Al Washington Leaves For Ohio State
A second Michigan position coach has left for OSU:
Al Washington, who served as Michigan's linebackers coach in 2018, is joining Ryan Day's staff as the Buckeyes' linebackers coach/recruiting coordinator.
This one makes more sense than Day hiring a 70-year-old Greg Mattison to be a defensive coordinator. Washington recruited well during his single year in Ann Arbor.
Michigan now has two open spots for defensive position coaches. Jim McElwain already left to be CMU's head coach and was replaced by Ben McDaniels. Temple's head job is open again after Manny Diaz left for Miami just days after taking it, and Don Brown is the last guy standing amongst the three candidates previously mentioned. It does seem like Temple's moving on from Brown, with "in person interviews" with new candidates scheduled this week and NIU head coach Rod Carey emerging as a new name.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
You’d also need a new profile pic
January 8th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Probably not. From what I've heard of him during his time here, he's a role model and despite. . . that, remains one of the best DCs in the business. I'd wish him well wherever he goes.
But point taken, so I'll +1 that.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
Fair enough
January 8th, 2019 at 3:29 PM ^
I had the same speculative thought.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
Our defense next year is going to be . . . interesting. We lose:
Our best linebacker (Bush)
Our two best DL (Gary and Winovich)
Our best corner (Long)
Our DL coach, who was our longest-tenured D coach / (Mattison)
Our LB coach
Possibly our D coordinator.
We also lost a key contributor on the two-deep who was a lock to start in Aubrey Soloman.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
Yeah, at this rate we might give up 124 to OSU next year.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:56 PM ^
I will bet you ten bucks we beat OSU next year... deal ? I'm serious. The board here will hold me to it, like the lemon eating.. can pay you with venmo or paypal... Yes or no.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
On the one hand, we lost even more prior to 2017 and for the most part the D exceeded my expectations.
On the other, it did so because the talent coming in turned out to be mostly terrific, and Don Brown had things humming, and we had a great DL and Bush who was an instant, huge upgrade at LB, and our CBs turned out to be dynamite.
Now our DL is a real worry and the one constant we could count on, great positional coaching of the DL, is gone. Devin Bush, an all-american, is gone. We've still got good secondary talent, but that might be the only place that's not kinda average.
And we don't know if Don Brown comes back, and if he does, we are no longer supremely confident in his scheme anyway.
So how about that basketball team
January 8th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
Basketball is great isn’t it?
January 8th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Never schedule Air Force!
January 8th, 2019 at 12:27 PM ^
62-39 has consequences doesnt it Stephen?
I dont think even you knew how great they'd be though. I'm sorry we can rationalize the past 24 hours all we want here internally - this is bad.
Real bad.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:18 PM ^
Maybe part of that burning house gif finally collapsed.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
It looks like we are keeping Brown. Importantly.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
I don't want to lose Washington, but I'm not surprised he went with his history. I don't begrudge him it either; not like Mattison, where I do feel a bit betrayed.
Losing Brown would suck though.
I am curious who harbaugh will pick up. He's usually good at filling holes.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:04 PM ^
Mattison leaving isn't a betrayal.. he was a top DC.. and has been being second fiddle for four years... this is all on Urban... and Mattison just tripled his salary.
What I don't get is that there aren't contract stipulations in place whereby they CANNOT go to certain rivals... this is really a shocker to me... I heard there are terms whereby they cannot disparage the program publicly after they leave... but to be allowed to go to the rival immediately ??? Is there a contract lawyer in the house who can chime in here ?
January 8th, 2019 at 1:22 PM ^
It's a fairly closed industry. You can't limit people too much. It also becomes very difficult to hire new people if you are known as the school which limits advancement.
It's good to remember Kirby Smart left Alabama to go to Georgia and Pruitt just left Alabama to go to Tennessee. Even Saban has to deal with his good coordinators and assistants going to schools he will need to compete against to be successful.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:41 PM ^
I'm no lawyer, but non-competes are easier to enforce if they very specific in scope and duration. Seems like Jim should add a clause to all contracts that block OSU for one year. That seems reasonable. I dunno.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:54 PM ^
Our defense next year is going to be . . . interesting.
Sounds like a good time to pull out all the stops and get our offense up to another level.
It's their turn to go out and win some shootout games for us.
Gonna need them.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:30 AM ^
Bigger loss than Mattison. Hopefully someone else can fill that recruiting hole.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:32 AM ^
Fuck these dudes!
Low character, no loyalty, we should be dicks to them forever.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
Would they like anyone else? Jesus.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
I’m willing to give them Pep and Harbaugh’s love for manball.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:58 PM ^
Jesus is joining their staff too? We're screwed.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:04 PM ^
At this rate the UM/OSU coaching staffs will be sharing a sideline during the game. The UM football program will be absorbed into OSU. It will be an intrasquad scrimmage.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
I love how I posted this very same thing under a different user account a few days ago from a different source and my old username was deleted. Hmmm...
January 8th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Look at it this way. The guy obviously had little loyalty to Brown or Michigan. Better to find out now after one year than later.
He was a LB coach. Even if he was good, We can find another good LB coach. Let's maybe find someone who actually wants to be HERE.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Unless Brown counseled Washington that he (Brown) was also getting ready to bail.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
If Brown was leaving for somewhere else, wouldn't he have tried to have Washington follow him?
January 8th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
If Brown was leaving for somewhere else, wouldn't he have tried to have Washington follow him?
January 8th, 2019 at 1:07 PM ^
Makes one really appreciate Gary Moeller... a former OSU captain... OSU was PETRIFIED of Moeller... he went undefeated against them.... and we fire him..... now he is Kim Philby in Ann Arbor, in a sense....
January 8th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Man, if I'm OSU I'd be super wary of this and the Mattison hire. Obviously it's got Michigan fans riled up in the off-season, but if anything goes south with the defense next year, especially against Michigan, these moves are going get a lot of both rational and irrational flak.
Rational: You hired two principal guys from a defense that looked solved at the end of the year.
Irrational: These guys are obviously Michigan plants, they know our cues and signals, etc.
There isn't going to be a lot of leeway unless everything goes perfectly, which it will because OSU.
January 8th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Bingo....pressure will be very intense. They got the talent of course to keep running along, but if they dip and lose a few games....it will end very poorly.
While I finally get to smile in the background
January 8th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
Honestly not that upset. He was only here for a year. He had never been a LB coach before so not sure how big his effect on the defense/LB was. He's a great recruiter but OSU will recruit no matter what (and they lost Meyer/Schiano two of their best recruiters) and now they have 3 coaches on defense that are basically DL coaches, which seems like overkill.
I just don't get how OSU saw our game against them and thought "gimme some of that please." It sucks to lose coaches to OSU, but I don't think Washington or Mattison were that integral of pieces or irreplaceable. Hopefully this just serves as an opportunity to infuse some new blood and good football minds onto the staff to fix the issues we saw at the end of the year.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
I've commented on these pages before that something clearly happened in the locker room and/or staff meeting rooms in the days and weeks before and after the OSU game that broke the program. Whatever it was, I hope the loss of so many talented players to graduation, early draft, and transfers, as well as the departure of 3 key coaches on the defense, won't mean the issue causes another lost decade for Michigan Football.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
I have been saying the exact same thing. Something happened between our three game dominance over decent to good teams and the the Rutgers game. We looked flat and off against Rutgers, played like crap against Indiana and then just shit the bed against OSU. And then the Peach Bowl. Something happened that took us from "Revenge Tour," "we are back," top-4, best defense in the country, favored over OSU to . . . whatever the last 4-5 games were.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:00 PM ^
I agree. How did it go from Good Ship Lollipop to the Titanic in a few weeks?
January 8th, 2019 at 12:04 PM ^
Like the Titanic, the Captain of the SS. Michigan Football probably played a role in hitting this iceberg.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
Perhaps they're not firing shots at Fort Schembechler out of concern for their program access, but I get a feeling that John U., Sam, and Angelique probably know a lot more than they're letting on.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
I think you're more right than you realize.
I heard a rumor the other day from somebody I trust that I wouldnt post here for anything but I can say that if it's true (and I dont know if it is or not) you have correctly diagnosed the problem.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Would you say it’s something that’s veracity (or not) would come to light in time? This all of a sudden seems like everyone is heading for life rafts.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
“Yes”
IF this is true and IF assistants are heading for life rafts, that would insinuate that the whole ship is about to sink.
Are there seriously such dire problems going on internally right now? If so, are we looking at a whole new regime come fall?
January 8th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
Wow, thanks for the insight. "I heard something, won't tell you, don't know if it's true, but boy howdy, if it is . . . "
January 8th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
Feels like a JH to NFL rumor/situation.
January 8th, 2019 at 12:46 PM ^
I've made a pretty good living diagnosing organizational issues of one stripe or another. I *think* I'm right in saying this is a problem with the program's leadership. Obviously, I don't have any insider knowledge, but I've heard a few rumors in the past couple of days as well ("friend of a friend" kind of stuff) that fit with your remarks above, what we can all see from the outside looking in, and my own experience.
January 8th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
Nordin and Solomon poisoning the well....
or word got out that Washington was gonna be leaving...
January 8th, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^
Maybe if you wear tinfoil hats something clearly happened. Or our DL had tons of injuries and was useless and OSU only prepares and gets up for the Michigan game each year.
January 8th, 2019 at 6:02 PM ^
What does injuries on the DL have to do with the price of tea in China?
January 8th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
Lets see...our Defense gave up 62 and 41 the last two games to the two best teams we played. Guess im not too worried about who we "lose" off of that defense...OSU is taking two coaches who couldnt coach well enough to stop them...make you wonder if they may be doing us a favour.
January 8th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
The problem isn't just Washington or Mattison leaving, its that there isn't any damn plan. Nothing has been done to improve our offense which is in desperate need of a revamp. Our new WR coach has zero track record of impressive development or recruiting and now we are losing our second best recruiter to our biggest rival. It all looks bad and there isn't an opportunity to make it look good until we play osu next year. That is the problem with the bowl game, it leaves a bad taste around the program for the next 9 months.
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