Report: Colorado hires former Michigan LBs coach George Helow to staff role

The Colorado Buffaloes have hired former Michigan Wolverines linebackers coach George Helow to a staff role, per Matt Zenitz.

The role that Helow has on Colorado’s staff is going to be described as a Senior Defensive Coach. He has experience as a linebackers and as a safeties coach. That’s a role he held at Maryland. He also has worked at some of the premier programs in the sport, like Alabama, Florida State, and Georgia. On top of that, he previously was the safeties coach at Colorado State.

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Helow is a Florida native who went on to attend Ole Miss where he played on the football team. He would earn a business degree there and later added a master’s in adult education while he was at Georgia.

Helow began his coaching career in 2012 as a defensive intern at Alabama under Nick Saban. He then made the jump to Florida State as a GA in 2013. Both of those teams would win national championships. From there, he was able to earn jobs as a position coach at Georgia, Colorado State, and Maryland.

In 2021, he joined the staff at Michigan as a linebackers coach. Since then, the Wolverines have been one of the best teams in the country and, in particular, Michigan has been a dominant team on the defensive side of the ball. That culminated with the 2023 season when Michigan went unbeaten and won a national championship.

Head coach Deion Sanders is going into his second season at Colorado and he’s been looking to make changes after a 4-8 first season to help improve the team as it transitions into the Big 12. A big part of that has been looking for a way to improve the defense. That included bringing in a new defensive coordinator in Robert Livingston.

Livingston has an NFL background and has primarily worked with defensive backs in the past. So, the expectation is that he can help develop NFL talent and improve the team overall on that side of the ball. The addition of Helow should help the Buffaloes to do just that. The expectation is that as a Senior Defensive Coach Helow is going to work closely with Livingston.

The 2024 Colorado Buffaloes start the season on Thursday, August 29th with a home game against the North Dakota State Bison. From there, the Buffaloes go on to play 10 different power conference opponents.