nfl draft

[Bryan Fuller]

Defensive coaches announced; Hart outgoing. Michigan has finally finished asking every one of their new defensive hires if they have ever run a vacuum refurbishment company with many negative reviews and officially announced them:

Moore's first staff is led by Don "Wink" Martindale, U-M's Matt and Nicole Lester Family Defensive Coordinator, who brings 19 years of NFL coaching experience to the program. Martindale was the architect of the defensive scheme that Michigan has run for the past three seasons and will continue to utilize as the framework for its 2024 unit.

The staff includes defensive line coach Greg Scruggs, linebackers coach/run game coordinator Brian Jean-Mary and defensive backs coach/pass game coordinator LaMar Morgan. The Wolverines have also added former defensive back Brad Hawkins as a graduate assistant coach.

There has been some chatter online about how Martindale didn't quite run the Ravens Defense as Michigan fans understand it via the lens of Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter—he was much more blitz heavy and ran more man defense—so the explicit statement that Martindale is here to change nothing is interesting. Reassuring? I don't know.

Also in "change nothing, do the same thing," LaMar Morgan is here largely on the recommendation of one guy:

"LaMar is someone that I have enjoyed getting to know through this process. He came highly recommended by Jesse Minter and I saw why he is respected as an top notch defensive backs coach during our conversations. He is an excellent teacher and communicator, and his passion for football and for helping young men achieve their goals showed through in his interview. I am excited to have LaMar mentoring our defensive secondary and coordinating the passing game."

Minter-recommended G5 DC becoming secondary coach: okay.

Unfortunately, Angelique Chengelis is reporting that Mike Hart will not return as a running backs coach next year. Hart does not have an instant landing spot elsewhere, and it's well past the usual coaching carousel, so it seems like this was a decision from Moore. There had been rumors about a lot of conflict between Harbaugh and Hart… but there are rumors about conflict between Harbaugh and everyone. 

[After THE JUMP: squeeze the money tree until it withers]

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

 

HR is involved. After the Iowa game news broke that… uh… something happened between Juwan Howard and Jon Sanderson that led to Sanderson not making the trip to Iowa City. Brendan Quinn has the details, such as they are at this point:

[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Sponsor note.

WolverineWeekend_MGoBlog

Hey folks, Wolverine Weekend is back at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa from June 9 – 11. The weekend includes:

  • Meet-and-greets with Donovan Edwards, Will Johnson, Colston Loveland and Junior Colson,
  • Dinner featuring John U. Bacon, Devin Gardner, Sam Webb and football players,
  • Golf Outing on The Wolverine, and
  • a Woodson Whiskey Tasting Event.

Great opportunity to get your Michigan on and support some NIL initiatives.

Harbaugh gonna Harbaugh. Pat Forde profiles Harbaugh, and his world champion dad status never wavers:

If Harbaugh hadn’t gone to Michigan and become a famous football player and coach, what skilled trade would he have undertaken?

“A lawnsman!” Harbaugh enthusiastically responds. “That’s what I do. Mowing the lawn is one of the great feelings I have in life.”

I don’t think this will work and I don’t think it should. Deion Sanders has detonated the Colorado roster:

Colorado recently updated its 2023 football roster. All of the names of players who are departing via the portal have been deleted. The revised roster lists 76 players: 12 returning scholarship players, 21 incoming transfers, 17 new freshmen and 26 walk-ons. Not listed are 17 more transfers who have verbally committed. …

A total of 53 scholarship players have left the program since Sanders was hired in December.

A large number of them were told to hit the bricks after spring practice, which is really doubling down on the idea that you can import a roster from whole cloth. Folks are skeptical:

“It is just absolutely unreasonable to think you can sign 25 players out of the spring transfer portal and make your team better,” the Big 12 DPP said.

There’s a reason the NFL sees far less in-season trade activity than any other major sport. In hockey, soccer, baseball, and basketball you can kind of just go play even if there’s some transition costs moving from system to system. In football one busted assignment is a touchdown. And we’ve seen transfer-heavy teams fail to live up to expectations. MSU, which recently aspired to become Portal U, seems to be cratering. Adding a few guys here and there to plug holes is reasonable. Getting a whole football team on closeout from TJ Maxx? Maybe not so much.

[After THE JUMP: how this makes me feel]

If Chris Olave ever forgets one of his family members' birthdays or where he put his wallet, he can probably text DJ Turner for an answer. If Jahan Dotson's missing his wallet, I have a suspect.

congratulations to Strom Thurmond on his 2023 Hobey Baker award 

tree vs coach fight 

coaching turnover is minor but spicy this year

they fell victim to one of the classic blunders

Turner's going on day two probably. 

i'm perfectly calm, dude 

Unedged.

Congrats, you didn't overthink it!

could have been worse