Jim Harbaugh has a plan for Grant Newsome at Michigan: 'Already grooming him to be the offensive line coach'

Michigan Wolverines football tight ends coach Grant Newsome is just 26 years old but a rising star in the coaching world. He’s in his second season mentoring the U-M tight ends after serving as a student assistant (2018-19) and graduate assistant (2020-21) with the program with which he played.

Newsome was a standout offensive tackle for Michigan beginning with his freshman season in 2015. Rarely do freshmen earn playing time along the offensive line, but Newsome did as an extra lineman/tight end while also playing some at left tackle.

He was Michigan’s starting left tackle in 2016, after a “cheap shot” — as Newsome’s former teammate, Kyle Kalis, put it — from a Wisconsin defender injured his knee and forced him to undergo emergency surgery. He nearly lost his leg. Newsome spent nearly two years rehabbing from the injury before medically retiring from the game and joining the Michigan staff while still an undergraduate student.

Newsome has done nothing but impress Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh since he took the job Dec. 30, 2014. He quickly climbed the ranks and is now one of Harbaugh’s most trusted agents.

“He’s just a guy that’s checked every box from the time he stepped on campus as a freshman,” Harbaugh said on the ‘Inside Michigan Football’ radio show. “I think he’s still our highest GPA [player]. Wicked smart, but extremely hard working, and gets along with everybody. Players respect him, like him. All the other coaches love him. He’s just so precise.

“He’s going all the way. He’s going to the highest level of coaching. It’s not a matter of if — when. I still think he’s the youngest full-time coach in Power Five football. I think all of Division I. I don’t know for sure.”

Harbaugh is lucky Newsome is coaching in the first place, even though the Michigan head man didn’t steer him in this direction. Newsome had plenty of options coming out of college.

“He could have been doing anything,” Harbaugh explained. “I had people calling when he was coming around for graduation and grad school. Goldman Sachs wanted him. The Democratic National Convention wanted him, and they had big plans for him. The financial, Wall Street had big plans for him. And he wanted to coach.

“I had a conversation with Grant’s mom about that, and, ‘I’m trying to tell him to pursue one of these other [avenues].’ This is not an exaggeration — Goldman Sachs wanted to pay him $400,000 right out of school, and he turned that down to be a $70,000 GA — have his school paid for and get a stipend. And then I had to reassure his mom, ‘I’ve talked to him, I’ve tried to talk to him about this, but man is he going to be a good coach.’

“I’ve been to this movie a bunch of times, and he is going to go all the way.”

“I was very fortunate to have a couple opportunities,” Newsome said. “I tried my hand at a couple things, interviewed in the finance world and did an internship in public policy with [United States] representative [Debbie] Dingell and loved that but kept missing football, no matter what I tried my hand at.

“I just couldn’t escape the feeling that, that wasn’t what I was meant to do. You know the feeling, when you leave the game, especially before you’re ready to, quote-unquote, it just drags you back in. I’m glad I did those things, because it really cleared up in my mind that football is where I’m supposed to be.”

Newsome’s path is similar to that of Michigan offensive coordinator and line coach Sherrone Moore, a former Oklahoma offensive lineman. Moore worked his way up as a tight ends coach and earned assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator titles while at Central Michigan, before Harbaugh hired him at U-M in 2018. He spent three seasons as tight ends coach for the Wolverines before being promoted to offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator in 2021. After two seasons in that role, Moore is now sole offensive coordinator while still leading the offensive line group.

Harbaugh has already laid out a plan for Newsome — who took on a bigger role with the Michigan offensive line while Moore was suspended for the Wolverines’ game against East Carolina — and put it in motion.

“There’s no doubt he picked the right profession,” the Michigan head man continued. “Selfishly, I’m super happy about it. He’s the tight ends coach now, but we’re already grooming him to be the offensive line coach. Once he has maybe a year or two under his belt at offensive line coach — just like Sherrone Moore — he’ll be the coordinator, and then from then, at that point, when I, we can’t give him any more money or any more titles, somebody will snatch him up to be a head coach.

“Mark my words, and mark them well. That will happen.”