Grading Jim Harbaugh's Offseason Hires
Jim Harbaugh has made eight significant hires this offseason. Six of those hires have been new assistant/position coaches, while the other two make up the new recruiting braintrust. A couple of the hires are home runs, a couple are high-potential types and a couple are head scratchers.
Assistant Coaches
Steve Clinkscale, Defensive Passing Game Coordinator/Cornerbacks - A
Stealing Coach Clink away from Kentucky was Harbaugh's best move of the offseason. The veteran coach is an ace recruiter, a great developer of talent, a proven commodity and he has coordinator experience. He's now the oldest assistant coach on staff at the ripe old age of 43, which speaks to Harbaugh's deliberate plan to get younger and more diverse. Clink has a chance to elevate everything Michigan does on the field and on the recruiting trail. After losing promising riser Mo Linguist, Harbaugh knocked it out of the park by hiring Clinkscale.
Mike Hart, Running Backs - A
Before Clinkscale was hired, Hart was Harbaugh's best acquisition of the offseason. As a Michigan legend, Hart brought the "it" factor to the staff from day one. He's also been a successful running backs coach at Indiana and was also the associate head coach under Tom Allen for the last few years. I never understood what Jay Harbaugh was doing with his running back rotations, so if Hart can tighten that up, he'll instantly be an improvement. I also think he can connect on levels Jay Harbaugh simply cannot while out on the recruiting trail. This was another no-brainer hire that, frankly, was somewhat overdue.
Ron Bellamy, Safeties - B
I love everything about Ron Bellamy. I got to know him pretty well while covering recruiting and I don't have one bad thing to say about him. He's smart, extremely positive, successful and has a flawless reputation in the state of Michigan. He'll immediately have a leg up with any recruit in the area. Like Hart, he's also a Michigan Man giving him personal experiences to lean on when it comes to coaching up his players and convincing targets that Ann Arbor is the spot for them. The only knocks on Bellamy as a hire, not as a person, are that he's never coached in college before and that he's coaching safeties instead of wide receivers, which is what he was originally hired to coach. I liked the idea of him coaching wide receivers more, but he's a smart guy and will be able to learn the safety schemes and relay them to his guys. I'm not necessarily worried about him as a safeties coach, but I do think he would've been better served as a receivers coach.
Mike Macdonald, Defensive Coordinator - C+
Everything I've heard about Macdonald is fine but he's inexperienced as a defensive coordinator and coaching in college for the first time. I'm not convinced he'll do a great job on the field and on the recruiting trail his name simply doesn't carry any weight. It was time for Don Brown to go, but he's literally been coaching defenses for longer than Macdonald has been alive. I like that Macdonald learned about defense while studying under Dean Pees and Wink Martindale in Baltimore, but calling plays and running the show is brand new to him. I do like the idea of giving up-and-comers a shot, and I definitely think Macdonald is going to bring some ideas to the table that Brown has probably never even thought about, but it's not realistic to think that he'll be great and all the way ready from day one.
George Helow, Linebackers - C
Everything I've heard and read about Helow is just sort of "meh". That's not necessarily bad, but it's also not necessarily good. He's had some decent jobs dating back to his intern days at Alabama with stops as a safeties coach at Georgia and Colorado State along the way, and he was Maryland's special teams coordinator and inside linebackers coach last year. He's also been able to learn from some very good head coaches including Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher and Mark Richt. He doesn't seem to have a glowing reputation as a recruiter, but he's also never been described as a liability in any way. All in all, he just seems sort of average. He's 34 years old, has had some solid jobs since 2012 and has done some recruiting. There's no need to pump this hire up or tear it down. We'll see how the linebackers look on the field and learn more about Helow as a recruiter in the coming months.
Matt Weiss, Quarterbacks - D
For me, this one is the big head scratcher of the bunch. Weiss has been with the Baltimore Ravens since 2009, but he's bounced around quite a bit. Last year and in 2019, he co-coached the running backs. In 2018, he co-coached the wide receivers. In 2017 and 2016, he was part of a group that handled the offensive line. In 2015, it was cornerbacks. In 2014, he assisted with the linebackers and was labeled as a quality control coach. In 2013 and 2012 he was just a quality control coach, and in 2011, 2010 and 2009, he was John Harbaugh's personal assistant. Now he's coaching quarterbacks at Michigan. It just doesn't make much sense. On one hand, he's done a lot for a solid franchise. On the other hand, he hasn't been able to latch on to any one position and own it and he's also never coached quarterbacks. He's been billed as a big analytics guy, but with the issues Michigan has had at quarterback, and a potential star in JJ McCarthy waiting in the wings, I would've liked a more established quarterback guy in this position.
Support Staff
Courtney Morgan, Director of Player Personnel - B+
Like Bellamy and Hart, Morgan also played at Michigan. In his role as DPP, that's big. He's a California guy through and through and has a ton of connections out west. That should make him very valuable as a recruiter out there. He also has good experience from his days at UCLA, Fresno State and San Jose State. None of those places are on Michigan's level, but he's done the job before and was very good at it.
One interesting thing about Morgan that could be viewed as both a positive and a negative, is that he took seven years off from the college football world to work in the professional arena. He was involved in medical device sales and also did a lot with professional athletes involving marketing, branding and networking. While being away from the college game for nearly a decade probably isn't the best thing, it did allow him to create relationships and learn about things he would've otherwise missed out on. In year's past that might not have been the biggest deal in the world, but with NIL stuff approaching fast, I think Morgan could be invaluable in that space.
Christina DeRuyter, Director of On-Campus Recruiting and Operations - B
This hire literally happened as I was finishing up this article, so it's brand new information. I obviously don't know much about DeRuyter, but on the surface she seems very qualified for the job. She worked at Texas Tech during the 2019 and 2020 seasons, overseeing the on-campus recruiting efforts for the program. She organized and executed all aspects of the recruiting effort for the Red Raiders, including planning travel, accommodations, meals, meetings, tours and activities for every prospective student-athlete. After last season she was hired by Vanderbilt, but was only there for a short time before being hired away by Harbaugh. She was also in a recruiting role at Arizona during the 2018 season and she worked as an events intern with the NFL Players Association in 2017-18, coordinating logistics for the Super Bowl, Collegiate Bowl and Rookie Premier among a list of major events. All of that speaks to a high level of organization, which should make her very good at her new job.
Aashon Larkins, Director of Recruiting - B-
Larkins started off the 2020 campaign as a defensive analyst but was quickly elevated to Michigan's safeties coach with Bob Shoop sitting the year out due to personal issues and reportedly handled himself well. That obviously impressed Jim Harbaugh and earned Larkins a promotion. Larkins is in his late 30s, is from New Jersey, played defensive back at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and then served on staffs at Jacksonville State, Bethune-Cookman and The Citadel. He's been a defensive backs coach and a recruiting coordinator in the past, so he should be prepared for the job. Michigan is a different animal, but he's not in over his head. He just has to prove that he's up to the task and do things a little more efficiently than Matt Dudek did.
