Welcome on into the wolverine.com podcast. Clayton Safie here with Chris Ballas and Anthony Broome.

Michigan football season is over, but we're still working here. Offseason is in full swing, guys.

It feels like every other minute, there's a guy either declaring for the draft or in the transfer portal.

We saw Sean Neua, a defensive line coach, leave to USC. We'll talk about that in a little bit. We're also monitoring Jim Harbaugh's situation. Something we were talking about right after the Ohio State game that he deserved to raise and that he was probably going to get it. Looks like that's going to be the case at the same time. Probably want some other assurances as well. So Chris, I just kind of want to throw the floor to you. You had your couple updates, but the most recent one on Wednesday night, doesn't sound like anything's changed since then. There's some confidence that some things are going to get done, and Michigan's going to push forward. What's the latest? How much you want to share? Yeah, they want it done by Sunday or early next week at the latest.

A lot of boosters are very interested, obviously, and they have a say. These are the ones that

sign checks and help with the NIL stuff and everything else. So a deal has not been reached.

There have been reports, I believe, on that, but nothing has changed. They are close. They are

together on a lot of points, but a couple sticking points that have but nothing has changed. They are close. They are close on, they are together on a lot of

points, but a couple sticking points that have to be worked out. Contrary to popular belief, NIL cannot be

figured into a contract because it is against state laws and I think university or NCAA laws as well.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, right? NCAA rules. But that is something that they're going to have to follow.

And then there's about the use of the Nike logo and the Jordan logo and everything else.

Kids are going to be able to allow us to use those, but they're sticking points on the block M.

And they would probably have to pay for the right to use that at least a little bit if they wanted to do that.

But it sounds like uniforms will be okay going forward. But more than anything, Jim Harbaugh wants to keep his staff intact and strengthen his staff. And it sounds like they will be given more money to hire a few more people. In addition, they will get some more money for their assistance. They've already lost one in Sean Nua. We wrote about that a week ago, too, that other teams were interested in him, not just as a D-Line coach, but as a coordinator. He ended up being the D-Line coach at USC, which we'll talk about in a minute. But the most important thing to him, I think, is not about his money, and he's proven that by giving away some of his bonus money, but getting the staff the money that they deserve and keeping them together, because like he said, this is the beginning of something he thinks is going to be pretty special. Yeah, and the thing, too, with the NFL stuff, I mean, we've seen the reports. I mean, the reports have come from you, too, Chris, where the Raiders are willing to offer Jim, I think,

up to $12 million. I never really got the sense that it was going to be about outbidding him. It was just going to be what was fair, what was fair, not only for him, but for the staff, for the resources. Let's be honest. I mean, that was last Friday night was a little bit sobering in that you saw that there's still another level that you need to reach as a program.

And in order to do that there's still another level

that you need to reach as a program. And in order to do that, you need the resources to do so.

So, you know, it seems like things are trending in the right direction. We always have,

it seems like these one to two weeks of whispers and rumors every single year. But it certainly seems

like everything's sort of coming to a head. And there's not, you know, we're not firing up anything on the back end to prepare for a coaching search or anything like that. It's more of a, it seems to me like it's more of a when, not if, so. That's correct. Yeah. And I think that's the, first of all, it feels like Groundhog Day in that respect. I mean, all of what last December and January, we were in a similar spot kind of waiting on this type of stuff. But obviously a different situation, right? He's going to get a pay bump this time. And I think what both of you guys touched on is important in this because I think he was like, hey, if I'm going to get us to the final four, right?

If I'm going to get us to the college football playoff, well, I want to be able to go there and win. And, you know, if we're going to get there and win those games, we're going to have to change a couple things up. One, like you said, Chris, the assistant coaching salary pool, which is the easiest thing to do. You got to keep the guys. If you have this great staff that he was able to assemble last year, which he did, the guys you want to keep, you want to, you know, have the resources to be able to keep them. And then when you talk about NIL can't be in a contract, obviously, but, you know, talking about the licensing stuff, the copyright things where, hey, he's going to fight for his guys. Remember the video back in fall camp when one of the regents was speaking to the team? And then Jim went over and was like, hey, what do you think about the whole Block M thing? And the whole team went crazy. So that's obviously been something that he's been interested in ever since NIL passed. So I think it's more so now, hey, he's going to get a raise because he deserves it. And also, well, we're at this stage now in college football. We've reached that level. And we want to put it over the top. And I think that's just some of these things that he wants in this deal or maybe not even can't be written in, but can be things that they talk about at the table. He wants to make sure those get done so he can, you know, take this thing even higher.

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