Mo Linguist Named Co-Defensive Coordinator, George Helow Safeties Coach
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg reported this on Tuesday, and we’ve just been sitting on it watching basketball for a few days. Since it’s now been made official, let’s report it.
OFFICIAL: Michigan Names Maurice Linguist and George Helow to Defensive Coaching Staff. 〽️
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) January 20, 2021
Welcome, @CoachMo15 and @GeorgeHelow! pic.twitter.com/fm5GMH12EJ
Mo Linguist has been everywhere, man. He’s a top cornerbacks guy, a good recruiter, and an absolute pro at moving cross-country—I have a Linguist map that covers 7,169 miles in tomorrow’s post. His short stint at Minnesota in 2017 is the only one I’ve scouted thoroughly and that was mostly making chicken salad with his entire starting four injured; that defense finished 32nd in S&P+ against the pass. Ed Warinner was also with Minnesota at the time so Linguist is familiar with someone on staff. Given the situation with Harbaugh this hire is pretty promising.
His recent two-year stay at Texas A&M yielded a couple of amazing recruiting classes, and he’s already gone to work on Michigan’s. Hopefully he can also reel in some impact transfers to help outside.
George Helow was Maryland’s linebackers coach last year, and was an intern or grad assistant for the entire Saban coaching tree. You’ll be happy to hear that safety seems to be his more natural coaching position, including his first official assistant job at Colorado State. He also played safety for Ole Miss in the late aughts, and only two of his many intern/grad assistant years were at linebacker when Locksley wanted to hire him. He was only at Maryland for a year, but he overlaps with co-DC Mike Macdonald on Richt’s staff at Georgia.
I’ll have a more in-depth article on the staff tomorrow.
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January 20th, 2021 at 7:55 PM ^
All Safeties recruiting posts must now be called "Helow:"
January 20th, 2021 at 7:59 PM ^
Has any one put together an all-names coaching staff?
January 20th, 2021 at 8:00 PM ^
Linquist
January 20th, 2021 at 8:39 PM ^
Luinqvist?
January 20th, 2021 at 8:31 PM ^
I hear his schemes are very clever.
You might say he's a cunning Linguist
January 20th, 2021 at 8:35 PM ^
OKAY YOU GUYS
January 20th, 2021 at 11:27 PM ^
Seth you know you want to make these jokes too. I expect at least a couple in the future in-depth posts about the recent coaching hires. I mean these jokes write themselves. lol
January 21st, 2021 at 12:09 AM ^
The “cunning linguist” jokes are the new “shark fucker” jokes.
January 20th, 2021 at 8:52 PM ^
At least give attribution if you’re ripping off bond quotes
January 21st, 2021 at 6:52 AM ^
See, now I thought I was ripping off Deep Purple's Knocking At Your Back Door.
January 20th, 2021 at 8:38 PM ^
Tell me how I should feel. These seem like underwhelming hires on the surface but this post seems to hint at some potential....
January 20th, 2021 at 8:46 PM ^
Can't tell how serious you're being but Linguist would be an A+ as a general addition to any college staff. As far as being in charge of a defense? Time will on that
January 20th, 2021 at 9:15 PM ^
It's obviously easier to recruit TX kids to A&M than elsewhere, but in Linguist's 2 years there he signed 4 safeties in the top 100 overall and a smattering of other top-100 recruits. And his secondary at Minnesota was pretty good all things considered.
I like that UM seems to be going after coaches with upside and youth vs. trying to trot out retreads. It may not work out but honestly, I'd rather it flame out with some guys trying to make names for themselves than hoping Derek Mason or Charlie Strong still have it as DCs after mediocre runs as HCs.
January 21st, 2021 at 12:19 AM ^
Linguist is an A+
Helow seems questionable. He barely recruited at Maryland. We'll see if that changes here.
January 20th, 2021 at 8:44 PM ^
The more I learn about Linguist, the more I like this hire. Time will tell how he is as a coordinator, but as a member of staff in general? Absolutely the kind of guy I want around, particularly when there's crootin to be done
January 20th, 2021 at 11:49 PM ^
JH is hiring young coaches I think to re-ignite excitement and put energy back into the program.
I have to think this will make a big impact recruiting wise and in practice as these coaches will get on them and make them work and hopefully give the players the boost of energy this program badly needs. Play full out whistle to whistle boys and good things will happen.
Really hoping this all pans out but I am not truly excited yet because .... well ... been a lot of that and then poof ... let down. So ..... get it going coaches .... make this team great!
I think we will at least see much better DB play from these guys.
January 20th, 2021 at 9:03 PM ^
Kane Wommack (Indiana’s former DC) is a good example of the great young coaches out there waiting to be found. I applaud looking for young, hungry, coaches with new ideas. At the end of the day college football is about recruiting. That seems to be the renewed focus (based on the hires) and that is as it should be.
January 20th, 2021 at 9:46 PM ^
All of these hires- Helow, Linguist, Hart, Macdonald- all were recruited to play football in the modern recruiting website era. This makes me feel old.
January 20th, 2021 at 11:29 PM ^
...but it should make you feel better about the recruiting ability of the staff right? Right??
January 20th, 2021 at 10:11 PM ^
Mo Linguist has been everywhere, man. He’s a top cornerbacks guy, a good recruiter
George Helow was Maryland’s linebackers coach last year, and was an intern or grad assistant for the entire Saban coaching tree.
Well, this sounds more promising than I had originally expected, albeit a bit better for Mo than George. We will have a very young defensive staff, which was what I was hoping for. My guess is we see quite a recruiting bump. But, I am a bit concerned that we don't really seem to have a single veteran guy with a lot of experience. Jean Mary appears to be remaining on staff is I guess is the experienced leadership the younger guys will look to?
January 21st, 2021 at 5:16 AM ^
What do you mean by 'alot of experience'? Mo seems to have been around a bit. But Maybe Harbaugh will have to be a bit more engaged with these younger guys as the coach of the coaches which could add to his fire too.
January 21st, 2021 at 8:53 AM ^
What do you mean by 'alot of experience'?
Veteran coach. Generally you don't think of a guy that is 36 years old as a veteran. Nua is 39, McDonald is 33, Mo is 36, I'd guess Helow is in his early 30s and Jean-Mary around 45 since he got his undergrad in '98. By comparison Zordich was 57, Brown 65, & Shoop 54. As I said, I was hoping we'd go younger and we did. I think we'll see a recruiting bump. But, I also assumed we'd bring in a more veteran guy as co-DC if we did that the way OSU did with GMatt and his co-DCs. Hopefully Jean-Mary can provide some of that veteran leadership to the younger guys when needed.
January 20th, 2021 at 10:29 PM ^
The welcome theme I'm reading is "great recruiter." That's the key.
January 21st, 2021 at 8:00 AM ^
Great recruiting is a must but developing those guys into great players who win is also a must.
Having great recruiting classes but not winning games rips your heart out. It usually takes me until April for the football BPONE to wane.
January 20th, 2021 at 11:41 PM ^
Thanks for the post. I was getting the feeling you guys were following Brian’s WTKA rule of not talking about coaching hires. No matter how much better the basketball program is I can just never get as invested as with football. And while this has caused great pain I don’t expect it to change so any and all football content is appreciated.
January 21st, 2021 at 12:52 AM ^
He is a strong ass recruiter
January 21st, 2021 at 7:26 AM ^
Mo Linguist has been everywhere, man. He’s a top cornerbacks guy, a good recruiter,
Speak comfort to me Seth. Losing Zordich was a blow. The dude could flat out develop talent; so this makes me happy.
I'm still wondering about Nua, but maybe the honest to God coaches out there can look at our D line and see development I'm not.
January 21st, 2021 at 7:31 AM ^
"Given the situation with Harbaugh this hire is pretty promising." What situation?
January 21st, 2021 at 10:10 AM ^
The fact that his grave is halfway dug.
January 21st, 2021 at 7:31 AM ^
Linguist hire?
voiceless labiodental fricative+schwa+voiceless velar plosive yeah!
(my apologies to all actual linguists)
January 21st, 2021 at 7:49 AM ^
Interesting that Linguist is listed as a defensive backs coach and Helow is a safeties coach. The department of over analyzation is reporting that safeties are also defensive backs.
January 21st, 2021 at 8:35 AM ^
Welcome, Mr. Linguist. Welcome, Mr. Helow.
January 21st, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^
The Winter Soldier is our safeties coach!
January 21st, 2021 at 10:39 AM ^
That's a pic of Roy Roundtree.
January 25th, 2021 at 1:55 PM ^
This all feels like a Hail Mary...I hope it works. Replacing coordinators didn’t work for RR or Hoke...in fact the issues got worse.
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