Harbaugh reportedly almost took Kansas job in 2009

Before Kansas became synonymous with losing, the Jayhawks reportedly came very close to landing Jim Harbaugh as their head coach.

In 2009, the Jayhawks ousted Mark Mangino following a 5-7 season, and set their sights on the up-and-coming coach, who was then in the middle of a very successful stint at Stanford.

"It was close, very close," Lew Perkins, the athletic director for Kansas at the time, told CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd.

An undisclosed source also told Solomon that Harbaugh-to-Kansas was so close that "it was done," though it obviously wasn't because Harbaugh never ended up there.

Harbaugh was reportedly intrigued by the Kansas job at the time because his wife, Sarah, is from nearby Kansas City. A number of in-laws also lived relatively close to the school's campus.

Harbaugh was supposedly so infatuated with the Kansas gig that he checked out the campus and purposely left his cell phone at Stanford so that he couldn't be tracked by his employer.

It's unclear why the marriage never happened, but Harbaugh wound up staying with the Cardinal for another year, then took his talents to the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, and later found his dream job at Michigan.