Michigan has relieved special teams coordinator J.B. Brown of his duties now that the season is complete.
If you're a regular reader, you know that I do not make a habit of calling for the jobs of Michigan coaches, but I mentioned this one halfway through the season.
Punter Tommy Doman went from averaging 44.3 yards/punt in 2023 (under Jay Harbaugh) to 42.6 in 2024 under Brown, and then Doman - who had a vise grip on Michigan's punting job - immediately ditched his home state program to head for Florida, where he averaged 44 yards/punt this year.
Michigan was #125 in kickoff return average (15.2 yards/return) in 2025.
Michigan was #126 in punt return average (3.8 yards/return) in 2025.
Placekicker Dominic Zvada was an All-American in 2024 and should have won the Groza Award after the team ranked #2 in field goal percentage, and by 2025 he constituted the #108 field goal percentage (68.2%).
Gone were the days when Michigan was scheming up kickoff return touchdowns by Giles Jackson and A.J. Henning and Jehu Chesson. Gone were the days when Michigan ran a fake punt from Michael Barrett to Dax Hill or blocked one or two punts per year.
For the past two seasons, the only excitement came from Zvada making almost all his field goals in 2024 . . . and then being jaw-droppingly inconsistent in 2025.
I have no idea who will replace Brown, but Michigan quite literally can't really do much worse with whomever they hire to coach special teams for 2026.
Schematics aside, he should be gone for keeping Semaj at Punt Return, and for the loose carriage of the ball by him (and Marsh). That's just fundamentals
ReplyDeletePotential concern: Bellamy, Esposito & Morgan are great recruiters. All coach positions that either didn't produce or got cooked by even mediocre competition
Do we lose anyone else? Wink maybe?
I mean, I think odds are that there are some other changes. With 10+ position coaches, I think losing just one would be a surprise. I wouldn't be surprised if Wink Martindale doesn't come back.
DeleteThe only coach I see on the staff that is top tier at his position is the RB coach. Chip; even though the offense was rough, was designed quite well. The rest? Jabronies.
DeletePUT A WR/RB IN AT RETURNER AGAIN
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of the walk-on receivers being in the mix like Caden Kolesar, Jake Thaw, and Joe Taylor. This is Michigan fergodsakes. A school that had Desmond Howard and Jabrill Peppers and Charles Woodson. You don't have to put a senior Blake Corum back there, but yeesh, at least play a scholarship player with some juice.
DeleteYeah I always wonder what young guys in the mold of Kapaana are doing on the roster if they don't have any juice as returners. Maybe their hands aren't good enough or whatever but they should be able to contribute quickly in this area more regularly it seems like. Would like to see young slot guys here too.
DeleteWe were putting non-playmakers in a position to cost us yardage (and possessions)
DeleteBut I preferred Joe Taylor over Semaj, easily
According to MGoBlue, the current coaching roster is:
ReplyDeleteSherrone Moore - Head Coach
Chip Lindsey - Offensive Coordinator
Wink Martindale - Defensive Coordinator
Tony Alford - Running Backs
Ron Bellamy - Wide Receivers
Steve Casula - Tight Ends
Lou Esposito - Defensive Line
Brian Jean-Mary - Linebackers
LeMar Morgan - Defensive Backs
Grant Newsome - Offensive Line
[J.B. Brown] - Special Teams (vacated)
Question 1 -- if memory serves, there's a limit to how many official "coaches" one can have. I've seen various ways to swizzle the allocation of duties to slots. Do you think Michigan's allocation is optimal, or would you do it differently?
Question 2 -- there's a slew of "assistant" coaches, and I think that's a gray area where there's no limit. I don't know the rules regarding these guys. I know Juan Castillo came in to assist Newsome at OL. Related to Question 1 -- where would you augment your official coaches with assistants/analysts to better the mix?
1. That limit on coaches went away for the 2025 season. Now you can have as many coaches as you want. That's why someone like Pernell McPhee can exist as the outside linebackers coach, for example. And analysts can help on the field. It's a free-for-all, kind of like the NFL. The previous limit was 11.
Delete2. Considering the answer to #1, I guess I don't really have an answer. Hire all the coaches! ILB coach, OLB coach, CB coach, S coach, etc.
Well ... that then brings up this question: if there's no limit on the coaches, then how would you staff a football program? For example, would you recommend a separate coach for the QB room? Do you have a separate coach for the interior DL guys vs. the outside EDGE guys? There comes a point where there are too many cooks in the kitchen. There's also a point where things are understaffed or overlooked.
DeleteI want a separate DE & DT coach, or at least a high level assistant (Fred Jackson, Soup Campbell, Juan Castillo)
DeleteSame for DBs
QB coach. We have a TrFR phenom who needed that extra special, one-on-one guy. I see at MGoBlue that their are two who help the room, but I want a highly rated COACH. I think Brian Kelly still has some HC role out there, but Scott Loeffler or someone with a ton of position & Coordinator experience who can be Chip's guy with Bryce and the next starter
Special Teams is fourth on my list. A number of guys can do it, but this starts with the basics; personnel (11, no more or less), fundamentals (blocking, tackling in space & ball security) AND THEN scheme
You know who is having a great season coaching special teams? Jay Harbaugh. Obviously he won’t come back to Michigan to coach special teams but I would love it if he could come back as a position coach or even senior analyst.
ReplyDeleteShould have never been hired in the first place. freaking amateur hour here. Luckily, there were so many holes in the team that special teams didn't cost us a big game.
ReplyDeleteBecause there were no big games.
If you were to rank our coaching staff in the B-10, they would be in the bottom quarter.
I will give these clowns one more year because Hard-balls stopped recruiting and took everything with him except the lunch lady.
One-more-year.
Harbaugh did Michigan no favors the way he conducted himself from 2022 through his exit. He saw that his best chance of getting a championship was with the 2023 team, and with that a springboard back to the NFL. The only way he was going to stay was if no NFL teams wanted him. His departure was an emphatic middle-finger to the Big Ten, the NCAA, and Warde Manuel.
DeleteAll that said, Sherrone Moore really was in a tight spot after Harbaugh's departure. There's not a single keyboard warrior on this site or others who could have handled it any better than did Moore, given the cards he was dealt.
Yeah Moore handled that pretty well, though I will say he trusted a few guys (like Campbell) too much. That's splitting hairs though.
DeleteI'm not really sympathetic to the "Harbaugh screwed us!" arguments. We won a damn natty. Come on! He brought Michigan back with his excellence and a boatload of talent remained on the roster in 2024 (with the notable omission of the QB disaster that should have been fixed by Moore/Campbell).
Know when we were actually screwed? In 2014 when the program was flailing and stagnant. Harbaugh brought in a QB, settled the OL, and immediately elevated across the board to a 10 win team. Relative to what Harbaugh was handed....Moore had it EASY.
I'll take some exception with your post here. First, 2014 and 2024 are different scenarios because of the different environments in which they operated. The most notable was the transfer portal in the NIL world, and the possibility of key player exodus. Moore was very fortunate to have retained some key players -- Graham, Grant, Johnson, some of the OL -- in that transition. In the midst of all that, he had to build a coaching staff as well. But of course, that cuts both ways: Moore had available to him a more fluid transfer portal, whereas Harbaugh did not. But by the time Moore was able to shop the portal, there wasn't much left.
DeleteIf I move to the area of expectations, Harbaugh had it easier: he was coming in after Hoke's 5-7 season, and anything resembling progress would have been seen as good news. He over-performed, but had he merely gone 8-4 he would have not faced any pressure. Moore, on the other hand, coming off a 15-0 season, was expected to do very well, and do so with a depleted QB room. He was fortunate to have a solid defense, and Donovan Warren. Had Moore lost to OSU, which everyone expected, he would have faced immediate pressure on his job.
There were tougher transitions than Moore's, but his was no cake walk. It was not a normal heir-apparent stepping into a retiring coach thing. Harbaugh's departure, late as it was, was not ideal.
Moore has now made a few VERY BAD hires. But - to his credit - he has moved on from them relatively quickly.
ReplyDeleteRemaining guy I have big ? with is Bellamy. Alum's are always favorites, but have just not seen development, performance, or talent identification you would like to see at WR.
Deletefor 15-0, natty championship, there is no check too big to write.
ReplyDeleteAnd Hard-Balls was a pretty big check.
Remember, he pulled a Seinfeld on us, quit, was in minnesota ready to take the vikings job, it was reported it was a done deal and then they pull it at the last moment. Hard-balls then comes back to Ann Arbor on Monday like nothing happened.
During signing day, he is openly interviewing for jobs. In 2021 AND 2022.
Leaves us with NO QB. Didn't bother to recruit in 22 and 23.
Leaves and takes every decent assistant with him. If Moore was a top OC, he would be in LA right now now coordinating the Chargers. Lets be real.
Both can be true and as I said before, the 15-0 natty makes it worth it.
Can we talk about Coombs? I am not crazy about this. Supposedly let go by Ohio and also by Cincy. And we got him because he can recruit? How about coaching special teams?
ReplyDeleteWe certainly could have done better. Maybe this is about recruiting? We have a young staff; could it be about adding experience?
DeleteLooks like we'll get a QB guy too