I don't know about you, but sometimes I lose track of what off-the-field staff members are where, when they're hired, when they leave, etc. There's so much movement that it can be hard to keep tabs on them all. So I decided to put them all in one post and update it whenever necessary.
ON FIELD FOOTBALL STAFF
Head coach: Jim Harbaugh*
Offensive coordinator/QB coach: Matt Weiss
Offensive coordinator/OL coach: Sherrone Moore
TE coach: Grant Newsome*#
RB coach: Mike Hart*
WR coach: Ron Bellamy*
Defensive coordinator: Jesse Minter#
Co-defensive coordinator/CB coach: Steve Clinkscale
DL coach: Mike Elston*#
LB coach: George Helow
S coach: Jay Harbaugh
OFF FIELD FOOTBALL STAFF
Associate head coach: Biff Poggi
Graduate assistant (LBs): LaTroy Lewis#
Graduate assistant (OLBs): Dylan Roney
Offensive analyst: John Morookian#
Defensive analyst: Garrett Cox
Defensive analyst: Doug Mallory*
Defensive analyst: Rick Minter#
Defensive analyst: Joe Staab
Special teams analyst: Bradford Banta
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING STAFF
Director of Strength and Conditioning: Ben Herbert
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Sean Lockwood
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Ben Rabe
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Kiero Small
Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Justin Tress
RECRUITING STAFF
Director of Player Personnel: Tom Gamble#
Assistant Director of Player Personnel: Denard Robinson*#
Director of Recruiting Operations: Albert Karschnia#
Director of On Campus Recruiting and Operations: Christina DeRuyter
Assistant Recruiting and Operations Director: Paige Shiver
Assistant Recruiting Coordinator: Jonathan Herd-Bond#
Director of Player Development: Chris Bryant*
*Former Michigan football player
#Hired following 2021 football season
The unknown factor in it all: Jesse Minter.
ReplyDeleteI think I shouldn't expect him to be as good as Mike Macdonald.
I'm not expecting him to be as good right off the bat, either. I think he's better than some bottom-tier defenses he's coached, like at Vanderbilt. I don't think he's a top-5 guy or a guy who's going to be an NFL defensive coordinator by 2023.
DeleteBoth GA's on D, and 4 of our 5 analysts are on that side of the ball. Any idea how that compares to other programs?
ReplyDeleteI'm also curious about Chris Bryant's position. How does an off-field guy direct the development of players?
I think maybe just not everyone's hired yet. Personally, I think you need more analysts on defense just because of everything that's involved with scouting opposing offenses and staying ahead of the curve. I would expect one or two more analysts on offense before the season comes.
DeleteA director of player development helps players with off-the-field development. He's a conduit between kids and the coaching staff, and he's also a mentor to the athletes. Problems at home or with your girlfriend? Talk to Chris Bryant. Having issues with your car or unhappy with your living situation? Talk to Chris Bryant. It's mental/emotional well being rather than developing strength, agility, etc.
Gotcha, THANKS. Bryant having his career detailed is a good fit for this role
DeleteYeah, I honestly don't know much about Chris Bryant's personality. He's never been big into interviews and such. I remember him being recruited and really liked him as a prospect back in the day, but his weight and then obviously his injury ruined his football career. But he must be pretty good at his job because he's now been on the staff with Brady Hoke (as a student assistant) and throughout the Jim Harbaugh era.
DeleteAgree with Thunder. Bryant's reputation is stellar around AA and he's been getting recruited to other places so it's obvious that he's thriving in the roles he's been in.
DeleteI'm always skeptical of "co-" arrangements, particularly for a role where in-game calls and adjustments are so critical. I spent many years in corporate life, and "consensus" management styles often broke down, particularly in the heat of the moment. Sometimes a clear leader is needed.
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder how the "co-" arrangement will work, on both sides of the ball, but in particular on the offensive side. Does one assume the de facto "lead" when a quick decision is needed?
We have somewhat of a co-DC situation at our high school. The DC calls the fronts/blitzes, and the co-DC is responsible for calling/signaling coverages. Obviously, they have to be on the same page and communicate quite a bit during the week. One is responsible during the week for drawing up formations/blocking schemes, and the other is responsible for looking at pass combinations, figuring out what CB/S should cover what receiver, etc.
DeleteYou can do it in different ways on offense. In some situations the head coach will just ask for a run or pass; the RGC will call the runs and the PGC will call the passes. Obviously, again, they have to communicate and work in sync with each other. For example, you probably don't want to call a play action pass off of a run game concept you're not using in that game. Like if Michigan hasn't run power read in 9 weeks, the PGC shouldn't be calling a play action pass off of power read backfield action.
What do "analysts" do? And why are there four defensive analysts, but only one offensive analyst?
ReplyDeleteI've read that football is becoming more and more a game where statistical analysis is used, much like the theme given in the movie "Moneyball." Is that their role: to crunch numbers and make sense of the statistical opportunities given specific game situations?
The analysts are the guys who do...analytics! Everyone's favorite.
DeleteOn 4th-and-2 or shorter, if a team uses 32 personnel 88% of the time, your defensive analysts are the guys who study that, look at the numbers, etc. They watch film of upcoming opponents - not next week's opponent, but three or four weeks ahead - and prepare the coaching staff with Xs and Os, stats, tendencies, etc.
For example, we use a program called Hudl - the same company that every high school team puts their film on - that has the option of a thing called "Hudl Assist." Hudl Assist is a premium feature that has former/retired coaches break down your film, plug in information, and then spit out generic reports.
For example, we might learn that a team runs 71% of the time on 4th down. Or that a team passes the ball 65% of the time on 2nd down. But Hudl doesn't get down to the details of what personnel is in (receiving TE #89 or blocking TE #84) or the play designs themselves (after a TFL, Team X likes to run a play action pass 58% of the time). Those are things that a team of analysts specific to your team can do.
I mentioned above that Michigan is probably not done hiring analysts. They will probably hire 1 or 2 more. There's a lot of movement in the off-season. Michigan just hired Rick Minter and John Morookian in the past week or two.
This is cool stuff. I can imagine that a school can run analytics on themselves as well as their opponents. They can use that to break tendencies, and possibly throw off an opponent's analytics. Let the chess match commence!
DeleteYes. Actually, the past two seasons, I've taken on the role of self-scouting for our high school team. (Not saying it's on par with what college coaches do.) So I've spent a lot of time poring over the numbers, looking at formations/personnel, looking at play success from a numbers standpoint, etc.
DeleteIt's been somewhat frustrating for me to try convince some other coaches using numbers, because they "like" a play or they're comfortable with it or "it should work." If you're averaging 14 yards every time you run a particular pass play but a coach likes a play that only gains 6 yards per play, to me that's a no-brainer that you start to rely on the former and ditch the latter.
That's just an example. In another case, I recognized that we were only running the ball out of a certain formation when we were inside the -40, so I suggested a play action pass from the same formation when we were down near our end. It turned into a big chunk play on a 99-yard touchdown drive.
So yeah, like you said, it's a chess match.
It's more nuanced at this level. There are analysts who are doing old school things - watching tape, identifying weaknesses, and thinking up strategies in an X's and O's sense. This is basically being an off-field assistant, providing traditional scouting. It predates modern analytics by decades. Think of Biff Poggi and other ex-coaches - they're not doing analytics but they are analysts.
DeleteThen there are the numbers people or "quants" in some industries that are working with data. JE would call them "spreadsheets". Back in the day the analysts/scouts might do this by hand with a legal pad and tickmarks, but now a lot of it is automated by technology or outsourced to companies who can do it more efficiently at scale - as Thunder referenced. One way or another someone is writing code, doing math, and putting together reports or summaries. It ain't Biff Poggi. At best, he's the one interpreting the analytics.
I don't have a sense for how integrated the analytics people are with the scouting people at Michigan right now. It sounds like things are evolving quickly at the behest of Weiss. That's good news. Overall football is WAY behind baseball, basketball, soccer and hockey - but it seems to be catching up very quickly now, which makes sense given all the money involved. IMO, Michigan SHOULD be on the forefront of this to eke out some advantages while they can. It's still the wild west with this stuff and plenty of proprietary info at the pro levels.
Anyway, ideally the two types of analysts are collaborating and supporting each other - the analytics people give statistical summaries and trends that inform the analysts, and the analysts point the analytics people in the right direction to pull and process meaningful data. You have to find people on either end of the spectrum. But there are the unicorns who can see the whole thing and are comfortable in either end of the pool. That's a Billy Beane or a Daryl Morey or a Shane Battier.
Speaking of Beane, if you saw Moneyball, Jonah Hill's character is analytics, and Billy Beane chooses him over the old guys in scouting (i.e., analysts). IRL the scouts are still there and how influential analytics are in the overall analysis (decision-making) varies widely from sport to sport, team to team, and level to level.
In a most ideal world the analytics side is getting pushed by analysts and vice versa. One does not replace the other. They complement each other, challenge each other, and push each other to elevate the franchise. This is what the anti-analytics folks miss, the people doing analytics know better than anyone the limitations of what they are working on. At worst they don't care, run the models, and shrug at what you do with it. At best, they are being transparent about the limitations and offer some guidance on how to apply it (and, just as important, how NOT to apply it). Literally no one thinks analytics is the end all be all. The only meaningful debate here is HOW useful it is and how best to apply it.
Big deal here: meaningful data. In Thunder's case, as a coach - already on staff - he has an understanding of the team's scheme & concept (as well as general game knowledge). Frustrating when that input is not leveraged
DeleteWhat is not wanted or needed is large mounds of data that neither correlates to the objective or can be applied to planning for the future. This can occur when someone unfamiliar with the industry parses information without grasp of purpose, method or endstate
Exactly right JE. You have to sort out the noise form the meaningful stuff. Data without informed analysis is useless. Like looking at YPC and thinking it tells you who the better RB is. We all know it's not that simple.
DeleteBut analysis without data is just an opinion. Even a much simpler game like basketball has evolved dramatically because large data sets are processed and new conclusions are reached. Football is just coming around to this stuff but you can see it in how coaches have changed what they do, dramatically, on 4th down decisions over the last few years. What was reckless and idiotic a decade ago is now common practice. A different kind of no-brainer. These changes didn't happen without data to back it up. Somebody listened to the nerds.
If you don't have any of those nerds on your side, you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back - which is fine if everyone else is doing it but not fine if you're the only one.
So what it sounds like you may (or may not) be missing is that large mounds of data are essential to many insights and advantages. Typically someone with the requisite industry knowledge to figure out what is useful doesn't ALSO have the expertise to process those mounds of data. Different skillsets, usually.
If you come into it knowing everything there is to know (based on very hard earned opinions and experiences) then there's no point in analytics. If you have an open mind and are maybe willing to experiment - sounds like Weiss and Harbaugh do - then you need that skillset to understand how to apply the info. Then you take the next step and shape and change how the data is collected and interpreted so that it's asking different/better questions. Feedback.
In other words, not only use what's out there but get EVEN MORE data - the most meaningful kind - to gain an edge. Football is incredibly complex, that means the data needs are complex.
It doesn't take someone on staff to know analytics to say "we should pass more", but it does take analytics to change a conservative old coaches mind on going for it on 4th down. You can't change minds with a theory or what you did in video games but you can change minds with "look over here, it ALREADY works".
You can't get win probabilities from tick marks on a legal pad. Someone wrote code for that.
As we saw with the Vikings head coaching search and the young coaches and GMs who are embracing analytics, some teams are not playing with one hand tied behind their back anymore in the NFL. Likely that the elite college programs are following suit. Michigan - with it's deep NFL connections and deep pockets - is ideally suited to gain an analytics edge to complement their coaching edge. Across pro sports the analytics departments are blowing up - people I followed on Twitter took a job and now instead of interesting sports stats they're posting pet pictures. Too bad for me but great for their teams.
Recruiting
Player/Skill Development
S&C
Scouting
Analytics
Scheme/Playcalling
It's all related and intertwined.
In what I'm talking about - for the college level - Thunder is the analyst that bridges the gap between knowledge and numbers. That's essential to the process.
DeleteBut he's also wearing another hat - generating the numbers himself (or so it sounds). That's because a high school isn't hiring their own analytics department. But NFL teams are, and college programs at the highest level will (if they aren't already). I can say with confidence that this kind of thing was the work of GAs (e.g., populating databases based on film) but the big data sets are now readily available in the marketplace. No reason to do it yourself, at least not what used to be done. The exception is if you are supplementing them to get an edge. I can't speak to that but I know you can't realistically do it at the same scale as the BIG data sets. So you're doing something custom.
I'm not just talking about situational stats or playcalls or personnel. The things pro teams are doing with player movement data (think GPS tracking on your phone but higher rez) are incredibly large data sets. Michigan has access to this data - it's built into the Nike uniforms. You can bet they aren't just putting it there for funsies.
I like to pushback when people talk about the advantages Michigan has a program, but you can see an advantage in the level of analysts they have. When you are bringing in people like Mallory, who was a NFL DB coach in 2020 and is still just 57, you have an advantage. Not to mention people like Poggi and Rick Minter who have been around coaching for so long - those kind of moves allow you to put younger less experienced coaches in roles where they can focus on recruiting and skills development. Then you have guys who are more up-and-coming and will be back in coaching roles soon too. It's really a great way for Michigan to gain an edge against the programs that are not as well organized or well funded.
ReplyDeleteIs it true JJ McCarthy got a shoulder operation?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, there has been no shoulder surgery, and it's unclear whether surgery is necessary at this point. But he does have a shoulder injury.
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