lamar morgan

Defensive coaches announced; Hart outgoing. Michigan has finally finished asking every one of their new defensive hires if they have ever run a vacuum refurbishment company with many negative reviews and officially announced them:

Moore's first staff is led by Don "Wink" Martindale, U-M's Matt and Nicole Lester Family Defensive Coordinator, who brings 19 years of NFL coaching experience to the program. Martindale was the architect of the defensive scheme that Michigan has run for the past three seasons and will continue to utilize as the framework for its 2024 unit.

The staff includes defensive line coach Greg Scruggs, linebackers coach/run game coordinator Brian Jean-Mary and defensive backs coach/pass game coordinator LaMar Morgan. The Wolverines have also added former defensive back Brad Hawkins as a graduate assistant coach.

There has been some chatter online about how Martindale didn't quite run the Ravens Defense as Michigan fans understand it via the lens of Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter—he was much more blitz heavy and ran more man defense—so the explicit statement that Martindale is here to change nothing is interesting. Reassuring? I don't know.

Also in "change nothing, do the same thing," LaMar Morgan is here largely on the recommendation of one guy:

"LaMar is someone that I have enjoyed getting to know through this process. He came highly recommended by Jesse Minter and I saw why he is respected as an top notch defensive backs coach during our conversations. He is an excellent teacher and communicator, and his passion for football and for helping young men achieve their goals showed through in his interview. I am excited to have LaMar mentoring our defensive secondary and coordinating the passing game."

Minter-recommended G5 DC becoming secondary coach: okay.

Unfortunately, Angelique Chengelis is reporting that Mike Hart will not return as a running backs coach next year. Hart does not have an instant landing spot elsewhere, and it's well past the usual coaching carousel, so it seems like this was a decision from Moore. There had been rumors about a lot of conflict between Harbaugh and Hart… but there are rumors about conflict between Harbaugh and everyone. 

[After THE JUMP: squeeze the money tree until it withers]

A pair of headlines involving Michigan Football this Friday, the reported hiring of LaMar Morgan as defensive backs coach and the decision of S Keon Sabb to enter the transfer portal. We'll check off both of these in today's short combo piece: 

Introducing: LaMar Morgan, DBs Coach 

If you read my piece about the new coaches on Wednesday and then tuned out until today, you are probably stunned since I introduced a DBs coach in that piece, Stephen Adegoke. Well, as it turned out, after Adegoke accepted the Michigan job, DeMeco Ryans of the Houston Texans put on the full court press to keep Adegoke's services. As it seems to go these days, if a college team finds themselves seriously bidding against the NFL for a coach's services, they are usually going to lose that battle, as Michigan did. Thus, we have a new new DBs coach to introduce: 

Michigan is hiring Louisiana defensive coordinator LaMar Morgan as defensive backs coach, sources tell @247Sports.

Morgan impressed Michigan during the interview process and came recommended from ex-Michigan DC Jesse Minter, whom he worked with at Vanderbilt.… pic.twitter.com/rYiiXy4O8M

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) February 16, 2024

Morgan was one of the two finalists alongside Adegoke for the job, so it was a pretty easy pivot for Michigan when they lost Adegoke. And while some may view Morgan as "Plan B" his profile offers lots of reasons to get excited. While Morgan is not nearly as young as Adegoke, he is still under the age of 40, keeping the theme of this very young staff. He was a safety for the University of Louisiana-Lafayette in the mid-2000s before going into coaching, which began as a GA under James Franklin at Vanderbilt in 2012-13, the last time the Commodores were any good. From there Morgan moved on to be a DBs coach at Western Carolina in 2014-15, then coached by Mark Speir, followed by a stint at University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2016-17. After that he did a year at Houston as the safeties coach under Major Applewhite (2018) and then returned to his alma mater Louisiana-Lafayette as an assistant head coach/cornerbacks coach.

Morgan held that job down for two seasons (2019-20) before leaving for one year to take his first P5 job, as cornerbacks coach of Vanderbilt under new DC... Jesse Minter. The two worked together for one season but when Minter departed for Michigan, Morgan headed straight back to ULL, where he got to be his alma mater's defensive coordinator under new head coach Michael Desormeaux, in addition to coaching the safeties. For the past two seasons Morgan has coordinated ULL's defense, the team finishing 29th in SP+ defense in 2022 and 107th this past season. What do we take away from that? Probably not all that much, as there was likely a bit of a talent decline with another year removed from Billy Napier's juggernaut teams that went 23-2 between 2020-21. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More news]