Al Washington Officially Joins Michigan's Defensive Coaching Staff

Submitted by bamill010 on

"ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- University of Michigan J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach Jim Harbaugh announced Friday (Jan. 5) the hiring of Al Washington to the defensive coaching staff. Washington will work with the specialized package players in Don Brown's defensive system and handle a yet to be finalized position group."

http://mgoblue.com/news/2018/1/5/football-washington-joins-coaching-sta…

tasnyder01

January 6th, 2018 at 10:29 AM ^

Her name (nomen) is even latin for "pain(ful) shadow". (Full disclosure: shadow is "Umbra" if I remember correctly. "Umbrage" being the Anglicization.) Taking Latin while reading the books was kind of a spoiler come to think of it. Fuck, now I'm sad.

MichiganSports

January 5th, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^

Hopefully this means zone when zone makes sense.  Feels like we have lost atleast 3 games since Brown has been here due to his reluctance to sit back when it makes sense.

tasnyder01

January 6th, 2018 at 10:34 AM ^

Underneath in zone. That screams linebacker. Or safety. Do you want corners covering underneath in zone? Only package I know is cover 2 (flats) or zone blitz. I assume you want CBS covering underneath. So who covers the outside? The more I think about this, the more I don't understand. Please help.

Teach_Coach_GoBlue

January 6th, 2018 at 11:25 AM ^

There are coverage concepts that allow the corners to take the underneath zones, but a corner doesn't have to, and shouldn't be the only one covering underneath, especially in a zone.  I'd rather have LB's and spindown safeties (generally beter tacklers) to take those underneath and crossing routes. A lot of zone coverages are run knowing that you are probably going to give up completions, but you are going to rally to the receiver and stop him from making a big gain. You are banking on getting pressure on the QB and (in a dominantly man coverage team) giving the QB looks he is not expecting.

XiX

January 5th, 2018 at 5:51 PM ^

His scheme is his scheme. Instead of always expecting a guy to do something other than what they have always done, and have said repeatedly that they'll do, why not just accept it?

The man has coached up the guys to have top rated defenses so I'm sure he'll keep doing the same. Move on...

XiX

January 5th, 2018 at 7:02 PM ^

Keep wishing upon that star but what you accept make zero difference upon what Coach Brown will run. It only means you haven't been paying attention to the man, what he's been saying, or what he's done over his career as DC and will only keep grousing about it.

I'd rather him keep recruiting kids that will help him close up those deficiencies in the back-end of the defense rather than doing something that is not a part of his makeup or scheme. And, for me, he's done more than enough to prove he knows what he's doing and can coach up his guys to do it.

A guy who can go from making BC the top ranked defense and follow that up by making UM the same or just below since he's been here? Yeah, you're right...

/s

Space Coyote

January 5th, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^

Or split time between them, so you don't need a dedicated Viper position group.

Washington could help on the DL, he could help with the LBs, or he could work in the secondary. It's important to note that Brown was a defensive coordinator and CBs coach at Maryland and UConn before being the DC and LB coach at BC. So they also have flexibility with him.

MillerTime

January 5th, 2018 at 5:25 PM ^

I grew up with “Big Al” outside of Columbus - he is a fantastic guy and his track record shows his coaching prowess. High-character individual, hard worker, but was always kind to everyone - I’m sure we’ll be seeing his position group thrive and I’m also sure we’ll be seeing Al spending time at Mott and otherwise getting involved in the community. Haven’t been this excited about a Michigan hire since December 2014...