Michigan Football: Pep Hamilton’s departure couldn’t come soon enough

After lots of speculation, Michigan football finally parted ways assistant coach Pep Hamilton Tuesday, bringing the end to his disastrous tenure with the team.

Pep Hamilton was hired by Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh a couple of seasons ago and he was essentially brought in to run the passing game and help coordinate the offense.

While he never had the official title of offensive coordinator, he had a significant role in calling the plays and when Michigan football hired Josh Gattis last month, you wondered what Hamilton’s role with the staff will be, especially as someone making over a million dollars a year.

Well, Tuesday afternoon, we finally got our answer as the Michigan football program announced Pep Hamilton is leaving to pursue other opportunities according to the Michigan Insider.

Of course, the school and Hamilton can call it what they want, we all know it really means that Hamilton was effectively replaced by Gattis and essentially fired. Ben McDaniels will take over the job coaching quarterbacks, which should mean that Gattis will coach wide receivers as well as being the offensive coordinator.

Since the Wolverines announced the addition of Gattis, it was clear that Hamilton wasn’t going to play as big a role and many wondered how he could fit at all in the program. He could have taken a demotion and stayed on as a position coach, but that would have been at a hefty salary.

Now, Hamilton will be free to pursue opportunities in the NFL, where he is probably better-suited to coach and call plays. At times, Michigan’s offense was effective under the direction of Harbaugh and Hamilton, especially in 2018.

During the Wolverines 10-game winning streak, there were still complaints about the offense being too conservative, however, the running game was dominant enough, along with the defense that it didn’t matter.

However, in the biggest game of the year against Ohio State, the Wolverines faltered on both sides of the ball. The defense couldn’t stop simple crossing patterns by the Buckeyes and the offense didn’t know how to play without having the lead.

Then, Michigan followed that up with another poor offensive performance in the Peach Bowl and that’s when the calls for Hamilton to go got even louder. Soon after, Gattis became available and Harbaugh made the move to grab him. That move sealed Hamilton’s fate.

And now that Hamilton is officially out, Michigan football fans can finally rejoice and hope he is taking the conservative 1980’s offense with him.