Michigan football losing offensive line assistant to ACC school

The Michigan Wolverines are losing offensive line assistant Juan Castillo to Syracuse, according to multiple media reports. Castillo spent one season in Ann Arbor as a support staffer and assistant to offensive line coach Grant Newsome.

Castillo, who was labeled the team’s pass protection specialist, helped coach a group that graded out as the 47th-best group in the country in that category, per Pro Football Focus. Michigan tied for 37th in the country in sacks allowed with 18 on the season, and the passing offense ranked 105th of 134 FBS teams with 185.8 yards per game.

“He’s a very enthusiastic guy,” Newsome said this season. “He’s very enthusiastic, very energetic, but it’s been awesome to have him, and obviously have Coach Marookian back from Charlotte, where he was with Coach Biff [Poggi] for the last couple of years. As well as Coach Gilbert, who’s been on staff the last couple of years.

“Again, I’m very, very fortunate to have the amount of O-line knowledge we have in the building, and especially coaching a position where every single player can have five, or as you guys see for us, sometimes six or seven guys on the field at the same time. It’s a huge help, because I may see something with Link that I want to go hit with him, but all of a sudden, now, Juan or John or Nick can hit something that happened with Sprague, or Efobi. It’s just, again, I view it as a complete positive for us that we have five guys in our room, or in our building, excuse me, who’ve been division one offensive line coaches.

Castillo joined the program last December as an analyst and assisted Michigan during ReliaQuest Bowl prep ahead of its 19-13 win over Alabama. He has decades of experience as a coach, including leading offensive line rooms with the Philadelphia Eagles (1998-2010), Baltimore Ravens (2014-16), Buffalo Bills (2017-18), Chicago Bears (2020-21) and UCLA Bruins (2024). Castillo was an offensive analyst at Michigan under former head man Jim Harbaugh, working on a staff with Moore, then the tight ends coach, in 2019.

Michigan’s current support staff on the offensive line under Newsome includes Nick Gilbert and John Morookian. This is the second staff move of the offseason to this point with special teams coordinator J.B. Brown being dismissed from the program earlier this week. Michigan said in a statement that Moore intends to fill the open staff slot with another special teams coordinator.