Kyle Shanahan has announced his return to the 49ers due to his unsatisfactory situation with his new team.
Rebuilding the Michigan football program to its winning ways was Jim Harbaugh’s main responsibility upon hiring. He had to complete a similar assignment while he was with Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers in the past.
The brother of former Wolverine quarterback Dylan McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey, is a running back for the 49ers. He excelled at Stanford, setting records and finishing second in the 2015 Heisman Trophy competition. Thus, there is now interest in learning if Jim Harbaugh coached Christian McCaffrey while he was a member of the Palo Alto Cardinals, ahead of the 2024 Super Bowl in Las Vegas.
REQUIRED READING: Jim Harbaugh wants to show the Chargers and Los Angeles some Michigan football magic.
The 49ers standout running back and the former Michigan football coach have the following connections:
Was Christian McCaffrey coached by Jim Harbaugh at Stanford?
No. When Christian McCaffrey arrived on the Palo Alto campus in 2014, Jim Harbaugh had already left for four years, but the two did have a connection to the Cardinal.
Jim Harbaugh himself has two distinct connections to Stanford. In the first, Jack Harbaugh, his father, was the defensive coordinator for the Cardinals from 1980 to 1981. Then, in 2007, Jim Harbaugh returned to Stanford, this time as the Cardinal coach, forty years after leaving Palo Alto as a child.
Jim Harbaugh took over a Stanford team that had a 1-11 record before he took over and improved it to a 12-1 season finish that included an Orange Bowl victory by the end of his tenure in 2010. A few players he coached, like Trent Murphy, Andrew Luck, Doug Baldwin, Richard Sherman, Zach Ertz, David DeCastro, and others, went on to have successful NFL careers. After four seasons at Stanford, Jim Harbaugh concluded with a 29-21 (21-14 Pac-12) record.
ESSENTIAL READING:For nine years, Jim Harbaugh was the driving force behind Michigan football. He’s currently thrilling LA.
Following Harbaugh’s departure, Christian McCaffrey was brought in to Stanford and played as a dual-threat, elusive running back for the Cardinals from 2014 to 2016. In 2015, he had his best season as a Cardinal during his sophomore year, breaking the previous NCAA record of 3,864 yards in single-season all-purpose yards (which includes return yards) held by Brian Westbrook.
