News recently broke that former Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh would serve as the honorary captain for the Wolverines' week one game against Fresno State, but that is no longer going to happen. Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel announced the news just a few days ago, but new head coach Sherrone Moore revealed on Tuesday that Harbaugh will no longer be in attendance. Harbaugh's parents will take his place.

“Jim harbaugh can't come back as honorary captain,” Chris Balas said in a post. “Said he needs to be with his L.A. team. Sherrone Moore says this was scheduled in January … His parents will take his place.”

Warde Manuel announced the news that Jim Harbaugh would serve as the honorary captain for the Michigan football opener during an appearance on the 1 Star Recruits podcast.

“I look forward to seeing him,” Manuel said on the podcast. “He’ll be an honorary captain for our first game. I look forward to having him back in Ann Arbor for that game.”

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates during the trophy presentation after the 34-13 win over Washington at the national championship game at NRG Stadium
© Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY NETWORK

The news was met by some disapproval outside of the Michigan fan base because it was days after Harbaugh received a four-year show cause penalty from the NCAA despite being the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. The Wolverines are also still under investigation for their sign-stealing scheme from last season, and Harbaugh and Michigan could face more penalties from that. Of course, none of these penalties affect Harbaugh as he in the NFL. The show cause was because of recruiting violations and is not related to the sign-stealing investigation.

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Because of the penalties that had just been given to Harbaugh, a lot of people outside of the Michigan football community thought that it was inappropriate to welcome Harbaugh back for the first game immediately after that. Wolverines fans, however, were very excited to see that Harbaugh was set to come back as an honorary captain. Now, it is no longer happening.

Perhaps Harbaugh will return at some point in the future to serve as an honorary captain, but with the NFL and college schedules being extremely similar, the first week would certainly make the most sense as college starts one week earlier. Harbaugh and his Chargers will start their regular season on September 8th.