Your 2015 Harbaugh Staff

WELP. You know, you schedule a thing in Cleveland right after OSU loses to Virginia Tech and you think two things: 1) OSU is definitely not going to be winning the national title that night and 2) Michigan's not going to be finalizing its assistant coaches after hiring Jim Freakin' Harbaugh. I've been playing catchup this week.

BUT ANYWAY. Your assistant coaches.

OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR/OFFENSIVE LINE

TIM DREVNO. I'm mostly through his hello post. Upshot: Harbaugh vet with OC experience under him at San Diego who coached TEs and OL at Stanford (yes please) before following Harbaugh to San Francisco, where the OL's performance was highly variable. Drevno left last year to go to USC, where he had excellent results with an extremely young (as in three true freshman starters) Trojan line.

Drevno's a good fit with Harbaugh specifically and appears to be the most qualified OL coach Michigan's had in forever. USC fans were super pissed about losing him.

QUESTIONS. Is OC/OL too much for one plate? How are his recruiting chops?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. A-. Lack of big-time OC experience the one drawback; tons to offset that.

RUNNING BACKS

TYRONE WHEATLEY. You know Wheat. Even if you are a pup, there is Wolverine Historian for you. Michigan legend, quick-riser once he hung up the spurs, driven to be a head coach. Should be a killer recruiter and guy who tells guys to run at the holes.

QUESTIONS. Is there enough of a difference in RB coaches to matter, or is vision un-salvageable?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. A. Excellent trajectory, is Ty Freaking Wheately.

WIDE RECEIVERS

JEDD FISCH. Former OC at Minnesota, Miami, and with the Jaguars was dumped after two years in Jacksonville during which he was provided not much talent and a ton of rookies. Two-year tenure at Miami was highly encouraging, featuring a big turnaround from Jacory Harris and the development of pretty-good Stephen Morris.

Fisch's WR experience is somewhat limited. He didn't play football and hasn't had a WR job since 2008.

QUESTIONS. What exactly will he do as a passing coordinator? How much does his relative lack of WR background hurt?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. B+. Recruiting questions due to his relatively short tenure in college, awkward fit at WR, but also a position coach who is 38 with 5 years of OC experience behind him.

TIGHT ENDS

woo! suck it, dad! via MGoVideo

JAY HARBAUGH, son of Jim. Yeah, nepotism hire. The younger Harbaugh at least resisted the call when it was offered to him earlier:

With a coaching vacancy to fill this offseason, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh zeroed in on a promising young member of his brother John's Baltimore Ravens staff. John reluctantly granted permission, and Jim proceeded to woo the up-and-comer.

But his pitch wasn't good enough -- not this time, at least.

"It's a dream to one day work for my dad, and hopefully the opportunity will come," said Harbaugh's son, Jay. "He understood where I was coming from."

Jay is the first Michigan coach who's appallingly younger than me—25—and should have Michigan on the cutting edge of the Facebooks and Instagrams and swipe-right-to-commit websites; he necessarily has zero track record.

I'd rather have a guy with one of those, but if that's the cost of Harbaugh whatever man. Also, let's look back that the Harbaugh coaching tree… okay. I mean:

"One time, I asked, 'Do guys give you a hard time about working for your uncle, automatically look at that as the reason you got the job?' His response was: 'It's my responsibility to not give them the opportunity to confirm that suspicion.'"

QUESTIONS. Is he actually a good coach? Will having a 25-year-old on staff help with the insta-twitter-snap-tinder-cruiting?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. C. Zero track record. Shades of JayPa, but Harbaugh isn't the OC. Harbaugh name rescues it—there is obviously a heritage there.

DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR/LINEBACKERS

DJ DURKIN. Mattison/Harbaugh/Muschamp protégé has experienced meteoric rise in the coaching profession, to the point where he's taking his second DC job at a prestige program at the tender age of 37. (It's his birthday. Happy birthday.) Called plays for Florida's kickass D the past two years, has three years of Harbaugh experience as the DE coach at Stanford.

Should be a dynamic recruiter both in Florida, where he has four years of experience, and in Ohio, where he grew up and played college football at Bowling Green. Was pursued heavily by A&M and UNC, the former of which "settled" for throwing a walrus of money at LSU DC John Chavis.

QUESTIONS. How much of the Florida D was Muschamp and how much was him? How long will he stick around before getting a head coach gig? Does he know Mike Judge and can he get him my movie script?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. A. An up-and-comer with a terrific track record who immediately piqued the interest of a half-dozen recruits in SEC territory when he took the job.

DEFENSIVE LINE

[Eric Upchurch]

GREG MATTISON. Michigan retained its DC as a position coach, and he was pretty good to excellent as  defensive coordinator. Also, he's regarded as a terrific recruiter and provides continuity to help ease transition costs and prevent too many transfers. Pretty pretty good. Good fit, as well—Mattison's known various Harbaughs for 40 years and had Durkin as a GA when both were at Notre Dame. He's not going to butt heads with Michigan's new DC, but rather help him ease into being the man in charge of his own D.

Yeah, he's expensive for a position coach, but that contract was already signed.

QUESTIONS. How long does he stick around?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. A. Or five swag Mattisons.

CORNERBACKS(?)

MIKE ZORDICH. Twelve-year NFL vet has a decade-long coaching career that is mostly on lower levels save for a short stint with the Eagles. Should know everything about coverages given playing experience; Youngstown dude who went to Penn State should be able to hit Ohio and Pittsburgh hard.

QUESTIONS. Can he recruit at a big-time level? What happened with Philly and why did he get stuck at YSU?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE: B-. NFL pedigree is nice, track record lacking, does bring a presumed set of recruiting chops that should be highly useful in PA.

SAFETIES

GREG JACKSON. Another guy with a decade-plus career as an NFL safety; hooked on with Harbaugh after a few years at small schools and one at Wisconsin, whereupon his DBs were statistically lights-out. LSU alum who will likely focus on recruiting the south.

QUESTIONS. Was he a driving force behind the kickass 49ers DBs or was that either a statistical fluke or just a fortunate confluence of talent? Can he overcome the extreme gravitational pull of the South—and especially Louisiana—in recruiting?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE: A-. Track record a little short, but dang man.

SPECIAL TEAMS

JOHN BAXTER. Thirteen-year career at Fresno State saw Bulldogs block a stunning 84 punts and kicks and return a bunch of the unblocked ones for touchdowns; upon his hire at USC was an immediate success with the Trojans. Left out after Kiffin firing when Sarkisian brought in his own guys, took a year off, was pursued by Texas and Pac-12 schools this time around and chose Michigan.

Also has 15 years of experience as an associate head coach and touts his "Academic Gameplan," which helped drag Fresno State out of the depths of schoolwork purgatory.

QUESTIONS. Spread punts?!?!?!?! (Yes.) How's his recruiting?

SOMEWHAT UNFAIR GRADE. A. Should be a massive upgrade on Michigan's dismal Hoke-era special teams.

A BRIEF COMPARISON TO THE PREVIOUS STAFF(s)

As in how good of an idea they seemed like when hired, not now. Otherwise these grades would be worse.

Borges: C. Had been out of football, not much success since first year at Auburn. Did have a good year with Lindley in second year at SDSU.
Doug Nussmeier. B+. Pretty clear he was getting chased from 'Bama so Lane Kiffin could enter, but a guy with an impressive track record who's still respected enough to get the Florida OC job even after last year.

Fred Jackson: C. Had been losing his fastball for a while. In-state recruiting successes offset by wildly inaccurate talent evaluations, and how hard is it for Michigan to recruit in-state anyway?
Jeff Hecklinski: B. Long time Hoke assistant did do a nice job with SDSU WRs, both of whom went in the third round after Heck's departure for M.
Darrell Funk: C. Pre-Hoke experience topped out as OL coach at Colorado State. Seemed plausible as an up-and-comer.
Dan Ferrigno: D. Had bombed out of college coaching in 2008 and was back in HS when Hoke picked him up; aging; no thought of upward mobility.

Greg Mattison: A. Big time college coordinator coming straight from the NFL.

Jerry Montgomery. B. Iowa alum and up-and-comer who Michigan yoinked away from Indiana mere weeks after he agreed to move there. Trajectory was borne out when Oklahoma came in with a big offer and stole him away.
Mark Smith: D. Had been with Hoke forever after moving from Indiana State, failed DC at Ball State, no track record of success recruiting or coaching. Also no thought of upward mobility.
Roy Manning (CB): C. Awkward fit in secondary, but young go-getter good on the trail. Would have been a grade higher if left in the defensive front seven.
Curt Mallory: C. Longtime DBs coach who had bounced around the Big Ten for a while; was coming off three years as Illinois co-DC and one as Akron's DC, albeit with little success.

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All you have to do to measure relative attractiveness of Hoke's last staff is where they're landing. Borges and Ferrigno are supposedly headed to San Jose State; Jackson retired; Mallory went to Wyoming. Nussmeier is the exception, and he was only around for one year. Nobody else has an announced destination yet, and it's hard to see anyone other than Manning and Hecklinski getting a good Power 5 job—and even that's somewhat doubtful.

Notably, the biggest jobs many of Hoke's assistants had before coming into Hoke's orbit were not real big. A hypothetical Hoke-Harbaugh "impressive job not related to you or Michigan" challenge starts out with a couple of pushes and then is a blowout:

[Fred Jackson is a weird outlier, admittedly.]

Calibrate your preference between Borges and Durkin as you will; to me there's no question which guy I'd rather have at the time they were hired. Ditto Ferrigno versus Jackson since Jackson had been very impressive with Harbaugh. And this staff is very, very young. By my reckoning everyone on it save Baxter, Zordich, and Mattison is hungry to move up—and capable of doing so. I'm not sure you could say that about anyone on Hoke's staff.

Hooray, then? I think so.