[Papa John]

Wasn't his compensation restructured to be more incentive based?
I don't remember the details, but recall thinking this as a reasonable and fair compromise to extend the Harbaugh project whilst appeasing the increasingly unhappy base.
Would Stanford/Shaw consider something similar? Seems like a reasonable compromise solution to me.

Harbaugh only had one more year left on his contract so the cost of dismissing him wasn't exorbitant, giving leverage to Michigan, which it exercised by cutting his guaranteed salary in half while providing him a chance to almost fully recoup via incentives.

True. Allowing Harbaugh to become a "lame duck" would have been a catastrophe for recruiting, so that wasn't an option. They had to either fire him or extend him. It must also be noted that the incentives only get him back to "even" with his previous base. He got no raise, which isn't a good sign. The other side of that coin was that Harbaugh was extended through 2025. Even at the 4M base the time period gave Harbaugh back a pretty good buyout and indicated some significant time period to perform. There was a real fear that 2021 would be as bad or worse than 2020. That also gave Michigan leverage for the pay cut. Fortunately for Harbaugh, he was able to completely turn that around. If he beats tOSU next year, I am pretty sure he could negotiate a new contract. If OTOH next year isn't so good, he is still safe. The incentive laden contract covers a lot of issues for both sides.

"There was a real fear that 2021 would be as bad or worse than 2020."

Really?  By whom?

When you consistently recruit at the level Harbaugh does, and when you are continually looking to upgrade/improve the coaching staff, I think the chances of a "bad or worse" record from a throw-away 2-4 season is almost non-existent.  I don't recall seeing anywhere a fear (let alone an expectation) that Michigan would go 4-8 in 2021.  C'mon now . . .   

Preseason B1G football rankings for Michigan
B1G Media: 4th out of 7 in the East
College Football News: 3rd in the East
Sports Illustrated: 7th out of 14 in the B1G
SBNation: 5th in the B1G
ESPN FPI: 7th in the B1G, 40th in the nation
USA Today (Myerberg): 6th in the B1G
Saturday Blitz: 7th in the B1G

From this perspective, a 4-8 prediction does seem extreme, especially since Penn State finished 4th in the East with a record of 4-5, 7-5. It's difficult to extrapolate the 7th best team in the B1G this year, but I think 5-4, 8-4 is reasonable. So the self-proclaimed experts in the media were predicting around a .500 conference record--and another loss to tOSU--and an overall winning record.

On the other hand, I don't read the Michigan fan boards, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the sky-is-falling crowd were expecting worse than the media predictions.

What's more interesting to me is that no one in the media was projecting anything close to what Harbaugh/Michigan accomplished this year.

[Papa John]

Wasn't his compensation restructured to be more incentive based?
I don't remember the details, but recall thinking this as a reasonable and fair compromise to extend the Harbaugh project whilst appeasing the increasingly unhappy base.
Would Stanford/Shaw consider something similar? Seems like a reasonable compromise solution to me.

Harbaugh only had one more year left on his contract so the cost of dismissing him wasn't exorbitant, giving leverage to Michigan, which it exercised by cutting his guaranteed salary in half while providing him a chance to almost fully recoup via incentives.

True. Allowing Harbaugh to become a "lame duck" would have been a catastrophe for recruiting, so that wasn't an option. They had to either fire him or extend him. It must also be noted that the incentives only get him back to "even" with his previous base. He got no raise, which isn't a good sign. The other side of that coin was that Harbaugh was extended through 2025. Even at the 4M base the time period gave Harbaugh back a pretty good buyout and indicated some significant time period to perform. There was a real fear that 2021 would be as bad or worse than 2020. That also gave Michigan leverage for the pay cut. Fortunately for Harbaugh, he was able to completely turn that around. If he beats tOSU next year, I am pretty sure he could negotiate a new contract. If OTOH next year isn't so good, he is still safe. The incentive laden contract covers a lot of issues for both sides.

"There was a real fear that 2021 would be as bad or worse than 2020."

Really?  By whom?

When you consistently recruit at the level Harbaugh does, and when you are continually looking to upgrade/improve the coaching staff, I think the chances of a "bad or worse" record from a throw-away 2-4 season is almost non-existent.  I don't recall seeing anywhere a fear (let alone an expectation) that Michigan would go 4-8 in 2021.  C'mon now . . .   

Preseason B1G football rankings for Michigan
B1G Media: 4th out of 7 in the East
College Football News: 3rd in the East
Sports Illustrated: 7th out of 14 in the B1G
SBNation: 5th in the B1G
ESPN FPI: 7th in the B1G, 40th in the nation
USA Today (Myerberg): 6th in the B1G
Saturday Blitz: 7th in the B1G

From this perspective, a 4-8 prediction does seem extreme, especially since Penn State finished 4th in the East with a record of 4-5, 7-5. It's difficult to extrapolate the 7th best team in the B1G this year, but I think 5-4, 8-4 is reasonable. So the self-proclaimed experts in the media were predicting around a .500 conference record--and another loss to tOSU--and an overall winning record.

On the other hand, I don't read the Michigan fan boards, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the sky-is-falling crowd were expecting worse than the media predictions.

What's more interesting to me is that no one in the media was projecting anything close to what Harbaugh/Michigan accomplished this year.