i am spending today in the fetal position

Grainy footage from Michigan's alleged spring practice corroborates claims that Linguist was in fact a coach here at some point.

Jim Harbaugh took a big gamble when he hired former Dallas Cowboys, Texas A&M Aggies, Minnesota Gophers, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Iowa State Cyclones, Buffalo Bulls, James Madison Dukes, Valdosta State Blazers, and Baylor Bears defensive backs coach Maurice Linguist, that the young assistant wouldn’t jump again until the cornerbacks room in Ann Arbor was properly restocked.

Alas, Linguist's career at Michigan couldn’t last six months. Kansas head coach Les Miles was fired in early March for sexual misconduct, the Jayhawks replaced him with Buffalo head coach Lance Leipold at the end of April, and Buffalo in turn announced today that the co-defensive coordinator Michigan hired on January 20 will take over the Bulls on May 7.

Shit.

A crack recruiter, Linguist’s hire was the first widely regarded sign of hope that Harbaugh could turn the program around following last year’s 2-4 season. Linguist helped them secure commitments from legacy five-star Will Johnson and TN 4* Kody Jones for the 2022 class, and as of last week the Wolverines appeared to have a strong chance with several more elite athletes in the secondary. Most likely the fallout from today has changed that position significantly, especially with Jones, who committed just days after Linguist's hire. Michigan will also have to start over with top target TN 4* Myles Pollard, and explain to everyone why they go through so much staff turnover.

Not that this one is that hard to explain. There's familiarity, there aren't many head coaching offers that come along, and Buffalo is a solid MAC program that's recently been a springboard for other young coaches.

Linguist returns to the program he helped turn around as “co-“ defensive coordinator with Lou Tepper. If the name rings a bell, Tepper was head coach of Illinois in the early 1990s, after serving for years as former Bo assistant Bill McCartney’s defensive coordinator in Colorado. In their short time together in Buffalo, Tepper and Linguist installed a 3-4/3-3-5 stack defense, played match quarters behind it, and put a small scare into Ohio State in 2013. While Tepper retired not long after, Linguist has had seven different jobs since Harbaugh took his current one.

Harbaugh’s best shot at keeping it would be to find a replacement soon, get the new coach up to speed on their plans before fall camp begins in August, and avoid another program-devastating crater in cornerback recruiting when all their prospects come to visit in June. The new guy will also have to help the current roster improve on last year's abysmal output, and transition to more complicated schemes that pair with new coordinator Mike Macdonald's Ravens-like plans.

While there are coaching options in-house, Michigan’s best hope would be to pilfer some other school’s accomplished cornerback coach, preferably one who can bring a transfer or two along. Kentucky’s Steve Clinkscale, who’s been a recruiting thorn in Michigan for years, would be an obvious choice, although Clinkscale has turned down overtures from this program before. Maybe they’ll even be lucky enough to find Clink’s contract doesn’t have a massive buyout penalty for bailing mid-year. I mean, it’s happened before.

There are only comments after the jump. Do you really want to go there?

Michigan-Ohio State
hikes. [Bryan Fuller]

THIS ARTICLE HAS A SPONSOR: You're about to sit down with your family and be grateful for everything you have. And then you think about what you have, and what you need to have, and how much you maybe could have, and now you have no idea if your investment risk is too aggressive, too conservative, or what? It's cool. Calm down. Nick Hopwood from Peak Wealth Management put together a free online tool you can use to plug in your numbers and see what your investment risk ought to be. Take this link, give it a shot, and if you want a second opinion, talk to Nick, or follow him on Twitter—@nhopwood1—so you'll remember to get to it later.

Legal disclosure in tiny font: calling Nick our official financial planner is not intended as financial advice; nick is an advertiser who financially supports MGoBlog. MGoBlog is not responsible for any advice or other communication provided to an investor by any financial advisor, and makes no representations or warranties as to the suitability of any particular financial advisor and/or investment for a specific investor.

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Nick's Question:

How do you need this season to end to not have another crappy offseason?

The responses:

Ace: As long as the offense doesn’t go back to what they were doing at the beginning of the season, a lot of the potential for my personal crappy offseason feels has already gone away. Just don’t get blown out.

Adam: That's where I'm at as well. Just keep it competitive. I think about this a lot:

Ace: …and how this OSU team then exceeded expectations. Assholes.

BiSB: Exactly. This was supposed to be "The Year" because Urban Meyer's departure left an opening. Which... what had happened was...

Seth: They just get to have whatever they want.

BiSB: That said, it looked a little dicey mid-season for reasons that wore neither scarlet nor gray.

The Mathlete: I think where Michigan is at right now (performance, not record) is close to pre-season best case scenario. The offense is humming, diverse and modern. The defense looks like what Don Brown does best, an eclectic set of pieces that come together for greatness

Seth: See, that's part of the conspiracy right? Like whomever's controlling the OSU dynasty that is our reality thought it was funny to set fumbles to 99 and play-calling AI to zero at first, but now it's later in the season and it's no fun to trounce Michigan if we don't look good.

The Mathlete: The problem is the other side is about two standard deviations above the preseason best case scenario for them.

Ace: lol, good lord. Who’s excited to hit the jump?

[After THE JUMP: Existentialist RPOs]

The Sponsors

We can do this because people support us. You should support them! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan we’d be all be very sad ex-Vox employees with “real” jobs.

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[After THE JUMP: It's all Brian's fault. All of it.]