Michigan Football’s recruiting efforts seeing major renovation

The Wolverines are not content to simply rest on their laurels after winning the Big Ten Championship this past season and instead have seen sizeable changes to their recruiting department that should serve them well down the road. 

While assistant coaches still play a major role in recruiting, Michigan football has made some big moves this offseason in their off-field personnel departments, adding some familiar faces and big names with the aim of improving their organization and evaluation in recruiting.

Much of this started a few months ago when former Michigan director of player personnel Courtney Morgan left for the same job at Washington.

The Wolverines moved promptly in replacing part of Morgan’s duties, hiring CMU’s director of player personnel Albert Karschnia. Karschnia, a former Wolverines off-field staffer prior to taking the role with the Chippewas, will direct recruiting operations for the Wolverines, meaning less of the evaluation process and a lot more of the behind the scenes logistics, setting up and maintaining contact with local coaches and high schools, organizing recruiting trips and visits, etc.

He is joined in the behind-the-scenes logistics by Christina DeRuyter, who was hired last offseason to oversee on-campus Recruiting.

That role is largely geared towards organizing and managing the actual official and unofficial visits recruits take at Michigan, so setting their schedules, setting up players to host them, organizing team recruiting activities, and other facets.

However, that’s not all the Wolverines have done. They also added Tom Gamble as director of player personnel, replacing Courtney Morgan’s duties in the evaluation process of recruiting. A longtime NFL front office executive, Gamble most recently worked as a Senior Personnel Executive for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and overlapped with Jim Harbaugh in San Francisco.

While Courtney Morgan did a solid job in his brief time here, by all accounts, Gamble brings significantly more experience and a serious resume that should help Michigan football pitch its NFL ties as an enticement to recruits eager to make it to that level.

And of course, former Michigan star QB Denard Robinson is back, accepting a job under Tom Gamble as assistant director of player personnel.

Robinson will be assisting Gamble in the evaluation process, and likely be a strong on-campus presence that can connect with recruits and sell Michigan based on his experiences as one of the most iconic Wolverines to put on the winged helmet in recent years. His ties to the state of Florida, in particular, could also be a major asset to the Wolverines.

Altogether, these moves show that the Wolverines are not content with just a successful 2021 season, but are instead investing further resources to renovate and upgrade their recruiting department.

Add in the addition of Recruiting Coordinator to Mike Elston’s title at Michigan, and it’s a serious push by the Wolverines to build off their success in 2021, which netted them the ninth-ranked recruiting class according to On3.

While the drama of Harbaugh’s NFL flirtations may have taken some wind out of the sails, these moves are a clear show of the Wolverines emphasis and focus on building one of the nation’s top recruiting departments and should show fruit in due time.

These moves may largely feel behind the scenes, but leave no doubt, Harbaugh has seriously upgraded its recruiting department this offseason in a major way.