Jim Harbaugh and his new staff will have to prove themselves on the field, but off the field they are making some noise.
Since mid-January, Jim Harbaugh has brought into the Michigan program six new coaches in his attempt to revamp the coaching staff with younger, energetic, and experienced football coaches. When Harbaugh, who is entering his seventh season with the program, first arrived at Michigan he was christened by some as the program’s savior. He would be the one to bring the program back from the dark years of Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, and return it to the top of the Big Ten.
However, if you have been paying any attention to the sport, you know that hasn’t gone according to plan. Harbaugh has yet to win a Big Ten title, is 0-5 against Ohio State, and just wrapped up a 2-4 pandemic shortened campaign that left many wondering if he would even return for a seventh season with some in the fan base believing the school should move on even if he wanted to return.
On January 8th, Michigan AD Warde Manuel extended Harbaugh through the 2025 season with a contract that would see his base salary reduced, but with more money available to be put towards attracting new assistant coaches into the program. In the first six years under Harbaugh, Michigan has been able to produce respectable recruiting classes finishing as high as 5th nationally in 2017, according to the 247 Sports recruiting website, but in recent years had seen some top targets leave to play elsewhere. Not every school will land its top targets but when your rival is consistently producing a top 10, if not top 5, class in the country and those schools you are competing with for a spot in the CFP are chasing and winning those recruiting battles, it hurts.
Again though, Michigan still has been recruiting top 25 classes which is good, but there has been a general opinion amongst those who cover the sport that Michigan has not developed the talent at the same level as the elite programs across the country. That lack of development has only helped the notion that the gap between Michigan and the elites of the sport has only grown larger.
Enter the 2021 off-season and the rebuilding of the Michigan football staff. Gone are defensive coordinator Don Brown, linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, quarterbacks coach Ben McDaniels, safeties coach Ben Schoop, offensive line coach Ed Warinner, and cornerbacks coach Mike Zordich. To replace these coaches, Harbaugh and Manuel looked for assistants who were younger and could relate with the recruits of today, while also possessing successful background from a multitude of levels.
The biggest change fans will most likely notice will be at the defensive coordinator position where Mike MacDonald takes over after spending seven years in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. Under John Harbaugh, MacDonald started off as a coaching intern before becoming a defensive assistant. In 2017 he took over coaching the defensive backs before spending the past three years coaching the linebackers for the Ravens. Now he will take over a unit that finished 89th in total defense and 95th in scoring defense.
Assisting MacDonald on the defense will be Maurice Linguist who was hired as the co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach. Linguist spent last year coaching the cornerbacks for the Dallas Cowboys, but prior to that spent time at the collegiate level with Mississippi State, Minnesota, and Texas A&M. While respected for his ability to coach the secondary, Linguist is regarded in some circles as a top-notch recruiter responsible for landing some of the bigger targets at each school where he has been hired. Maybe some of you will know the name Jaylon Jones, the 5-star safety turned cornerback at Texas A&M. Or I’m sure many of you will know the name Rashod Bateman. Linguist was instrumental in helping convince the receiver from Georgia to leave the state and join the program in Minnesota.
As part of revamping the staff, Harbaugh has looked to bring in young coaches with ties to the program such as running backs coach Mike Hart and safeties coach Ron Bellamy. Not only do these two men bring the youth and background Michigan is looking for on the new staff, but they also can bring a connection to the years not long ago when Michigan was on top of the Big Ten conference.
Bellamy in particular will be interesting to watch as before he joined the staff he was Head Coach at West Bloomfield High School in Michigan for 11 years and won the state title in 2020, the school’s first such achievement. Bellamy’s experience at the high school level may prove effective in connecting with recruits both in and out of state, convincing them to join the Wolverines instead of heading elsewhere to pursue a college career.
In rounding out the staff changes, Harbaugh raided his brother’s pro team once more in adding Matt Weiss to the program to coach the quarterbacks while also poaching George Helow from Maryland’s staff, who will coach the linebackers. For Weiss, this is actually the second time he will work under Harbaugh, as he was a graduate assistant with Stanford when Harbaugh was the head coach. After leaving Stanford, he has spent the past 12 years with John Harbaugh in Baltimore handling a number of roles on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.
Helow joins the Michigan staff after working under the likes of Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, and helping Maryland to a 2-3 record that was significantly shortened due to the pandemic. Much remains to be seen about Helow and his recruiting ability, but previous stops at Alabama, Florida State, and Georgia should only help Michigan in both recruiting efforts and building a culture of winning.
This new staff still must prove themselves where it matters most, which is on the fields in the fall. However the early results off the field cannot be ignored. Michigan received a commitment from 5-star cornerback Will Johnson out of Grosse Pointe South in Michigan. It’s a major recruiting win for Harbaugh and his staff as they worked hard to lock up a top in-state talent whose other suitors were USC, Alabama, LSU, Notre Dame, and rival Ohio State.
Johnson, the no. 11 overall recruit in the 247 Sports composite rankings for 2022, may be the building block this staff needs to show everyone outside the program that things have changed in Ann Arbor, and Michigan is back on the rise to an elite level.