Michigan is essentially back to the drawing board on its defensive coaching staff hires. With Jesse Minter and Mike Elston to the Chargers, Jay Harbaugh off to the Seahawks, Chris Partridge fired during the season, and Steve Clinkscale being presumed to leave for the NFL, it will be a total revamp on that side of the football. None of that is to mention top candidates for the defensive coordinator position from the NFL ranks like Clint Hurtt, Zachary Orr, Anthony Weaver, and others already taking jobs elsewhere and coming off the board. We’ll be approaching the midpoint of February before new head coach Sherrone Moore is able to finalize his staff for his first season leading the Wolverines.
Defensive Coordinator
It’s been well reported at this point by Sam Webb of 247Sports, Chris Balas of On3, and others that Moore appears to have zeroed in on the Ravens’ coaching tree and the NFL writ large as his top hunting ground to find a defensive coordinator. The names that have emerged most frequently attached to this job are Kansas City Chiefs defensive line coach Joe Cullen, former New York Giants defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, and Baltimore Ravens pass game coordinator and secondary coach Chris Hewitt.
Cullen seems to be the top candidate for the Seahawks defensive coordinator position as well. He worked with new Seahawks head coach and former Michigan DC Macdonald for five years in Baltimore and has produced an excellent defensive line group for the Chiefs. Michigan can offer more playcalling responsibilities to Cullen, who has only been a DC previously when working for Urban Meyer in Jacksonville (and 17 years prior for the Indiana Hoosiers for a single season). Cullen is also 56 years old and has spent 17 of the last 18 years coaching in the NFL. Who knows what his aspirations of returning to college or taking over those kinds of playcalling responsibilities are? Or if Michigan could present a more compelling offer than the Seahawks. If they could land Cullen, it would be an excellent hire despite the relative inexperience in running his own defense.
Martindale is certainly #OpenToWork after being fired from the Giants; that’s the second time in three years he’s been fired, producing bottom five defenses by DVOA in each of those campaigns. He was foundational to some of the excellent defensive staff that the Ravens have developed, but he’s also a very aggressive blitzer and slots somewhere between Don Brown and Todd Grantham in mentality in that regard. For all of the talk of Martindale developing Jesse Minter and Mike Macdonald’s schemes, his recent work hasn’t followed that blueprint at all and I think he could be a concerning fit for Michigan. He’s also 60 years old and hasn’t coached college football since 2003, when he worked for Jack Harbaugh at Western Kentucky.
The third NFL name, and the least likely of the bunch for my money, is Hewitt. There’s been less buzz around his name than the first two, but more importantly, Hewitt is in a strong position to continue advancing up the NFL ranks. The Ravens have had six defensive assistants from their last three coaching staffs take either NFL head coaching or coordinator positions or high-end power program coordinator roles in college football. Four of those names came from the 2023 staff alone. That means if Hewitt just sits tight, he might be a year away from his own NFL coordinator gig and wouldn’t benefit from a jump to Michigan to cut the line. I doubt he lands in Ann Arbor.
There is a fourth name that I haven’t seen attached to Michigan at all yet, but who intrigues me as an option: Detroit Lions defensive backs coach Brian Duker. He was promoted to oversee the secondary overall after handling safeties for the Lions in the previous two years and also spent three years on staff under John Harbaugh in Baltimore. Duker is obviously already familiar with the region, which is a benefit, as well as having the Ravens’ connection. He doesn’t have playcaller experience and he’s barely spent any time at the college level (four years split between Mizzou and Bryant in the early 2010s) but he could have the chops and connections.
To look at college names, I have another half-dozen that jump out to me.
I’m a little surprised that there’s been no juice around Charlie Strong, who employed Sherrone Moore for four years at Louisville. He hasn’t been a playcalling DC since 2009 but was also heavily involved with the defense during his ten years as an FBS head coach after that and was co-DC for the Miami Hurricanes in 2022. There are far worse hires they could make.
Tony Gibson is another name who jumps off the page to me. He was a former Michigan assistant under the RichRod era, but has blossomed into one of the best defensive coordinators in college football for the better part of a decade at N.C. State and West Virginia. Gibson is already paid handsomely in Raleigh — $1.5M — but he’s a name worth spending on. He’s also a dawg as a recruiter, which will be important given that Moore has backed himself into a corner by only allowing space for four defensive assistants (barring some change with special teams coordinator J.B. Brown handling secondary duties or something like that).
Here are four more names for you: Rutgers defensive coordinator Joe Harasmyiak, who’s excelled over the last two years under Greg Schiano; Toledo defensive coordinator Vince Kehres, who has deep Midwest roots and won two national titles with seven consecutive top five finishes at famed Mount Union; SMU defensive coordinator Scott Symons, who already has six years as an FBS DC despite being just 34 years old; and Ohio defensive coordinator Spence Nowinsky, another Midwestern standout who’s advanced up the ranks for years on end now.
I think it could also be possible to get Kehres or Nowinsky as a defensive line or linebacker assistant, respectively, which could help boost a defensive braintrust that will be shorthanded and unbalanced.
Finally, Michigan could simply promote or retain Clinkscale, who has been co-DC for his two years on staff. Clink is a very good recruiter, but was only a playcaller for one short-lived stint at Cincinnati in 2015 and all of Michigan’s actions seem to indicate that they don’t want him to stay on as a DC. It seems highly unlikely that he’s on the staff next year at all at this point, and if they were to retain him, it would have to be as a coordinator.
Defensive Line
The two names that would be home run hires with clear familiarity for Moore are Notre Dame’s Al Washington (who also has run game coordinator responsibilities) and USC’s Shaun Nua (who also has co-DC responsibilities). Both work at private schools, so salary ranges for the pair aren’t known, but Michigan would presumably have to pay up handsomely for them and also offer something like the roles with increased responsibility that they currently have. Nua coached with Moore at Michigan from 2019 to 2021, where he took over from Washington, who spent the year there in 2018. Both are excellent recruiters and Washington has started to show his on-field coaching chops in the last couple years. Nua’s defensive lines were very good at Michigan, but the results haven’t been the same at USC; it’s also hard to blame anyone who works under Alex Grinch for not having an excellent defensive unit. It could be difficult to hire as it is, and Washington is also a noted candidate for Boston College’s head coaching opening; he’s an alum in Chestnut Hill.
An intriguing name for me is Cincinnati defensive line coach Walter Stewart, who joined the Bearcats in 2022 to take over outside linebackers and transitioned to defensive line coach in 2023; the latter is the same role he held at Temple and Northern Illinois from 2018-21. Producing players as good as Dontay Corleone, Jowon Briggs, Quincy Roche, and Sutton Smith while working almost exclusively at the G5 level is absurd, and his units are frequently productive. He’s a top young talent in the ranks, but it’s also worth considering that UC is his alma mater and he may not be motivated to leave.
In a similar vein to Stewart is Illinois’ Terrance Jamison, a Big Ten veteran that has spent the last four years and nearly a decade in total coaching in the league. His work with defensive tackles Jerzhan Newton and Keith Randolph was critical to some of Illinois’ recent defensive success under Bret Bielema and former defensive coordinator Ryan Walters. Jamison is still on the young side of 40 and seems like an up-and-comer who would be a very natural fit.
South Carolina defensive ends coach Sterling Lucas is an intriguing name as well, one who also comes from the Ravens tree after spending five years in Baltimore from 2016-20. His units for the Gamecocks haven’t been excellent so far, but the pedigree and familiarity are interesting.
SMU’s Calvin Thibodeaux is an Oklahoma alum who briefly overlapped with Moore during their playing days for the Sooners and he produced studs like Neville Gallimore and Ronnie Perkins in Norman before moving to Dallas and handling the Mustangs defensive line. They weren’t nationally heralded, but SMU quietly produced one of the most havoc-causing defensive fronts in the country and I like Thibodeaux’s track record quite a bit. Bringing him in by himself or paired up with the aforementioned Symons as DC would both be strong choices.
The final name here is EMU’s Jerone Steckle, who is unproven but worked with Moore at Central Michigan in 2017. As mentioned above, Kehres could also be a candidate here.
If we assume Nua or Washington aren’t realistic, I think Thibodeaux, Stewart, Jamison, or Kehres would all be great gets.
Linebackers
Much like the defensive coordinator position, there have been two names frequently reported by Michigan insiders as top targets for the linebacker spot: New York Giants inside linebacker coach John Egorugwu and Tennessee linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary.
Egorugwu is a Midwest native who worked at Vanderbilt under Minter and also had a couple years in the Ravens system back in 2015-16. The 37-year old could also be the beneficiary of turnover in the Giants and Ravens defensive staffs allowing him to move up, but if he doesn’t seize that opportunity, Michigan would be a very natural fit.
Jean-Mary worked with Moore at Michigan in 2020 and for four years at Louisville in the 2010s, which allows him for some easy familiarity. On the other hand, he also left Michigan under acrimonious circumstances after that 2020 season. I don’t know that he would hold that against Moore, given that he had nothing to do with Harbaugh’s actions, but I also don’t know that he would be particularly motivated to make a lateral move to leave Tennessee (where he has plenty of job security in a successful SEC program).
If those top two targets are unavailable, the board gets a little murkier. I mentioned Nowinsky above as a potential name here and in addition to him, four other college options stood out to me.
C.J. Ah You is a former teammate of Moore’s at Oklahoma and now the outside linebackers coach at Texas Tech for the last two seasons. He deals more with stand-up edge rushers than traditional linebackers and helped produce top ten pick Tyree Wilson, which also makes him an interesting name for the defensive line position in my mind.
Georgia Southern defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Brandon Bailey is a fast-riser in this field: just 29 years and he’s already been an FBS DC for two seasons, producing one of the best linebacker groups in the G5. He also worked under top defensive mind Mike Elko at Texas A&M for three years as a GA and analyst.
East Carolina defensive coordinator and inside linebacker coach Blake Harrell is the third of four G5 defensive coordinators I’m keeping an eye on for this role. The ECU standout has been working with Mike Houston for years and has deep roots in the Carolinas, which could make it tricky to get him to leave, even leaving aside him already having an established DC role. But the money at the level Michigan has to wield is very different, of course.
The other coordinator I would mention is South Alabama’s Will Windham. The Mississippi State grad and newly-minted Sun Belt defensive coordinator has spent a fair bit of time in Big Ten country — a year at Penn State as a GA in 2014 and three years at Kent State as an assistant from 2018-20 — despite his deep southern roots. He also worked with Kirby Smart at Georgia as a quality control assistant for two years, all of which helped him excel on Kane Wommack’s staff, before Wommack took the gig at Alabama as defensive coordinator. Windham, again, had one of the best G5 linebacker units and was actually promoted to South Alabama’s DC position just two weeks ago when Wommack left for Alabama. I think this is an ambitious and well-trained defensive mind who could see the opportunity of making the leap to a place like Michigan, as well as adding some southern recruiting chops.
There is one NFL name that’s started to emerge from a report from Houston-based journalist Aaron Wilson (previously a reporter at the Baltimore Sun), which is Drew Wilkins. Wilkins is the outside linebackers coach for the Ravens and has been with the organization since 2010. He’s never worked full-time at the college level, though briefly was a student assistant for Maryland in his undergrad years, but the Ravens connection is obviously important to Michigan types. The question remains, as it does for other Ravens assistants, if we think the Baltimore-to-Michigan pipeline is still open after Jim Harbaugh left for Los Angeles.
Defensive backs
With Clinkscale likely leaving Michigan, the Wolverines need an experienced coach in the secondary. Perhaps Brown contributes to one of the two position groups and isn’t just a full-time special teams coordinator (inadvisable move with an unbalanced staff) but they would need a more experienced hand beyond that, certainly.
To me, the clear and smart answer is Pitt’s Archie Collins. Collins is a Detroit native and Michigan State alum who shared the sidelines with Moore at Central Michigan for four years. He’s also consistently been a strong recruiter and developer for Pitt, coaching their secondary overall and sending more than a dozen players to the NFL in his time as a college coach. The familiarity, the high quality of play, and the recruiting chops make this an easy answer for me. If Michigan can get Collins, they should make him the top priority and pull the trigger on this hire. If they can’t, a few other names come to mind.
Torrian Gray, a Virginia Tech alum and former NFL standout, has been a fixture in college football for nearly two decades. He is now at South Carolina as their defensive backs coach and is a top recruiter, but was also a key part of Frank Beamer and Bud Foster’s Virginia Tech staffs for a decade and made two separate stops at Florida as well. I don’t know if Michigan could pull him away from the SEC and the east coast, where he’s spent essentially his entire career, but he’d be a strong get.
Iowa State cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat is another name to watch. The Pitt alum has had stops at Wisconsin, Toledo, Kent State, and Pitt prior to Ames and also played in the NFL for a decade. He helped lead the ball-hawking secondaries that defined Jim Leonhard’s defenses at Wisconsin and is also a close confidant of Matt Campbell. Taking over an entire secondary would be a step up in responsibility for him, but I could see the fit for a Midwestern standout.
The final option, and least known of the bunch, is Northern Illinois’ Nick Benedetto. He is the co-DC and corners coach for the Huskies now, but had seven years of playcalling experience as a coordinator at the FCS and Division II levels, as well as being a Midwest native (Illinois-born) and a key part of the very stingy NIU defenses in recent years. Michigan could do worse.