COLBlue

February 22nd, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^

Liked that he worked with Don Brown before going to Hawaii, and probably a good hire.  But, a question... 

Just a year ago he was hired as the DC at Hawaii.  Even though a job with Michigan football is likely going to give someone more notoriety thank a job with Hawaii football, on paper going from a DC to an analyst looks like a demotion.

A quick look shows that Hawaii had a not so good defense (ranking lower than 100 nationally), and was slightly lower than the year prior.  Was he not likely to last much longer as DC?  Did he not like being in Hawaii?  What gives from his side of the change?

maizerayz

February 22nd, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^

He's around 65 years old from what I can tell. He probably won't get a head coaching job, and is at the stage where 24/7 focusing on football is maybe less of a priority.

At Michigan he can still take part in planning and mentoring, without the crazy hours. And the stage doesnt get bigger than Michigan.

Plus, if one of the defensive assistants were to leave after the season, Jim would have had a good long look at him to see if he's good for a promotion.

Robbie Moore

February 22nd, 2017 at 3:05 PM ^

...seems there are two kinds of candidates for a non-coaching analyst job. The young guy looking to move up and the experienced older coach looking to stay in the game but take it a bit easier. Lempa, after 40+ years of coaching, is clearly the latter. Has a strong relationship with Don Brown and has coached Brown's system. Seems like Michigan is the perfect place for him.

Michigan_Mike

February 22nd, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^

He gets to learn from Brown, Mattison, Zordich and Harbaugh instead of coaching at a school where he will never get the talent to produce a good defense. If he excels as an analyst he could potentially land a position coach job here when someone retires or gets a coordinator positon elsewhere.

Harlans Haze

February 22nd, 2017 at 3:31 PM ^

to any more road trips like Hawaii took last year, to Australia and Ann Arbor, in less than a week. Hawaii's a GREAT place to live. It's not a great place to build a college football power.

Blue in Paradise

February 22nd, 2017 at 8:34 PM ^

on the UM football staff and I was probably in the 99.9% majority of Michigan fans.  Now, not only is every staff hire posted, there are debates on the merits of individual analyst exits / hires.

This is both a revelation in terms of the change in trajectory in the program since Harbaugh! and a crazy overanalysis of a completely de minimis topic.

Gr1mlock

February 22nd, 2017 at 5:09 PM ^

I assume this is also a "we'll have a plug and play guy ready when the 10th assistant spot opens up" type hire, in addition to the various reasons stated above this makes sense.  

GoBlue3232

February 22nd, 2017 at 5:18 PM ^

I'm interested in the new twist that Coach Brown has in store for our defense. He claims that there will be some new stuff added into the defensive gameplan this season