defensive coordinator search

Pete Thamel had it first, it’s already posted on the premium sites, and I’ve got a few people who DM me who’ve said the same thing, so I guess we can report it: Michigan has hired Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Jesse Minter to the same role at Michigan, replacing one-year Ravens rental Mike Macdonald.

Sources: Michigan is expected to hire Vanderbilt’s Jesse Minter as the school’s new defensive coordinator. He’s a former Ravens assistant who brings experience in defensive system.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 8, 2022

Minter is more or less Macdonald, IE a longtime Baltimore Ravens assistant who relies on modern analytics, except instead of no coordinating experience, Minter has more of it than almost anyone his age, and was in charge of an SEC defense last year.

[UPDATE: Somehow I forgot Campanile. Also since I wrote this Sam reported Partridge and Foote declined to interview($). Sorry—I wrote most of this before the Vikings thing.]

Hey, now that all that’s over we can go back to looking for a DC, and reportedly Jim Harbaugh is in the process of interviewing his guys now. Previously I went over some of the big swings Michigan might take to replace Mike Macdonald. Those were:

• Larry Foote, LBs coach of Tampa Bay, close to getting an NFL DC job.
• Jon Heacock, DC of Iowa State, former Bo grad assistant/Tressel’s heir at YSU.
• Brad White, DC of Kentucky (former teammate of Gattis)
• Seth Wallace, LBs/ADC of Iowa, groomed to be Phil Parker’s heir
• A couple of popular “not happening” names: Jimmy Lake and Vic Fangio

With a slightly updated format, here’s the next rung of the ladder: Guys who would be likely to take the job, and already have strong connections to Harbaugh and the program. First off, here are a few Michigan-/Harbaugh-associated names that are not going to be on the list:

• Derek Mason, DC at Oklahoma State. DBs coach at Stanford under Harbaugh became DC after he left then Vandy head coach after James Franklin. DC at Auburn last year. Was going on the list but he was just hired by Oklahoma State.
• Lance Anderson, DC/AHC/OLBs for Stanford. Harbaugh would love to get Lance back—they go back to when Lance was coaching DL for him at San Diego—but Anderson is next in line if Shaw goes, and it’s hard to believe anything’s changed since the last time Jim enquired about coming out East, nor the time before that.
• Brian Polian, special teams/recruiting coordinator at LSU. Had those roles and safeties under Harbaugh at Stanford, four-year stint as Nevada’s HC after, but followed Brian Kelly to LSU this offseason, and Jay Harbs already serves in the role Polian used to occupy.
• DJ Durkin, co-DC at Ole Miss. What happened at Maryland, players here weren’t sad to see him go.
• Brian Smith, co-DC at Rice. Don Brown protégé who coached safeties here in 2016-’17. His Rice defenses have been terrible.

STEVE CLINKSCALE

It says Clink on the hat. [The Athletic]

CURRENT JOB: Passing Game Coordinator and Defensive Backs Coach at the University of Michigan. Coaches the cornerbacks.

SUMMARY: Age 44, highest title among remaining staff, A-level cornerbacks coach. Almost certainly in line for the co-DC title regardless. Helped turn around the Michigan secondary, well-liked, great recruiter, an institution in Detroit since he was handling the territory for Kentucky, been a co-DC but has never called plays.

HISTORY: Youngstown Boy who spent seven years (2001-‘07) after college as DBs coach of his alma mater, Ashland, in North-Central Ohio. Cornerbacks coach and special teams coordinator under Tim Beckman and Tim Banks at Toledo (2009-‘11) and Illinois (2012), then DBs coach for three years at Cincinnati under Tommy Tuberville, promoted to co-DC in 2015. Defensive backs coach at Kentucky under Mark Stoops from 2016-2020, and was upgraded to passing game coordinator in 2021 before Michigan lost Mo Linguist and poached Clinkscale for the same title. Helped turn around Michigan’s weakest position group and guided DJ Turner II to a breakout season.

Clinkscale’s contract says he has to get a co-Defensive Coordinator title if Michigan was top-25 in passing defense. They dropped down to 27th in passing yards per game after the Georgia debacle, but Michigan would be silly to quibble over that.

RELEVANT RANKINGS: I’ll copy this from his writeup when he was a candidate for secondary coach, showing sack-adjusted yards per pass attempt:

CINCINNATI:
2012 (prior): 5.81, #39 Ovr, #4 Big East
2013: 5.34, #14 Ovr, #2 American
2014: 6.25, #70 Ovr, #7 American
2015: 6.49, #80 Ovr, #5 American

KENTUCKY:
2015 (prior): 6.30, #70 ovr, #12 SEC
2016: 6.72, #83 Ovr, #11 SEC
2017: 6.69, #87 Ovr, #12 SEC
2018: 5.21, #21 Ovr, #4 SEC
2019: 5.08, #10 Ovr, #3 SEC
2020: 6.43, #64 Ovr, #6 SEC

MICHIGAN:
2020 (prior): 6.62, #74 ovr, #7 Big Ten
2021: 5.42, #16 ovr, #3 Big Ten

Steve, feel free to use our tempo-free measures (lord knows you faced a lot of tempo). Michigan was also 16th in the NCAA’s pass efficiency defense metric, which is just the QB rating formula in reverse.

CAN HE RECRUIT? It would seem so. Clink managed to hang on to 5-star Will Johnson and was the only post-Linguist hire they could have made to keep TN 3* Myles Pollard in this year’s class, not to mention keeping TN 4* Kody Jones in the fold. Prior to Michigan, Clinkscale was the guy responsible for recruiting 5* Justin Rogers and 4* Marquan McCall out of Oak Park, Deondre Buford out of MLK, and numerous other 4-stars from SEC country.

CONNECTIONS: Is already in the building, duh.

SYSTEM FIT? Mostly, but will he try to run the defense they ran for one year or the defense he coaches for years under Mark Stoops?

PROS: Continuity. Allows Michigan to broaden their search for an extra assistant, and would probably be okay with them shopping a co-coordinator title for the right guy. Does well by a key assistant and lessens the likelihood he’s poached by another school offering him full DC honors.

CONS: First-time coordinator, and only spent 1 year in Macdonald’s system so it’s either another transition or a guy who only has the fundamentals down. Takes away from his duties when CB coaching is going to be critical with so many young players in line for lots of snaps next year. Essentially trades Macdonald for whoever you bring in on a lower tier.

WOULD HE TAKE THE JOB? Definitely.

OUTLOOK: Most likely will get a co-DC title soon. Might have to wait out the DC search, however.

After one season of sharing, it seems big brother John stomped back into Jim’s room and took back his defensive coordinator. The Wolverine's Chris Balas reported this afternoon that it's virtually a done deal after Michigan's DC met with John Harbaugh about the Ravens opening.

Barring a change of heart or an 11th-hour event, Michigan defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald will return to Baltimore to be the Ravens’ D.C.

Young rental Mike Macdonald was a big part of the one-year turnaround in Ann Arbor in his first year ever coordinating a defense himself. Before that however he spent years coming up under Baltimore’s star coordinator Dean Pees. Apparently it only took that one season for John Harbaugh to decide that Macdonald, not elder successor Don “Wink” Martindale, was the real brains behind their continued success after Pees’s retirement.

Michigan will probably play the field, though they could also turn to program options like Steve Clinkscale or recent hire Mike Elston, both of whom have held titles beyond position coach in the past, but never coordinated themselves. So far there's been no indication that LBs coach George Helow, who followed Macdonald to Michigan, would go back as well.