Michigan has hired Maryland linebackers coach/special teams coordinator George Helow to be the safeties coach.
Hit the jump for more.
Helow played at Ole Miss under Houston Nutt before embarking on an interning/coaching career that took him from Alabama to Georgia to Colorado State to Maryland, coaching safeties and outside linebackers at his various stops.
I have not come across Helow on the coaching/clinic circuit, so I'm unfamiliar with him. But I do randomly have a friend who's pretty plugged into Maryland, and he says Helow is a pretty big loss. He says the linebacker play improved and that he's a solid recruiter, though he didn't have much time at Maryland to establish relationships since he was only there for one season.
The current defensive coaching staff looks like this:
- DL: Shaun Nua
- ILB: Brian Jean-Mary
- OLB/Co-DC: Mike Macdonald
- CB/Co-DC: Maurice Linguist
- S: George Helow
Instead of analysis, here's ten minutes of highlights of Helow running downfield on kickoffs from the Houston Nutt era:
Fire Jay
ReplyDeleteAdd ST Coordinator to Helow
Hire an experienced OL coach
Keep Moore with TEs, and maybe add the co-OC role to keep him happy
ewlayers improving under his coaching is a great note.
ReplyDeleteI looked up the history of the current LB coach when he was hired ladt year. I found thatno position he evercoacjed showed improvement. Almost all just stayed about where they were, showing no improvement in impact on games, and even going down in impact at one college. Impact went down here in his first year at Michigan, as also happened on the D Line with the new DLine coach.
Josepd dreamed dreams
Meanwhile, Nick Saban is putting together quite the coaching staff.
ReplyDeleteI'm an ardent Harbaugh supporter but these moves feel like desperation. Like blitzing when you can't cover, or throwing up jump balls to your WR because you can't move the ball with any consistency. Pulling the goalie.
ReplyDeleteI can rationalize it - the youth movement lets you focus on recruiting while veteran 'analysts' provide X's and O's support - but it feels risky. The 3 most proven coaches on the staff (Warriner Brown and Zordich) are gone. I guess Harbaugh really is "betting on himself".
-Lank
Of course it's acceptable when it's Lank questioning the coaches
DeleteThe faster troll in the west! I'm impressed.
Delete-Lank
fastest
ReplyDeleteI'd prefer a staff of mostly grey haired men who've seen a lot, and coach not just from knowledge and desire. 7-5 is where I'm expecting the record to be next year. That's good enough for a Bowl.
ReplyDeleteJoseph dreamed dreams
Young is fine - young helps recruiting. But this is overdoing it
DeleteNeither our DC or coDC have ever coordinated a Defense. The most experienced guy on that side the ball is BJM, whose LB room took big steps back
We still have no help for Gattis. Moore can recruit, but his TEs haven't blocked well at all. Now he's supposed to take on the entire OL? And help coordinate?
We have the talent to do much better than 5 losses. Success in the portal makes us competitive through late November. These moves make it more likely we have another covid chaos type year
I cant see that the type of coaches Jim Harbaugh has hired the past 2 seasons would be hired by Nick Saban. Comparing where Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban are at I'll clearly side with Nick Sabans approach.
ReplyDeleteJoseph dreamed dreams
I think Michigan has to work a whole lot harder to get a top 5-10 recruiting class than Alabama right now. The pivot to emphasizing recruiting makes sense in that context.
DeleteIdeally you have coaches that can get you Jimmys and Joes while drawing up Xs and Os but it can be hard to find those that are elite at both while also being development experts at their positions. Michigan tried the approach of emphasizing scheme (Brown) and it seems like they're going to try something else now.
-Lank