Please consider helping out the blog by making Amazon purchases here (LINK):
With all the news surrounding coaching movement in the off-season, there's a lot to cover. First of all, though, I want to mention that former defensive coordinator Greg Robinson, who worked under Rich Rodriguez in 2009-2010, passed away from Alzheimer's complications at the age of 70.
FORMER COACHES
Don Brown (Head Coach, UMass): UMass hired Brown to be its new head coach. This is actually his second stint as the head coach of the Minutemen; he was there from 2004-2008 and went 43-19, the best five-year record in school history. But that was when the program was in FCS (DI-AA), so this is a level up in competition.
Erik Campbell (Wide Receivers, Bowling Green State): Campbell finished up his third season as BGSU's wide receivers coach.
Tony Dews (Running Backs, Tennessee Titans): Dews had been the running backs coach for the Titans since 2018.
Hit the jump for more.
Tim Drevno (Offensive Analyst, UCLA): Drevno spent 2021 as an offensive analyst at UCLA after getting fired as offensive line coach at USC in 2020.
D.J. Durkin (Defensive Coordinator, Ole Miss Texas A&M): Ole Miss finished at #97 in total defense in 2021, but that didn't stop Texas A&M from hiring him as its new defensive coordinator.
Ron English (Co-Defensive Coordinator, Purdue): English helped coordinate a defense that finished #34 in the country in scoring defense, giving up 22.4 points per game. Purdue went 9-4.
Jedd Fisch (Head Coach, Arizona): Arizona went 1-11 in Fisch's inaugural year.
Greg Frey (Offensive Line, Duke): Frey has been the offensive line coach at Duke since 2020.
Darrell Funk (Offensive Line, BYU): Funk spent the 2021 season as BYU's offensive line coach.
Tony Gibson (Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers, North Carolina State): Gibson has been the defensive coordinator since 2019.
Pep Hamilton (Passing Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks, Houston Texans): Hamilton is finishing up his first season with the Texans.
Jeff Hecklinski (Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks, San Diego State): Hecklinski has been the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach since 2020 when Brady Hoke was hired as head coach.
Jay Hopson (Defensive Assistant, Mississippi State): Hopson spent 2021 as a defensive assistant at Mississippi State after stepping down as Southern Miss's head coach in 2020. There are rumors that he could end up as the defensive coordinator at Louisiana-Monroe under Terry Bowden.
Brady Hoke (Head Coach, San Diego State): Hoke was named Coach of the Year in the Mountain West after going 12-2.
Greg Jackson (Safeties, Houston Texans): Jackson is finishing up his first season as safeties coach for the Texans.
Cato June (Outside Linebackers, Bowling Green State): June finished his first season as OLB coach at BGSU after spending 2020 at UMass.
Scot Loeffler (Head Coach, Bowling Green State): BGSU went 4-8 this season.
Calvin Magee (Offensive Coordinator, Jacksonville State): Magee is following Rich Rodriguez to go be the offensive coordinator at Jacksonville State.
Curt Mallory (Head Coach, Indiana State): The Sycamores went 5-6 in 2021. He's 17-28 since getting the job there in 2017.
Terry Malone (Offensive Coordinator/Running Backs): Malone has been at BGSU since Loeffler was hired in 2019.
Roy Manning (Cornerbacks, Oklahoma): Manning has been Oklahoma's cornerbacks coach since 2019.
Jim McElwain (Head Coach, Central Michigan): McElwain went 9-4 in 2021 as CMU's head coach and is 20-13 over three seasons.
Shaun Nua (Defensive Line, USC): Nua was hired away from Michigan to coach the same position at USC under newly hired head coach Lincoln Riley.
Doug Nussmeier (Quarterbacks, Dallas Cowboys): Nussmeier has been the Cowboys QB coach since 2020.
Chris Partridge (Defensive Coordinator?, Ole Miss): As of this writing, Partridge is the remaining co-defensive coordinator at Ole Miss now that Durkin departed for Texas A&M. It's unclear at this point whether the Rebels will hire another co-coordinator or just give Partridge the sole job.
Rich Rodriguez (Head Coach, Jacksonville State): Rodriguez went 4-8 as Louisiana-Monroe's offensive coordinator, but he has since been named the new head coach at Jacksonville State.
Mark Smith (Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Line, Indiana State): Smith is the AHC and defensive line coach under Curt Mallory.
Ed Warinner (Offensive Line, FAU): Warinner was hired to be FAU's offensive line coach in 2021 after being let go by Michigan.
Tyrone Wheatley (Head Coach, Morgan State): Wheatley went 2-9 as Morgan State's head coach in 2021. He's 5-18 since 2019.
Mike Zordich (Defensive Backs, Central Michigan): Zordich was hired for the 2021 season to be the defensive backs coach at CMU after being let go by Michigan.
FORMER PLAYERS
Joe Bolden (Outside Linebackers/Special Teams Coach, Nevada): Bolden, who was a quality control guy at Ohio State the past two seasons, has moved on to become the outside linebackers and special teams coach at Nevada.
Kevin Koger (Tight Ends, Los Angeles Chargers): Koger is finishing up his first season as tight ends coach for the Chargers.
Mike McCray II (Outside Linebackers, UMass): McCray spent this past season as a graduate assistant at Notre Dame, but the former Michigan middle linebacker was hired by Don Brown to coach UMass's outside linebackers.
Desmond Morgan (Linebackers/Special Teams, Indiana State): Morgan finished his first season as the Sycamores' linebackers and special teams coach.
Steve Morrison (Assistant Head Coach/Linebackers, Bowling Green State): Morrison has been at BGSU since Loeffler was hired in 2019.
Roy Roundtree (Wide Receivers, Grand Valley State): Roundtree was hired as GVSU's wide receivers coach in 2020.
Nick Sheridan (Tight Ends, Washington): Sheridan was fired as Indiana's offensive coordinator after a dismal 2-10 season and has been hired as Washington's new tight ends coach.
This is a great post. It's fascinating to see where people have gone, and to sit here at my keyboard and imagine life as a coach, trying to work my way up, and moving around as these coaches do.
ReplyDeleteThe last post has Nick Sheridan at Washington. Washington's 2021 recruiting class was okay, but their 2022 class is abysmal: ranked 12th in the Pac-12 and 101st in the country. It'll be interesting to see if that program can get back on its feet.
Similarly, Jacksonville State (where Rodriguez is) has very few signed or committed recruits. The model at schools like that must be dramatically different from the bigger places: more transfers, less recruiting. Or something.
Whoa. Nice work Thunder!
ReplyDeleteI lost track of most of these guys so some of these are quite surprising. Honestly thought Ron English had retired. It just registered that Jackson State and Jacksonville State are different things. Surprised to see Funk back at a pretty notable program as well after being out of football.
I made the mistake with Jackson/Jacksonville State when Daylen Baldwin was transferring. I knew there were two, but it's just easy to get them confused.
Deletethread hijacking. Lank, JE, Thunder and others what do you think of the Harbaugh to NFL rumors? My two cents is that the NIL/transfer situation has to be factoring in. If you were as good of coach as Harbaugh and you knew you always had one hand tied behind your back in terms of competing in NIL money and not really being able to accept transfers that have not graduated why stay? I think he is too competitive. I know Michigan spends money but the arrogance of the university thinking it is 1975 and these athletes really want to go to school and are willing to take less money just because it is Michigan is crazy.
ReplyDeleteI am all for NIL but as has been said here before it really is gonna hurt NCAA football. We all knew cheating was going on but the competitive inbalance is getting nuts.
They need a g league for football and the college game needs to be governed/controlled much better. If it is a bidding war for all the athletes it really is the mini NFL.
I'm actually putting together a post on it now. It might be up this evening, or perhaps in the morning.
DeleteI would like to see college football to continue to be as different from the NFL as possible.
DeleteIt's a weird thing to me, since we hate socialism as a country, but American sports fans are reality focused on equal opportunity in their sports leagues but it's not actually clear if it's a good thing from a popularity perspective. MLB has gotten far LESS popular since instituting financial mechanisms to partially take away the advantage of the Yankees. Will college football be more popular if they have a bunch of 7-6 teams instead of a chunk of 12-1 teams? I kind of doubt it. For a program like Michigan, that has a historical advantage, I don't think we really want parity that will mean Illinois and Minnesota are just as good.
Anyway, I don't think Harbaugh is going anywhere. This is a leverage play and it's smart. For all the derision towards Harbaugh, he's no dummy and he understands competition and gaining an edge. He knows the deck is stacked but he wants to win anyway.
OmG. I agree 100% with this first paragraph
Deletethank you!!!
ReplyDeleteWow, this is a great update Thunder
ReplyDeleteI had no idea Gerg passes away, so sad to read
I don't see Ryan Osborn on the list.
ReplyDeleteLOL. That's because he's still at Michigan, at least as of right now.
DeleteI haven't been able to follow these things closely, but I had seen this at the end of November that said he was going to UConn:
Deletehttps://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/1465013527895162881
The same guy that tweeted about UConn is now saying Ryan Osborn is likely going to be hired as D Line coach at Michigan.
Deletehttps://247sports.com/Article/Michigan-football-Jim-Harbaugh-could-reportedly-promote-Ryan-Osborn-to-defensive-line-coach-179889498/