3 thoughts on Michigan Football’s OC and DC hires

Jim Harbaugh hired new coordinators on offense and defense on Tuesday and here are some thoughts on Jesse Minter and the in-house moves for Michigan football. 

With the losses of Mike Macdonald and Josh Gattis to the NFL and the University of Miami, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan football needed new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

And it appears that Harbaugh has settled on both. According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel and confirmed by Chris Balas of The Wolverine, Michigan football will hire Jesse Minter, the defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt for the same role.

Balas is also reporting that Michigan football will name Sherrone Moore as its offensive coordinator with Matt Weiss also getting a promotion to co-offensive coordinator. Yet, Balas says that Moore will be the one calling the plays. Here’s what he wrote:

"“Sherrone Moore, meanwhile, will likely be elevated to offensive coordinator with more duties. The Michigan offensive line coach was already co-offensive coordinator last year, but he’s expected to call plays.”"

That’s a bit of a surprise. It seemed like Weiss was on target for that role but Moore who shined in his role as co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach deserved it too.

Minter is familiar with Macdonald and spent four years with him on the defensive staff with the Ravens. He has also been a defensive coordinator previously at the FBS level. That was his title last season with Vanderbilt but was also the DC at Georgia State.

Here are some thoughts on each move and what’s next for the Wolverines.

Minter will keep the defensive train on the tracks

Scheme familiarity isn’t everything but after all the success Michigan football had last season and all the time it has invested recruiting for this defense, it makes sense to hire someone who will keep essentially the same scheme in place.

Minter also offers a blend of college/NFL experience that is going to be helpful when trying to devise plans to slow down Ohio State.

Like Macdonald, Minter is young (38) but he’s got experience recruiting and was named the Sun Belt’s top recruiter in 2015 and made some major defensive improvements there.

Another positive with Minter is that he will allow Michigan football to continue its recruiting efforts in the state of Georgia. Macdonald has good ties there because of his time at Georgia and now Minter can hopefully use his contacts and SEC experience to help U-M in that area too.

All in all, Minter’s addition to the staff is a really solid hire and even if Larry Foote would have taken the job, there was a strong case to be made for Minter as the top choice anyway.

Foote wanted to be in the NFL and in Minter, the Wolverines get a coach with many of the same traits as Macdonald, just one that will hopefully be in Ann Arbor long term.