Tag: Brian Smith

2024 Ex-Wolverine Coach Updates: Post-season

This is a whopper of a post. I tried to keep track of a lot of former Michigan coaches and players who are in the coaching ranks. It’s impossible to keep up with all of them, and surely there are a ton who are coaching high school football or maybe at the Division II or Division III level.

FORMER COACHES

John Baxter (Special Teams Coordinator, Fresno State): Baxter has been the special teams coach at Fresno since 2022.

Joe Bolden (Linebackers Coach, Ohio): Bolden was named the linebackers coach for the Ohio Bobcats for the 2024 season.

Adam Braithwaite (Assistant Safeties Coach, Cincinnati): Braithwaite spent 2024 as Samford’s defensive coordinator and was hired as an assistant safeties coach this off-season by the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Don Brown (Head Coach, UMass): Brown was fired after ten games with a 2-8 record this year and went 6-28 during his second stint there. He previously went 43-29 at UMass back when it was an FCS program.

Hit the jump for more.

Brian Smith, Ex-Wolverine

Brian Smith (image via MGoBlue.com)

Safeties coach Brian Smith is leaving Ann Arbor to become the defensive coordinator at Rice. Rice hired a new coach this off-season named Mike Bloomgren, who worked with Smith with the New York Jets.

Michigan will be on its third safeties coach of the Jim Harbaugh era, following Greg Jackson in 2015 and Smith in 2016-2017. The safeties played fairly well under Smith, considering he had two first-time starters (Tyree Kinnel, Josh Metellus) in 2017 and helped get Delano Hill to be a mid-round draft pick. However, the safeties were considered to be the weak spot of Michigan’s defense in 2017.

It’s possible that cornerbacks coach Mike Zordich could take over the entire secondary, and it’s also possible that Michigan promotes from within – Devin Bush, Sr. is a former NFL and Florida State player who was a big-time head coach in Florida. Otherwise, I have confidence that whoever Jim Harbaugh and Don Brown bring in will do a very good job with the players on the field. As a recruiter, Smith wasn’t talked about much by recruits, so perhaps the next guy will have a little more pull.

On a side note, Scott Turner is slated to become Michigan’s 10th assistant coach following the New Year, but he’s an offensive guy who will probably slide in as the wide receivers coach. It will be interesting to see whether it’s Turner or some other staffer who steps in for Smith on the recruiting trail for now, since non-coaches can’t recruit.