U-M wishes Jim Harbaugh a happy birthday on Twitter

James Jahnke, and Mark Snyder
Detroit Free Press
Frame grab from Twitter

Smooth move, Michigan football.

Perhaps you've heard that San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh is option Nos. 1-infinity to be the Wolverines' next football coach. The Niners today confirmed that U-M had reached out to them about talking to Harbaugh, who still has one year left on his contract but is widely expected to be let go by the team.

Today is Harbaugh's 51st birthday. The official Michigan football Twitter account took the opportunity to acknowledge the program's most important recruit.

Now, what this actually means is open to (much) debate. The account does tweet birthday salutations to other prominent former players.

"It's great having a birthday. You live so many days on Earth, thousands and thousands of days and only a few are birthdays, 51 in my case, so it's a special day," the 49ers' coach said Tuesday during his weekly radio appearance in San Francisco. "I'm going to enjoy my birthday with a day of football."

Every day in his world is about football and has been since he was a child living in 12 cities but spending an extended period in Ann Arbor.

The question most are wondering: Where will he spend his 51st year?

Most of Harbaugh's birthday presents — which he joked he has often gotten shortchanged in the past being close to Christmas — were nice cards with personal messages. But everyone expects the big gift is coming early next week.

Knowing that the sides have talked, it seems unlikely that U-M would send out this message about a candidate that already had rejected it.

So does this mean that U-M is coyly recognizing its next coach? Or making a soft-sell pitch to an undecided prospect? Or is it just a coincidence? Red meat. Have at it.