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]

[Brad Kemp/ULL Athletics]

As I alluded to in my piece on Wednesday when I was writing about Adegoke, Morgan seemed like the much safer option among the two candidates because his track record is much longer. Morgan brings with him a decade of experience as a positional coach in college football (FCS and FBS), having coached both safeties and corners. By comparison, Adegoke had one total year of positional coaching at any level of football and had never once coached corners. Moreover, Morgan has been a defensive coordinator for two seasons in the FBS, while Adegoke had never called plays. There are some unknowns with Morgan, such as that he's never coached at a program of Michigan's caliber and he's spent one total year in the P5 (and it was on a team that is barely P5 caliber), but he has vastly more experience overall. 

I can't speak much as to how Morgan is as a recruiter, since he hasn't stayed in one job long and again, has never coached at a school like Michigan to have a feel for what he can do as a recruiter (in contrast to Greg Scruggs and Brian Jean-Mary, who both have). But like the other coaches on staff he's a younger guy and an ex-player, so he shouldn't be terrible at it. Morgan's biggest asset in this process was his strong recommendation from Jesse Minter, who was a big fan of his during their time together at Vanderbilt, presumably making up for the fact that Sherrone has no personal history with Morgan, unlike every other coach he's hired. Furthermore, if the goal was to hire coaches who could potentially be the next defensive coordinator if/when Wink Martindale departs for an NFL staff, LaMar Morgan checks that box in emphatic fashion as someone who already has been an FBS DC. From a bird's eye view, you'd have to consider him to be the favorite to be next-in-line for the DC job just from that experience alone. 

Overall, while losing Stephen Adegoke was disappointing, I don't really see this hire as an obvious downgrade. Both guys had different appeals and I didn't obviously think one was better than the other. Adegoke had reasons to be very high on him, but also some reasons for concern. I don't think Morgan is any different. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

Exit: Keon Sabb

The other piece of news was the most notable Michigan transfer portal departure to date: 

Michigan Safety Keon Sabb has entered the transfer portal, per @mzenitz pic.twitter.com/h0lpMTcdqi

— PFF College (@PFF_College) February 16, 2024

This is a bummer, but not stunning if you were following some of the NIL insider gossip. Since the transfer period opened following Jim Harbaugh's departure, offers were being made to a number of Michigan players and eventually someone was going to get picked off. That it took this long for a player of reasonable consequence to be poached is a good sign, and even then Sabb was the perfect mold of player that will always be vulnerable. With Rod Moore and Makari Paige both returning, Michigan could not guarantee an immense workload for Sabb, even if they were planning to use Moore as a nickel and play Sabb as a "starting" safety. It was a talented DBs room and it will always be a fight for snaps. When that is the case and another team can come with an offer of both a large financial package and security in the form of a guaranteed starting job, it's hard not to at least think about it. 

For Michigan, it's disappointing to have spent two years developing Sabb into what looked like a very good player (his performance against Washington was eye-opening) but this is how college football works nowadays. Michigan's NIL operation is not as strong as the teams that can offer players like Sabb, but even at an optimum level, it is going to be difficult to keep guys this far down the depth chart when other schools can make them higher financial priorities. As for 2024, the loss of Sabb hollows out the safety depth beyond Paige and Moore and is going to require one of either Zeke Berry (Sabb's classmate) or So Brandyn Hillman to be ready to step up and take some snaps on as the rotational #3 safety. Not the end of the world but also not ideal.