Michigan Football: Grading the expected hire of Mike MacDonald as DC

Jim Harbaugh looks to have found his next defensive coordinator for Michigan football with an assist from his brother in Ravens assistant Mike Macdonald.

News broke overnight that Jim Harbaugh is likely to sign a restructured deal to remain in Ann Arbor for the time being as Michigan football head coach.

It’s a contract that will pay him less then what he was making initially, which is win for both parties. He’ll earn more if he can take home the Big Ten crown and eventually beat the Buckeyes, which seems like a longshot at this point.

This morning reports also came out that he had found his new defensive coordinator to replace Don Brown. In a move that really shouldn’t surprise many, Harbaugh went to his brother for some help. Current Ravens linebacker coach Mike MacDonald is presumably the man who is being tabbed to be Michigan football’s next defensive signal caller.

MacDonald has been working with Baltimore for seven years now and is wrapping up his third as their linebackers coach.

While in Baltimore he aided in guiding the defense to the tops of the NFL ranks in defensive categories. In 2017, as he held the assistant secondary title, the backfield led the NFL in interceptions and forced turnovers. MacDonald also spent time with Georgia before his tenure in Baltimore.

Now MacDonald will get his chance to run an entire unit at the collegiate level for Michigan football. He’ll have plenty of experience after learning from some of the best defensive knowledgeable minds in the game today under his belt.

It’s well known that Baltimore’s defense has consistently been one of the premiere groups year in and year out and there is no debating that fact.

The Ravens like to blitz a lot off the edge and let their corners be playmakers in the open field on the back end. They put a ton of focus on stopping the run as well with boulder like building blocks along the line of scrimmage.

Their linebackers must have the abilities to stop the run and get to the quarterback which is specific to their scheme packages. These plans could be very similar ones that MacDonald may use depending upon when he takes over at Michigan.

Grading the hire for Michigan football

As for grading the hire to be the latest defensive coordinator at Michigan, most would probably feel pretty good about it in my humble opinion.

I would personally give it a respectable B grade. If it  truly comes to fruition then its about as good as Harbaugh can do given the circumstances surrounding the current shape of the program.

Ultimately MacDonald will be judged the harshest by how he handles Ohio State and can improve this defense in a jiffy if the opportunity arises.