WATCH: Michigan's options post-Mike Hart, decision time coming for hoops and more

The Michigan Wolverines announced their defensive coaching staff on Friday, then it was confirmed running backs coach Mike Hart would not be returning under head coach Sherrone Moore. With one week remaining before the start of spring football, there’s still some things to sort out inside the program.

The Wolverine’s Anthony Broome, Chris Balas and Clayton Sayfie discuss reactions to the move, which sees a Michigan legend as both a player and position coach no longer with the program. You can watch or listen using the video player above, on our YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.

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he’s a Michigan legend and you know, he’s the all time leading rusher at Michigan and then he helps groom the guy who’s the all time leader in rushing touchdowns in Blake Corum. So he’s had a huge effect over the last 25 years of Michigan football and as big an impact as anybody.

“He comes back as a coach and goes 40-3 with the National Championship and three Big Ten titles in three years as an assistant,” Sayfie said. “It was a quick three years. It was great when he came back and it was great to have him leading the running back room.

Those guys improved drastically from Hassan Haskins with one year with him, Blake Corum with a few years with him and Donovan Edwards I think was gonna make a big jump this year and still can depending on who they bring in and just depending on the work and the improvement that he makes on his own. But I think that the positive in the immediate aftermath is Jordan Marshall and Micah Ka’apana are still locked in as signees slated to come in in the summer. Marshall was the biggest recruiting win that Mike Hart had during his tenure at Michigan. I know he didn’t recruit at as high of a level as I thought he would coming in.

“But we talked about it when it was Mike Elston and Steve Clinkscale leaving where they wanted to be the defensive coordinator and Sherrone Moore didn’t feel like that was the right move. And I give Sherrone credit for sticking to his guns there. It seemed like those guys wanted something more and they decided to go to the NFL. This is Moore’s opportunity here to go out and find an upgrade. It’s hard to do because Mike Hart’s so good, but you know, maybe they can make a splash hire. There’s definitely that possibility out there that they could make a splash.”

As far as replacements go, the names that could be in the mix might be plenty intriguing to Michigan fans, says Balas. But mum’s the word as the process rolls along.

“There are some names out there that we haven’t said yet,” Balas said. “And we don’t want to screw anything up with the hush-hush stuff. We aren’t the only ones who have said that. There are just some things you can talk about and some things you can’t.

But the sooner, the better is exactly right. It needs to happen soon. They need another guy on the recruiting trail and everybody talks about great recruiters and finding a staff of great young recruiters, but they had great young recruiters like Clinkscale, for example. Ron Bellamy is a great young recruiter and they were still having trouble recruiting because they were, they had their hands tied a little bit by the NIL and the fact that Michigan’s athletic department hadn’t done enough to support it and put them behind the eight ball.

“We’ll see who it is I would hope soon enough. It’s not supposed to take very long from what we understand. And hopefully, it’s a dynamic hire, not an easy hire and not one that was just scheduled to win the press conference.”

The running back coach opening is the lone remaining spot on the offensive side of the ball. Michigan is led there by offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Kirk Campbell, wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator Ron Bellamy, tight ends coach Steve Casula and offensive line coach Grant Newsome.

Other topics discussed this week include Moore finalizing his defensive coaching staff of Wink Martindale (defensive coordinator), Greg Scruggs (defensive line coach), Brian Jean-Mary (linebackers) and Lamar Morgan (defensive backs), in addition to Michigan men’s basketball head coach Juwan Howard‘s comments coming off an 8-23 regular season and what’s next for the program entering the 2024 Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.