Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines’ self-imposed suspension of him for the first three games over possible recruiting violations has offered his assistant coaching team an opportunity. Each could fill in the head coach’s shoes. But only one of the four would make history with his short tenure as head coach on the field, former player and current running backs coach Mike Hart.
In his third season as running backs coach at the University of Michigan in 2023, Hart is in his second season as the program’s run game coordinator. During the second-week home game against UNLV, Harbaugh had his son and special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh lead in the first half, followed by Hart in the second half of the 35-7 blowout win.
From The Hart
“Being that this is my university, I played here, this place changed my life, and to have that opportunity to say I was the first African American head (football) coach here is huge,” said Hart to the media after the Sept. 9 game.
Before coaching, Hart was a four-year starter at running back for the Wolverines between 2004-2007. He set the school record with 5,040 yards on 1,015 carries and 41 rushing touchdowns and holds the Michigan record with 28 career 100-yard rushing games. In addition, his 117.2 rushing yards per contest are the tops in school history per his Wolverines bio.
The Indianapolis Colts selected Hart in the sixth round of the 2008 NFL draft, and Hart played three seasons for the Colts, although primarily in a backup role. Hart was a member of the Colts’ Super Bowl XLIV team and had two carries in the loss to the New Orleans Saints.
“I had the opportunity to play for Tony Dungy, I had the chance to play for Jim Caldwell, and my first coaching job was with Ron English at Eastern Michigan,” Hart continued. “We have an athletic director in Warde Manuel who is African-American, and I’ve had a close relationship (with him) since he’s been here.
“So, I just had a lot of great coaches who are African-American that I’ve had a chance to look up to and just really let me know that it can happen. Hopefully, we will see more African-American coaches in college football as we need more, and hopefully, I will be one of those one day.”
Give Hart A Whole Chance
Michigan picked a different interim coach for each of the three games Harbaugh was suspended for. In the first game, a 30-3 win over East Carolina on Week One, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter held it down as the HC. This weekend, offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore will be the HC against Bowling Green on Sept. 16.
With Minter and Moore not splitting the game with another coach, Hart’s short HC stint was shared. As a former standout player for the team who was an associate head coach for the Indiana Hoosiers in 2020, his history-making time as the Wolverines’ first Black head coach was brief and mildly impactful.
It is a footnote in history that hopefully gets Hart closer to his collegiate head coaching dream, but giving him just half of a blowout game that he had to share with Jim Harbaugh’s son doesn’t feel like enough.
