Former Michigan offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore was elevated to head coach on Friday. This followed shortly after it was announced that Jim Harbaugh had spurned Michigan’s contract talks and accepted the Los Angeles Chargers’ head coaching position.
It was reported on Wednesday evening that head coach Jim Harbaugh is departing for the Los Angeles Chargers head coaching job. Harbaugh finished his career with the Chargers in 1999-2000, completing 58.5% of his passes for 4,177 yards, 18 touchdowns, and 24 interceptions.
Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge was fired toward the end of last week, ending his short second tenure in Ann Arbor. He coached an array of squads – special teams, linebackers, and safeties – from 2015-2019 under both D.J. Durkin (2015) and Don Brown (2016-2019) and was also an ace recruiter. He coached both Jabrill Peppers and Rashan Gary in high school, the former of whom signed with Michigan when Partridge was a high school coach and the latter of whom came to the Wolverines after Partridge was already a Wolverine.
From 2020-2022, Partridge worked under Durkin at Ole Miss, and he returned to Ann Arbor this past off-season when Durkin moved on to Texas A&M.
Despite being a great recruiter and generally considered to be an awesome guy, he was let go in the wake of “Sign-gate.” Word leaking out from underground is that he attempted to interfere with the investigation into stealing signs, which largely centered around Connor Stalions. Partridge and Stalions were supposedly pretty tight and knew each other from back when Stalions was volunteering during Partridge’s first stint with the Wolverines.
The loss of Partridge is significant from a recruiting standpoint. It’s unclear whether there will be further punishment coming down from the NCAA. It seems as if impeding an NCAA investigation might warrant some kind of “show cause” for any program trying to hire him, but perhaps they’ll deem the firing a sufficient punishment. Of course, the NCAA moves very slowly, so it may be a while before we find out what they think should be done.
Rick Minter is the new linebackers coach. He was hired as a defensive analyst in the off-season and is the father of defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, along with being a former head coach at Cincinnati.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I lose track of what off-the-field staff members are where, when they’re hired, when they leave, etc. There’s so much movement that it can be hard to keep tabs on them all. So I decided to put them all in one post and update it whenever necessary.
ON FIELD FOOTBALL STAFF Head coach: Jim Harbaugh* Offensive coordinator/OL coach: Sherrone Moore QB coach: Kirk Campbell# TE coach: Grant Newsome* RB coach: Mike Hart* WR coach: Ron Bellamy* Defensive coordinator: Jesse Minter Co-defensive coordinator/CB coach: Steve Clinkscale DL coach: Mike Elston* LB coach: Chris Partridge# S coach: Jay Harbaugh
OFF FIELD FOOTBALL STAFF Graduate assistant (QBs): Mimi Bolden-Morris Graduate assistant (WRs): Andrew Goodrich Graduate assistant (LBs): LaTroy Lewis Graduate assistant (OLBs): Dylan Roney Offensive analyst: Jack Clark Offensive analyst: Nick Gilbert Offensive analyst: Bret Ingalls Offensive analyst: Josh Sinagoga# Defensive analyst: Doug Mallory* Defensive analyst: Rick Minter Special teams analyst: Bradford Banta Special teams analyst: J.B. Brown Special teams analyst: Mike Mallory
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING STAFF Director of Strength and Conditioning: Ben Herbert Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Sean Lockwood Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Ben Rabe Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Justin Tress Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach: Devin Woodhouse
RECRUITING STAFF Director of Player Personnel: Tom Gamble Assistant Director of Player Personnel: Denard Robinson* Player personnel analyst: Connor Stalions Director of Recruiting Operations: Albert Karschnia Director of On Campus Recruiting and Operations: Christina DeRuyter Assistant Recruiting and Operations Director: Paige Shiver Director of Player Development: Chris Bryant*
*Former Michigan football player #Hired following 2022 football season
As has been rumored for a couple weeks, Michigan linebackers coach George Helow has departed from the program. He will be replaced by Chris Partridge (LINK), the former co-defensive coordinator at Ole Miss.
Helow was hired prior to the 2021 season from Maryland. He was expected to coach safeties, but Ronald Bellamy (2021) and then Jay Harbaugh (2022) took the safety coaching position, while Helow coached the linebackers. The linebackers seemed to perform fairly well in 2021, when Josh Ross took a step forward from his terrible 2020 season, but injuries and inexperience led to just a mediocre year in 2022.
While Helow is a decent recruiter, Partridge is an excellent one. And Partridge also developed a reputation as a solid coach when he was in Ann Arbor working under defensive coordinator Don Brown. So this is an upgrade for Michigan.
As for where Helow might be headed next, he was a friend of former defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald, who is now with the Baltimore Ravens. He has also spent time at Colorado State, Georgia, Florida State, and Alabama in the past, so with such a good resume, I’m guessing he will land on his feet somewhere.