Harbaugh today announced two new assistants to their defensive staff, only one of which matches the news reported this week. Longtime Don Brown associate Bob Shoop, who coordinated top-two S&P+ defenses at Penn State and Mississippi State in the last five years, will indeed coach safeties. The surprise is linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, after many outlets, including ours, reported they were bumping S&C assistant Tenarious “Tank” Wright.

Michigan is also promoting running backs coach Jay Harbaugh to the special teams coordinator position previously held by Chris Partridge.

Brian Jean-Mary is a guy in his mid-40s from Apopka, Florida, a star linebacker for Appalachian State in the mid-‘90s. After coming up with Lou Holtz’s South Carolina teams, Jean-Mary spent the latter half of the aughts as linebackers coach under Chan Gailey and blitz fanatic Jon Tenuta at Georgia Tech. He’s since spent most of his career tagging along with Charlie Strong. BJM was Strong’s linebackers coach at Louisville and Texas, his defensive coordinator at USF, and the recruiting coordinator at all three stops. He was most recently interim coach at USF after Strong was let go at the end of the regular season.

Michigan is clearly trying to fill some of the big hole in recruiting left by Partridge, who was the assistant on staff most responsible for Michigan’s recent success at penetrating SEC territory and selling high schoolers on Michigan’s “40-year plan.” Jean-Mary has strong ties in Florida and Georgia, and from his time at Texas and Georgia Tech, is no stranger to selling top-notch degrees in talent-rich states. Recruiting at Texas, like USC, is hard to gauge because of the school’s natural footprint. Strong and Jean-Mary’s classes (14th in the transition year, 10th and 7th in 2015 and 2016 respectively) were on par with UT’s historical average, though well behind the rate Tom Herman’s been recruiting there. His USF classes were mostly under-the-radar guys in Georgia and Florida.

It’s notable that Shoop, a Yale alumnus who came up through the Northeast, and Jean-Mary cover the same recruiting ground as Campanile and Partridge did, respectively. Also notable, from an X’s and O’s standpoint, is that they’re both from (separate) zone blitz pressure schemes. Jean-Mary’s mentor Charlie Strong is one of the biggest names in 3-3-5 circles, and Jean-Mary cut his coaching teeth under pressure extremist TENUUUUTA!!!!. Shoop picks up alliterative nicknames with the word “Blitz” in them wherever he goes for his Cover 3/Cover 2 scheme that would be immediately recognizable to anyone who’s watched a Lloyd Carr defense. While the defense will remain the viceroyalty of Don Brown as long as he’s here, the dual hires signal Brown is looking for more experience running the kind of rush-heavy, 3-down-lineman systems these guys should know as much about as anyone in football.

It’s unclear what this means for Tank, who’s clearly an asset and growing out of his current role, not to mention defensive analyst Devin Bush Sr., but neither have Jean-Mary’s experience or recruiting pedigree.

As for Jay coaching special teams, the job Partridge did, especially on punt blocking, will be extremely hard to replicate, but Jay’s been involved with the special teams units going back to when Baxter was in charge. Losing the program’s all-time best punt gunner in Khaleke Hudson to graduation meant Michigan’s special teams were already due to take a hit.