Identifying replacements for Michigan if Jesse Minter follows Jim Harbaugh

Head coach Jim Harbaugh has left Michigan for the Los Angeles Chargers and with that there could be ripple effects throughout the team’s coaching staff. One possible change appears to be defensive coordinator Jesse Minter leaving for the NFL too.

During an episode of Andy Staples On3, Jesse Simonton asked the question about who could replace Minter if he were to leave Michigan.

“Then it’s gonna be who’s gonna replace Jesse Minter,” Simonton said. “Because the whole Baltimore Ravens pipeline thing is probably gonna be dried out. You had Mike MacDonald. Jesse Minter was a great transition piece. There’s not another guy on Michigan’s staff that has any coordinator experience in terms of play calling. So, do you go and get a guy like Jim Leonhard, or who are some guys we should keep an eye on?”

Chris Balas of The Wolverine replied, pointing out that Michigan has multiple internal candidates who make sense.

“It’s a great question and it’s one that people have been asking us,” Balas said. “There’s two things in there. Steve Clinkscale was the co-defensive coordinator last year and he’s in the secondary there. He’s gonna keep that title at the very least. It wouldn’t be surprising to see if he and Mike Elston if they were gonna promote from within, Mike Elston’s been around forever. He’s had a little bit of a coordinator experience on an interim basis at Notre Dame, but has around a long time and a lot of people think it’s his time.”

Perhaps most important to Balas is that Michigan maintains some kind of continuity on the defensive side of the ball, particularly in the scheme and the language of the defense.

“But what you want to do guys, you don’t want to change up the defense and teach something completely different. You remember when they brought Don Brown in? It was great and then it wasn’t when people got used to it, but it took some getting used to in the terminology. The best part about going from MacDonald to Minter was that you had two guys who basically came from the same system,” Balas said.

“Will there be another guy on that Ravens staff, an up-and-comer, because Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore are this close. John Harbaugh has been very supportive. Maybe there’s a guy waiting in the wings that John Harbaugh says this was gonna be my next guy in line like you did with Mike MacDonald, and maybe we can help you out, but it is something I know that they’ve been thinking about because Jesse Minter, again, in talking to people who had lunch with him before the year, they said this is probably gonna be his last year. The last thing you want to do is get somebody in here with a whole new system, especially when you have some really good pieces coming back on that defense.”

What drew Jim Harbaugh to the NFL

In the wake of Jim Harbaugh leaving Michigan for the Los Angeles Chargers, NFL insider Adam Schefter explained what drew Harbaugh to the league.

“Well, Michigan was offering to make Jim Harbaugh the highest-paid coach in college football. But the fact of the matter, is no matter what Michigan offered him, it couldn’t offer him the chance to win a Super Bowl; there was just nothing that Michigan could do. He had won a national championship there. He wants to go back to the NFL and win a Super Bowl,” Schefter said.

“And I think once he won the national championship, even if he hadn’t won it like he had taken Michigan to the final four three straight years, he had turned around the program; they had beaten Ohio State, he made Michigan a national power again, he had returned the program to prominence. Because of all that, then, it was a case of him wanting the next challenge, the next frontier. And with the money at the NFL level for coaches exploding and with his bargaining powers being at their peak leverage-ability, this is the time to do it. To me, he was going to the NFL as soon as the team made a compelling offer; the Chargers made that compelling offer.”