugh could be following as well, but I don't really see a scenario
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  where jesse Minner was going to be back anyway, because former Michigan DC Mike
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  McDonald is getting mentioned for a lot of jobs. And even if let's just
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  say that happens and he goes off somewhere else, the loaner program with John
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  Harbaugh would be over and jesse Minner would probably go to Baltimore to be the
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  DC there. So you know, if Jim is able to take him,
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  that's a huge get for him if that ends up being the situation. But
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  you're right when a coach leaves to take a new job, especially something that
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  may be viewed as a quote unquote a step up, whether or not you
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  believe that going to the league is a step up. They're just two very
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  different products, two very different cultures and lifestyles of how those jobs work out.
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  You see departures happen in that instance, and that's just part of it.
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  I mean, if you see like an assistant coach leave, I mean
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  he may take lower level staff people with him to give them an opportunity to
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  be higher level staff people. But this is, you know, this is
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  a different situation. It's not going to help anybody's cause that Michigan lost the
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  vast majority of its twenty twenty three team, and then if it loses its
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  head coach, who missed six games in twenty three anyway, and loses its
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  DC and let's be honest, the identity of that team more defensive than offensive.
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  Charon Moore could be in for a rude awakening if that is the next
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  step, and everybody believes that would be the next step, even though there
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  is still the rumor out there that Michigan could kick the tires on one time
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  Notre Dame coach current LSU coach Brian Kelly, which at least at that point,
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  Brian Kelly could restock that coaching staff with his coaching tree versus what's what
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  remains of Jim Harbaughs. Well, and that's sort of an interesting conversation.
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  And I'm going to guess we will do a live, breaking new show where
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  we will probably take a much deeper dive on a lot of this stuff.
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  But you know, you've got a couple very different. That's a real fork
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  in the road moment. Do you want to try and keep as many of
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  your current guys on staff and do it as a charaon more thing with sort
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  of the understanding that Sharon Moore has already served a one game self imposed suspension
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  last year for the first round of NCAA violations, that is the COVID violations
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  shorthanded as cheeseburgers by some folks in the media. Then you get the whole
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  looming second set of potential violations and notice of allegations that could be coming in
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  the coming months, which is the Connor Stallion's affair with all of the related
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  issues surrounding that. So do you want to try and keep the band together
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  as much as possible and try and ride that out. That has sort of
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  been the modus operandi in Michigan so far through That is you know, you
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  just sort of quote tweet whatever and say bet and then you kind of just
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  try and grit your teeth and get through it. And it worked out for
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  them, they got their national championship. But is that what are they going
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  to keep going down that road or are they going to try and go a
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  different way with Brian Kelly, who then brings in his own staff. But
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  how interested in Brian Kelly going to be with all of whatever is looming in
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  the future NC DOUBLEA wise, So that's all kind of an interesting Its going
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  to be an interesting decision, and we'll have to see how Santa Onno and
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  Ward Manual and the rest of the Michigan leadership decide to play that one.
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  If and when Harbaugh does officially leave. Then the other question is, we
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  have seen what happened to the Alabama football program in the days after the departure
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  of Nick Saban. What is that going to look like for Michigan. Is
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  Michigan to be able to retain what's left of its roster or is Michigan going
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  to start getting picked at like Alabama has? You know, and this is
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  for a team that is just over two weeks removed from winning its first outright
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  national championship since nineteen forty eight. This is a really potentially tenuous time for
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  the future of the Michigan football program. Yeah, it's it really is a
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  tenuous time for Michigan of where they stand on things. Nobody nobody's talking about
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  them in terms of what their on field product is. You get about two
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  days of of bounce and then Nick Saban retires and then you know, all
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  hell breaks loose out there and nobody's talking about them except for now now of
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  the potential of losing their coach. And to get back to the earlier point
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  first, before we get into roster management, I think that's Santa Ono into
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  a lesser extent war manual. Have to really come to a decision of Okay,
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  we had to ride with this staff because you can't change the engines at
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  thirty five thousand feet, you're just where you are. But do they try
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  to save themselves by saying, Okay, we're just going to gut it and
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  start over with another coach, be it Brian Kelly or somebody else. Oh,
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  we learned this new information that maybe all these allegations that we were saying
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  were not true. There's a shred of truth to them and they make a
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  move. So I don't know as for the second part with the roster management,
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  what is really on the Michigan roster right now? There are some talented
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  guys, I mean, Will Johnson could go anywhere in the nation, and
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  they've got some other guys that are our will be back whether or not they're
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  going to be third year players. Not a lot of guys that had NFL
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  decisions that are that are that are coming back. But yeah, it'll be
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  interesting to see what happens there. I don't see Ohio State necessarily being a
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  player there. The you know, the the the borings to Ohio State is
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  the outlier and certainly not the rule. There's just certain Hatfield and McCoy moments
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  that you don't cross over all that much. But uh, but yeah,
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  Alabama was kind of the textbook of showing what happens with uh with a with
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  a late juke in your in your plans and you know this is you know,
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  Michigan could think that they have all of the continuation plans, all the
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  secession plans in in order, but that's not necessarily going to change anything.
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  If these if these kids, if these players are like well, let's see,
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  I stayed to ride or die with Harbaugh. We won the title.
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  I can't go to the league yet, probably going to get probably not going
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  to have X, Y and Z. I'm getting out of here. So
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  we could we could see, we could see a major change in fortunes for
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  Michigan at that point. And even that's up for debate of what people think
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  twenty twenty for Michigan could look like because of just everything that it had lost.
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  Yeah, you go through their roster and it's there's a lot more guys
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  on the departing side of the ledger than the returning in terms of people who's
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  you know, names the casual fan would recognize. For sure, there are
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  definitely some, definitely some significant, significant names back there. I'm sure I
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  am guessing Colston Loveland would not particularly be inclined to jump to Ohio State,
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  but I'm sure Ohio State would be interested in Coulston Loveland if Coulston Loveland was
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  interested in jumping to Ohio State. As you said, really not expecting that
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  to be the case. But you know, Ohio State is not the only
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  talent the only program in the country that would be interested in adding a tight
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  end, a you know, offensive lineman, a defensive tackle. Michigan's got
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  some talented defensive tackles coming back Will Johnson. As you said, I mean,
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  there's a lot of a lot of very very talented players on that Michigan
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  team who, if the portal ends up opening, are going to have probably
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  some of the same kind of back channel communications that some of the Alabama players
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  have had and the Washington players have had and everyone else who's sort of been
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  a part of this post season coaching change cycle. So there's gonna be a
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  lot to talk about involving the Michigan program in the coming hours slash days.
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  I just sort of nervously checked Twitter again. Nope, no news yet.
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  We'll keep an eye on that, and if and when Jim Harbaugh news breaks,
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  will hop on. We're just we're planning to have an emergency live show
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  whenever that does. If and when it does happen, as boy, there's
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  going to be a lot of implications for Ohio State, for Michigan, for
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  the rest of the Big Ten, and for the rest of college football if
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  and when that news does break. So what you're going to want to do
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  is, first of all, you're going to want to hit the thumbs up
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  on this video. Second of all, you're going to want to make sure
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  you're subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash bucke Huddle. And
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  then third of all, you're gonna want to make sure you hit that bell
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  so you get notified when we do live shows. If you have not hit
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  the bell in a while, make sure you hit it again. Make sure
• 13:07
  you are really getting notified when we do live shows because there may be some
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  breaking news on that front. There may be some breaking news on some recruiting
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  fronts for Ohio State. Several very very big name players who may be committing
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  in the coming days slash weeks. Who knows what the transfer portal. You
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  may have news there as well. Winter workouts have started. It is already
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  we're in mid season form and it is not even late January yet. It's
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  kind of almost late January, So make sure you check us out at buckey
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  Huddle dot com. Kevin Tony and I covering the team, mark covering recruiting.
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  Our whole team effect is in those gurus making you a smarter football fan
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  all at Buckeye Huddle dot com. We hope to see you there We hopefully
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  will see you here at YouTube dot com slash Buckey Huddle whenever we have our
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  next live show, which oh could be any minute now. Thank you guys
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  for joining us on a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow