January 20th was far less than ideal as a date to have your staff settled, but with yesterday’s announcements, the football assistant team for 2021 is locked in.

IN: Cowboys DBs coach Mo Linguist and Ravens LBs coach Mike Macdonald as co-DCs, Maryland LBs coach George Helow as safeties coach, Indiana RBs coach Mike Hart as RBs coach.

OUT: Don Brown (DC), Mike Zordich (cornerbacks), Bob Shoop (safeties), Ben McDaniels (QBs)

STILL HERE: Josh Gattis (OC/receivers), Ed Warinner (OL), Jay Harbaugh (special teams, loses RBs), Sherrone Moore (TEs), Shawn Nua (DL), Brian Jean-Mary (LBs)

MO LINGUIST, CO-DC/CORNERBACKS

Who? Michigan has named Dallas Cowboys DBs coach Mo Linguist as co-DC with Ravens LB coach Mike Macdonald, who was announced last week.

While both are young and first-time coordinators, unlike Macdonald, Linguist does have an extensive collegiate resume.

He has also moved around a lot. Until joining the Cowboys last season Linguist was the cornerbacks coach at Texas A&M for two years (2018-‘19), spent a year coaching the secondary on PJ Fleck’s staff at Minnesota (2017, when Warinner was there) before that, a year as Mississippi State’s safeties coach (2016) before that, the defensive passing game coordinator at Iowa State (2014-‘15) for two years before that, and the same for Buffalo (2012-‘13) for two years before that. He also coached at James Madison, Valdosta State, and Baylor, where he played then became a graduate assistant in 2007. If you’re a little lost, here’s a map:

[After THE JUMP: see-ah what I mean-ah?]

Linguist grew up in Dallas and moved to Mesquite, TX, where he won a state championship the week I graduated from college. Along the way he has developed a reputation as a top defensive backs man, particularly with the cornerbacks. According to the 247 database he seems to be an excellent good recruiter, has strong connections in Texas and Georgia, and offers have been extended already to a number of high-profile Linguist associates.

Like Mac2, Mo2’s preferred defensive style is a mystery. Dallas went to a lot of pattern-matching last year—they’ve been a base four-down, 1-high defense as long as I’ve paid attention to such things. The Ravens, for what it’s worth, have been a base odd (3-4 or 4-3 under) defense on the extreme end of blitziness—the thing it’s like in college is the thing Indiana ran this year with double hybrids.

The one secondary of his that I’ve watched extensively, Minnesota’s in 2017, was so beat up by injury there’s little to glean from it, but Fleck’s Gophers have been coasting with some his guys, who include Rashod Bateman, ever since, despite that being a transition class. Given the resources at Texas A&M his recruiting was bonkers. I believe Michigan should give him the resources he had with the Dallas Cowboys, but I’d settle for A&M-level resources.

GEORGE HELOW, SAFETIES

Who? Maryland linebackers coach.

If you were looking for a Phil Martelli to give this staff some experience, you won’t find it here either. Helow was a safety at Ole Miss in the late 2000s via Hargrave Military Academy. Nick Saban picked him up in 2012, first as a weight room intern, then a defensive intern under Kirby Smart. He got a grad assistant gig at FSU under Jimbo Fisher, then completed his degree as a grad assistant while working with the safeties at Georgia under Mark Richt, whence the overlap with Macdonald. The next two years, 2016-‘17 he was an OLBs grad assistant at Colorado State before getting promoted to safeties coach for 2018 and ‘19. He was at Maryland just a year, serving as special teams coordinator and linebackers coach.

(So yeah, the guy who just signed Brian Jennings, who flipped from Michigan on early signing day because it looked like the coaching staff was wobbly. What a business.)

I like that he has Hargrave in his past; Michigan has very seldom dipped into the prep world, and when they have it’s been for a Brad Hawkins or Chris Perry who had some academic issues pop up that wouldn’t have been an issue at ten other Big Ten schools.

HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT ALL THIS?

Depends who you ask and which guy you’re talking about. The theme here was obvious: find more Sherrone Moores. That’s a good strategy when your program’s been springing talent issues and an even better one going into a year when it’s all but open season for transfers. Official Signing Day is a few weeks away, but transfer recruitments follow academic schedules, so there’s time to get in with other teams emerging players.

I know the NCAA doesn’t believe this but there are a LOT of young people who don’t realize their true aptitude or desire for learning until they get to college. Harbaugh knows as well as anybody that players with serious pro aspirations who are also serious about using their degrees for something after are Michigan’s niche, and he’s built himself a staff of recruiters with NFL teams on their resumes. It remains to be seen if they can get players, or even their own admissions department, on board.

Schematically nobody has any idea, and that might include the staff themselves. I’ve got a lot of Ravens film downloading; I don’t even know where to start with Linquist because he’s bounced around so much. The one thing they all seem to be good at—with the exception of Macdonald since he hasn’t done it—is recruiting, which is good long-term news for the program whether or not they can revive the Harbaugh experiment.

There are some bad but not fatal tea leaves with some of the guys they retained. The recruiting issues at defensive tackle started before Nua, continued during Nua, and weren’t made any better by spending the last few months making it look like they weren’t keeping Nua. Line development has been fine, but that was such a comedown from the excellence of Mattison (and Hoke) that it feels like a net downgrade. The linebacker issues last year coincide with Don Brown handing over the keys to Jean-Mary, but BJM came in with a very strong track record at that, and those again can be traced back to the issues up front.

As for the guys they jettisoned, Ben McDaniels was an internal hire who never proved himself worthy of it, and Bob Shoop was just a huge mistake. They did lose a lot of experience in Brown and Zordich that wasn’t replaced. The recruiting issues at cornerback might have been resolving anyways, but the choice to recruit slower guys who turned out to be too slow falls on either him or Brown. The Linguist hire should pay dividends; we’ll see if it came too late to stay in the race for Will Johnson, let alone Domani Jackson. Sam Webb hinted on WTKA this morning that recruiting 300-pound DTs just to plug gaps is probably going to be green-lit now that Brown is gone, and that may change Nua’s success rate.

Given Harbaugh’s precarious position it was going to be hard to do much better. Any of these guys could turn out to be lightning in a bottle, and they’re all guys who are young enough and have been mobile enough to land somewhere if this turns out to be a one-year gig. Mike Hart is the kind of guy who could survive a few regime changes at Michigan. Macdonald is a cipher; ask again later. Helow looks like a recruiting hire; as a guy who's been up and down the Saban tree he certainly knows how the Saban system works. Yes I mean pattern-matching coverage; what did you think I was talking about? Linquist looks like the best bet to pay off, both with a much-needed recruiting haul and as a position coach.