September 25th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
Is anyone on the coaching staff not being groomed to eventually be a coordinator and HC?
September 25th, 2023 at 9:05 PM ^
Probably not, but I do find the clear path they have for him interesting. As soon as Moore became co-OC and OL coach, they knew the writing was on the wall with him eventually leaving, so they immediately started Newsome on the same path
September 25th, 2023 at 9:34 PM ^
I think some of the great coaches really only like to surround themselves with people they can envision as head coaches. That might be why Harbaugh seems to hire fairly young coaches for the most part, except for Don Brown . . . who was a head coach and is now a head coach again.
There are a couple guys on staff who do not seem to be on the head coach track (Steve Clinkscale, Mike Elston), but maybe time will prove me wrong. Either one could end up as a coordinator, though, at least somewhere.
September 26th, 2023 at 8:01 AM ^
Don Brown was the perfect answer to a particular offensive scheme that Michigan had to go through to win anything. He was perfect for that job. The offense let him down in both 2016 and 2017...
September 26th, 2023 at 8:26 AM ^
I sort of recall cursing at Dr Blitz’s painfully obvious blitz packages and how he exposed his corners on islands.
September 26th, 2023 at 9:05 AM ^
So you only remember 2018-2020 Brown defenses, and not the masterpiece units he had in 2016-2017? Ok...
September 26th, 2023 at 12:00 PM ^
You both have fair points -- Brown got the job done initially, but then the conference adjusted and he didn't
We brought in MacDonald, and his defense (that Minter has continued) shut down the modern OSU offense
September 26th, 2023 at 10:37 AM ^
Clinkscale feels like a guy who could maybe wind up being an HC at a small school at some point because of his recruiting and the fact he's co-DC this year. But yeah, it does feel like Harbaugh just likes surrounding himself with guys he could see being the leader of a team down the line. He certainly seems to have moved beyond having guys he knows/yes men around, if that was ever a real issue.
September 26th, 2023 at 10:24 AM ^
Jaybaugh? He’s been various position coaches since he arrived with Jim and hasn’t gotten hired away anywhere or a promotion to an o or d coordinator
September 26th, 2023 at 12:42 PM ^
Jaybaugh is 34 years old. He's building a hell of a resume, but he doesn't need to be in a hurry to go anywhere.
September 26th, 2023 at 12:50 PM ^
Jay is extremely young and has an incredible track record as a position coach in addition to being a great recruiter. The coordinator positions and head coaching offers are a matter of time for him. The fact that he was one of the interim head coaches in Jim’s absence should tell you how highly he’s thought of and the results from his position groups should tell you it has nothing to do with nepotism.
September 26th, 2023 at 12:40 PM ^
It doesn't seem like it, and that's great. If you're a young, talented coach, what better place to advance your career?
September 26th, 2023 at 1:53 PM ^
probably the Dog Groomers
September 25th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
Nice to hear that. Good dude and I’m glad Michigan has been able to make those opportunities available to him. Sounds like he’s taken full advantage.
September 26th, 2023 at 2:28 AM ^
I can't respect him enough not only for how amazing he was as a player, but also how he bounced back from a severe injury that likely cost him 9 figures in NFL earnings.
Wishing all the best for him
September 26th, 2023 at 12:01 PM ^
9 figures might be a bit of an over-projection, lol
September 26th, 2023 at 12:31 PM ^
Maybe he was counting the cents too.
September 26th, 2023 at 5:19 PM ^
Maybe not over a lifetime. I think I read somewhere that the annual salary for an NFL lineman is now about $16.0 million a year. Seven years in the League would have him there.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:00 PM ^
I am completely unsurprised
September 25th, 2023 at 9:11 PM ^
Couldn’t happen to a better guy. I still feel beyond horrible how his playing career ended and what he had to go through but for him to be in this position is a testament to who he is.
September 25th, 2023 at 10:04 PM ^
It's kinda corny, but Newsome is the definition of a "Michigan Man." Played football and excelled, had a career ending injury, got into Ford and excelled, got an internship in Congress, became a grad assistant, and worked his way to being TE coach. Like this dude is apparently brilliant on and off the field and there's not many better examples of the whole "Michigan Man" concept
September 26th, 2023 at 8:02 AM ^
May the 'Michigan Man' concept burn in hell.
It's cost too many bad years from poor coaching hires...
September 26th, 2023 at 8:30 AM ^
RichRod
September 26th, 2023 at 12:43 PM ^
It's an aspiration, not a limitation, unless you're Dave Brandon.
September 26th, 2023 at 4:01 PM ^
Agreed. Ever since Fielding Yost introduced the 'Michigan Man' idea, Michigan has had only shitty coaches and bad years.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:11 PM ^
Guess Harbaugh beat out Debbie Dingell, who was trying to get him to run for office.
September 26th, 2023 at 9:33 AM ^
I’m still rooting for Debbie Dingell’s argument to win. We need some new blood and some Blue blood in Congress.
September 26th, 2023 at 10:24 AM ^
Tom Tuberville and Tommy Osborne might suggest that having a successful coaching career would be great preparation to run for public office.
September 26th, 2023 at 12:34 PM ^
Perhaps in Osborne's case. Tuberville is an embarrassment.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:11 PM ^
Grant Newsome's story is one we all can be proud of. He is being groomed to be the Michigan offensive line coach because he has earned the opportunity and because the program stuck with him after his playing career was cut short by a cheap shot. I have always thought a college coach's success should be measured by the futures of they players who don't see the field on Sunday.
September 25th, 2023 at 10:06 PM ^
JD Johnson is still on staff as well and super happy he's finding success in that regard. Although I thought I remember him being cleared by doctors and entering the portal, but I guess he decided to stay
This article does a pretty good job summarizing things
September 26th, 2023 at 8:27 AM ^
I just can't agree with the 'cheap shot' mantra on that hit. Yes, the safety hit him in a way that is illegal now and should have been illegal then - but it wasn't, in 2016 that is how he was taught to make that particular hit. It was textbook for the time. He also didn't go in looking to injure (unlike several other UW cheap shots that came in following years). The severity of the injury was also a freak thing - Grant's cleat stuck in the grass. 99 of 100 times that doesn't happen and his leg just flies out from under him with no damage. It was shit luck all around.
I'm glad Grant has been able to recover as well as he has.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:13 PM ^
One of the most perplexing things about Lloyd Carr is the absolute lack of a coaching tree.
For a longtime successful coach of a name brand university, who sent a TON of people to the NFL including EVERY SINGLE starting quarterback, he’s got like 2 people out there who can be tied back to him. And yes, that includes Mike Hart.
Gotta get that coaching tree
September 25th, 2023 at 9:20 PM ^
I love a good coaching tree graphic.
But honestly, I cherish the even rarer, current and former UM QBs now starting at other colleges graphic. That graphic is like seeing a yeti in the wild. Has any network run that one yet?
If someone could make it an interactive cartoon map of the USA with a cartoon Harbaugh throwing footballs out of Ann Arbor and having them land in Iowa, Tennessee and Oklahoma, and a pop up to Ann Arbor, sign me up. What happens when literally everyone wins the QB competition?
September 26th, 2023 at 7:49 AM ^
The networks could just reuse the Lincoln Riley QB graphic, but they'd need to reverse the direction of the arrows.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:42 PM ^
Along those same lines, I've been noting over the past couple weeks the amazing coaching tree that Jim Harbaugh has had just in his time at Michigan. Former guys on his staff who are now head coaches at some level include Jim McElwain (CMU), Don Brown (UMass), Mo Linguist (Buffalo), Tyrone Wheatley (Wayne State), Jedd Fisch (Arizona), and Biff Poggi (Charlotte). And it included D.J. Durkin (Maryland, now DC at Texas A&M) at one time.
I haven't run the numbers or anything, but I feel like that might be the most impressive coaching tree outside of Nick Saban's. How many current head coaches are former Saban assistants? Kirby Smart, Dan Lanning, Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, McElwain (coached under both Harbaugh and Saban)...
September 26th, 2023 at 7:00 AM ^
A lot of those guys were head coaches before they came to Michigan and were here for a year or two. I my mind I'm not sure that fits the coaching tree scenario.
September 26th, 2023 at 12:53 PM ^
I think that still counts. It's extremely rare for a coach to spend his entire career before getting a HC job under one HC. And if we're counting people like Jim McElwain and Lane Kiffin toward Saban's "tree," then Harbaugh also gets some credit for coaches who came from other places to Michigan.
September 25th, 2023 at 10:08 PM ^
Carr was promoted after Moeller got fired. Had 2 4-loss seasons to start, making it 4 4-loss seasons in a row for U-M. Maybe he never felt secure enough to hire the kind of coaches who could take his job. It's too bad, because maybe we wouldn't have ended up with as many 3- and 4-loss seasons, plus one 5-loss. I felt like Carr wasn't getting the most out of talent we had, and a better staff could have produced better results.
September 26th, 2023 at 1:22 AM ^
I mean, all coaches at top programs can always do better. But considering Lloyd Carr helped lead Michigan to our only national championship in the last 50+ years, I'd say he did a good job.
EDIT: I don't disagree with your point about Carr's inability to develop quality assistant coaches.
September 26th, 2023 at 10:25 AM ^
Carr was pretty much bulletproof here after 1997. I would doubt he was looking over his shoulder at his assistants. He simply valued stability above all else, and mostly hired guys that he had a personal connection to - which is true of a lot of coaches. This may have caused the program to get stale in its thinking, though it also may have produced good chemistry among the staff, which is an underrated factor.
In hindsight, picking Loeffler for QB coach over Harbaugh is the big one to second-guess. It was defensible - Loeffler had shown promise as a grad assistant, and continued to do solid work with Navarre and Henne - but Harbaugh could have given Lloyd the successor he never had.
September 26th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
Lloyd wanted to promote DeBord and I think he'd have done ok here.
September 26th, 2023 at 12:48 PM ^
Carr pretty much only promoted from within. I can't remember any significant coaches he hired from other programs. His coordinators (Fred Jackson, Mike DeBord, Jim Herrmann, Ron English) were all longtime Michigan assistants who worked their way up. That means that (1) the coordinators were experienced in operating within one system only, and (2) the pool of talent was much smaller.
Both those factors significantly reduce the likelihood of coaching success elsewhere.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:23 PM ^
After our 15-0 National Championship 2023 Season, Jim heads back to the NFL in search of the one last thing he has left to achieve. After saving his alma mater and bringing them back to prominence, he tries one last time for a Super Bowl.
Our next coaching staff will be Moore as HC with Campbell and Newsome as Co-OCs. Jay and Minter sadly go with Jim, but John has another up and comer to be our new DC.
September 25th, 2023 at 9:29 PM ^
If this happens Qmatic, I am donating 1000 dollars to any organization you want. I didn't think I will see a NC in my lifetime after 2007.
September 25th, 2023 at 10:08 PM ^
I would of course take this but Harbaugh is the best coach for our program and I would hate to see him leave. He has not only brought us back to national prominence but he has built our team in a way that has competed with our biggest rival with way less stars. He says some incredibly witty things and drives OSU fan base crazy. He has not been perfect in everything, but he is a PERFECT fit for our team and would be hard to replace no matter who we get. Go Blue!
September 25th, 2023 at 10:41 PM ^
Please no. Losing Harbaugh and replacing him with a completely untested HC with that schedule next year and later years is a recipe for decline.
If Harbaugh leaves they have to get a proven commodity.
September 26th, 2023 at 3:49 AM ^
The commodity is the players and coaches Coach brought in post 2020.
Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater. You dont want a new staff and that is what it would be. An almost entirely new staff. No thanks.
September 26th, 2023 at 8:20 AM ^
Moore is tested - he's 1-0 as a head coach, thankyou.
September 26th, 2023 at 10:14 AM ^
Poggi is more qualified than the others on staff. And Maybe even Minter.