Michigan expected to hire LaMar Morgan as defensive backs coach
Michigan Wolverines football‘s search for a defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale took a turn Thursday evening, with Stephen Adegoke deciding to stay on as the Houston Texans’ safeties coach. However, Moore appears to have quickly pivoted to the next man on his list — Louisiana defensive coordinator and safeties coach LaMar Morgan, who’s expected to be hired by U-M according to multiple reports.
Morgan will work under new head coach Sherrone Moore, who took over for Jim Harbaugh, and defensive coordinator Don ‘Wink’ Martindale, who’s expected to soon be officially announced as the new man in charge of the Wolverines’ defense. Morgan is expected to coach both cornerbacks and safeties.
Morgan, 38, just finished up his second season leading the Ragin’ Cajun defense. In his first year back at his alma mater, Louisiana ranked in the top half of the Sun Belt in total defense and the team recorded 15 interceptions, which ranked 14th in the country.
Five members of the Louisiana defense earned All-Sun Belt accolades last season. That included first-team standouts Zi’Yon Hill-Green, a defensive lineman who tied the school record for most career sacks, and Bralen Traham, a safety who picked off 4 passes.
Morgan comes highly recommended from former Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who left this offseason to lead the defense for the Los Angeles Chargers. Minter and Morgan worked together at Vanderbilt in 2021, when the former was the coordinator and the latter coached the cornerbacks. Vanderbilt had just 2 interceptions in 11 games in 2020, before Morgan joined the program, and upped that total to 13 in his lone season with the Commodores.
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The new Michigan assistant coach was a safety for Louisiana from 2003-07. He was a graduate assistant at Vanderbilt (2012-13), defensive backs coach at Western Carolina (2014-15), safeties coach at Louisiana Monroe (2016-17), safeties coach at Houston (2018) and defensive backs coach at Louisiana (2019-20), before having the one year gap as Vanderbilt’s cornerbacks coach in 2021 and then returning to his alma mater in 2022.
Michigan is also expected to soon make official the hires of Martindale, defensive line coach Greg Scruggs (Wisconsin) and linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary (Tennessee).
Michigan begins spring practices next month ahead of its April 20 spring game in front of fans at The Big House. Morgan has a plethora of talented and experienced defensive backs to work with in Ann Arbor, including junior cornerback Will Johnson, senior safety Rod Moore and graduate safety Makari Paige, among others.
