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University of Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh is leaving his alma mater to accept the same position with the Los Angeles Chargers, sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to ESPN's Adam Schefter.
The move comes weeks after Harbaugh, a former Michigan quarterback, led the Wolverines to a College Football Playoff National Championship.
"Breaking: Jim Harbaugh is leaving Michigan to accept the head coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers, sources tell ESPN. The Chargers get their man while the national champions now have a head-coach opening," Schefter wrote on his X account Wednesday (January 24) evening.
Harbaugh, who coached the San Francisco 49ers from 2011 to 2014 and made the playoffs during his first three seasons, recently retained agent Don Yee, best known for representing seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and is reported to have interest from multiple NFL teams with coaching vacancies, Rapoport reported this earlier this month.
Michigan's national championship follows an undefeated regular season that began and ended with the coach serving multiple suspensions.
Harbaugh served a self-imposed three-game suspension for "severe breach of conduct," for allegedly misleading investigators during a probe into accusations that he had improper contact with a recruit, which escalated his actions from a level 2 violation, which is deemed a "significant breach of conduct," according to NCAA guidelines. The former Michigan quarterback was later suspended for the team's last three games in relation to an alleged sign-stealing scheme conducted by former staffer Connor Stallions, though the Big Ten claimed there was no evidence found that directly implicated Harbaugh.