Michigan Hires Kirk Campbell, QB Coach
Matt Weiss's computer crimes opened an interesting spot on Michigan's coaching staff. That created an OC opening for what should be the most loaded offense in college football: Hey, wanna coach JJ McCarthy and Blake Corum and Roman Wilson and the best OL in the country for a few years? Harbaugh's coaching tree is also extensive enough now that several very interesting names, including Ravens OC Greg Roman and former assistant/recruiting ace Chris Partridge, recently became available.
All of that now can be interpreted as a stunning endorsement of the internal candidate they elevated instead.
A strong addition to our QB room! We’re proud to announce @CoachKCampbell as our new quarterbacks coach!#GoBlue | https://t.co/Nw36OBaTuT pic.twitter.com/N4M6zd16CE
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) January 27, 2023
It's expected that co-OC/OL Sherrone Moore will assume the coordinator title outright, though that's quite a lot to have on one guy's plate.
Via Sam Webb on our WTKA show, Biff Poggi had interest in taking Kirk Campbell with him to Charlotte this offseason. It's at least plausible that Harbaugh promised an on-field coaching position if Campbell stuck around, or it may just be that Campbell sensed the opportunity. Insiders also report that JJ McCarthy in particular was 100% on board with elevating Coach Campbell. Analysts aren't involved in recruiting, but presumably Michigan's top QB target Jadyn Davis was sold as well.
[After THE JUMP: A little analysis]
Campbell arrived at Michigan last season after serving for two years as the OC and quarterbacks coach at Old Dominion and quickly became one of the program's favorite analysts. Ironically, that was on recommendation of recent Michigan OC Josh Gattis, who was just fired from Miami (YTM) today after just one season in the same capacity. Campbell was a Penn State analyst under Rickey Rahne, another longtime Franklin associate, when Gattis was WRs coach in Happy Valley. When Rahne took the head coaching job at ODU, Campbell actually spent a game as interim QB coach for Penn State before joining Rahne as OC/QBs coach.
ODU's 2020 season was canceled by the pandemic, but they managed to outperform (very low) expectations in 2021, producing a 1,000-yard receiver in Ali Jennings III and leaning heavily on PSU transfer TE Zack Kuntz. ODU finished 2021 ranked 11th/14 in Conf USA in pass efficiency and 9th in the conference in overall offense. They were 35th nationally in sack rate, and 57th in rush efficiency, however, and Hayden Wolff grew last year into one of the conference (USA!!!)'s better QBs. Not sure if this is relevant, but Wolff also accounted for 20% of team rushes despite not being much of a run threat.
What is relevant is ODU started recruiting very well by its standards under Rahne and Campbell.
Prior to Penn State Campbell was OC and assistant HC at Div-II Alderson Broaddus for five years, and helped that GMAC startup program win the conference's first title.
Partridge was such a successful Harbaugh hire the NCAA made a rule against hiring any more guys like him, though he didn't work out at DC at Ole Miss. [Eric Upchurch]
Still, the most impressive part of Kirk Campbell's resume has to be that Michigan chose to elevate him over some of the other options on the table (or rumored to be). As we said last Thursday on the radio, it was probably very tempting to Harbaugh to use the open spot to bring back Chris Partridge, while shifting Jay Harbaugh to quarterbacks. That Partridge might have assured their chances with Old Miss transfer CB Davison Igbinosun also must have added to the temptation. Hopefully they're still able to get Partridge back in some capacity.
It was also tempting to shop around when circumstances meant they would probably have some interesting takers. While big names like Ravens assistant Tee Martin and 49ers QB coach Brian Griese were thrown out there, Sam Webb used a precious phone-a-Jim to confirm Harbaugh hadn't spoken to either of them($). Via just about everybody, Gattis was never remotely an option given the nature of his departure last year.
January 28th, 2023 at 6:06 AM ^
lol
wild how timing seemed to get better as the season went along when you didn't have a spring or summer to work with the QB.
January 27th, 2023 at 5:53 PM ^
Some jokes are just so good they need to be repeated. Hope this is one of them:
Don't let the NCAA learn that an analyst will be coaching!
Some might respond that this situation has different facts, and they'd be correct.
But when has the NCAA let facts get in the way?
January 27th, 2023 at 6:57 PM ^
Oops. Downvotes. I guess not.
January 27th, 2023 at 8:25 PM ^
I was going to say that I hoped he was the analyst caught coaching and this promotion was a thumb in the NCAA's eye. Tough crowd.
January 27th, 2023 at 6:14 PM ^
Well, I wanted Tee Martin or Partridge but this isn't bad either. Just hope he's a good recruiter because we really need more of those on staff.
January 27th, 2023 at 6:41 PM ^
Good on Sam to squash dumb rumors. Greise isn’t leaving a golden opportunity to take the same job at the college level.
January 27th, 2023 at 9:45 PM ^
I actually found it less likely on Harbaugh's end. Look at the options he has, and he'd bring in a guy who's spent more time ripping on Harbaugh's program than he has in coaching? I'm happy for Griese, but he was pretty openly critical of the program in 2020, and his one year looking like a QB whisperer is still quite a gamble.
For his part, I guess Griese could just want to be the head coach at Michigan someday, but he'd be insane to make that jump to college now! There are QB coaches in the NFL like what Harbaugh was in Oakland, where you are mostly working on developing the backups because the starter has his own whole team working with him. That was probably exactly what Griese was brought in to do, because Garoppolo was pretty established, and 49ers were trying to develop Trey Lance. But Griese is now the guy who turned 7th rounder/3rd stringer Brock Purdy into an NFC championship game QB (at least) in his rookie year. That's unheard of. He doesn't have to do much more to level up to his next job, and get on the fast track to NFL OC.
I do see Griese getting back into college eventually because he's clearly passionate about it, and has a lot of his own connections. Harbaugh himself got his coaching start as an NFL QBs coach. But Griese would have to walk away from what he's just built to take the same job, and there's no way Harbaugh was going to offer him the OC position at this point.
January 28th, 2023 at 12:09 AM ^
He could be the OC at Wayne State with Wheatley since they were teammates.
January 28th, 2023 at 6:40 AM ^
This makes a lot of sense.
Jim Kelly would tell you Harbaugh doesn’t do criticism well. Granted that was about toughness.
i could see Griese at Michigan someday. He loves the school and I suspect will prove to be very good coach.
January 27th, 2023 at 9:49 PM ^
Wonder what is the circumstance of Campbell leaving ODU? He was there only for a cancelled season.
January 28th, 2023 at 6:01 AM ^
Gattis couldn't be an option anyway unless you were going to put Bellamy back at S and move JayBaugh to QBs.
Which, taking Gattis over Partridge would be a "are you smoking crack?!" worthy response.
January 28th, 2023 at 9:14 AM ^
This hire is... Fine?? I hope he can recruit really well. I would have like to see -
Partridge to DB
Jay to TE
Newsome to OL ( with Moore's help)
Moore to OC
Harbaugh to QB
But Harbaugh's track record is really good when it comes to hiring new coaches, so I'll trust him and hope that hiring an analyst for the most important position on the #2 team in the country the past 2 season's is the correct move.
January 28th, 2023 at 10:00 AM ^
After the last two seasons, it would make me very nervous to make that much change across the coaching staff. The program doesn’t appear to need much change right now.
January 29th, 2023 at 12:39 AM ^
Please be a good recruiter, we really need the boost.
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