Michigan set to hire Ohio State RBs coach for same position
The Michigan Wolverines have a running backs coach vacancy after the departure of Mike Hart, and it looks like head coach Sherrone Moore is set to poach Ohio State’s Tony Alford for the same position.
TheWolverine.com can confirm the interest, reported Wednesday morning by John Brice at Football Scoop. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported shortly after that Alford has informed OSU officials that he will take the job at Michigan.
Alford has spent the last nine years at Ohio State and a deal could be reached as early as Wednesday, per Football Scoop’s reporting. The ramifications of pulling him from the Buckeyes’ staff would be massive given the state of the rivalry and the balance of power within the conference. Michigan has won three-straight games over the Buckeyes and a trio of Big Ten Championships, so poaching Ryan Day’s Assistant Head Coach would be quite the pull.
Prior to his time at Ohio State, Alford spent six seasons at Notre Dame. He is considered one of the best recruiters at the position in college football, and would be a home run addition for Moore’s staff.
Michigan’s running back room in 2024 is set to feature Donovan Edwards, Kalel Mullings, Cole Cabana, Benjamin Hall, Tavierre Dunlap and true freshmen Jordan Marshall and Micah Ka’apana. Marshall was Michigan’s top-ranked signee in the 2024 class out of Ohio, and the Wolverines held off Alford and the Buckeyes for his services during the recruiting process.
Our Chris Balas hinted at a big-time candidate on Monday night’s podcast.
“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.
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“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.
Coaches changing sides in the rivalry has happened before. When Day was hired in 2019, he grabbed Greg Mattison and Al Washington off of Jim Harbaugh’s staff. Bo Schembechler famously was an assistant under Woody Hayes before coaching at Miami (OH) prior to the move to Ann Arbor.
But this one, with everything that has gone on in the last few years, would be fascinating. We will see if Michigan and Moore can get it done.
