Don Brown is passionate, of course, but he isn’t known to mince words. The defensive coordinator’s feelings on how last season ended for Michigan football — 103 points allowed in the final two games — are an obvious example.
“The most disappointing experience I’ve ever been through in my entire life,” the 63-year-old said Wednesday evening. “The whole thing.”
A 62-39 beating in Columbus, of course, shattered both of those goals, and further ignited a call for offensive change.
On Jan. 10, that change arrived in the hiring of 35-year-old Josh Gattis as the new offensive coordinator. Gattis, spent the past season as the wide receivers’ coach at Alabama, and the previous four seasons before that in the Big Ten with Penn State.
On Jan. 11, the Wolverines hired 36-year-old Anthony Campanile, a defensive coordinator at Boston College, to take over a linebackers unit that’s losing All-American Devin Bush. Campanile, though, is currently listed as an unspecified defensive assistant.
Before Devin Bush faced the media on Friday afternoon, his back turned away from the scrum, his eyes fixated on the interactive touch screen behind him in Schembechler Hall. On the screen, you can sift through a catalog of Michigan football greats.
The junior linebacker isn’t on that list yet, but he will be soon.
“I checked the box,” Bush said. “This is history now.”
Junior running back Chris Evans is no longer a member of the Michigan football team.
“Chris Evans is not a member of the football team at this time,” said associate athletic director for football communications Dave Ablauf in a statement on Tuesday.
Three days after junior cornerback Lavert Hill announced his decision to return to Michigan for his senior season, his counterpart, David Long, has opted to declare for the NFL draft.
The general lethargy and missteps by Michigan beg the question: What can’t Harbaugh see that everyone else, including the opponent, can see so vividly?
Friday morning’s joint press conference with Jim Harbaugh and Dan Mullen was supposed to feature nuanced back-and-forth team evaluations for tomorrow’s Peach Bowl. But what happened on stage was almost 30 minutes of exchanging pleasantries.
The Michigan football team is headed to Georgia.
On Dec. 29, the 7th-ranked Wolverines (8-1 Big Ten, 10-2 overall) will face off against No. 10 Florida (5-3 SEC, 9-3) in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It will be the first time that Michigan will play in the Peach Bowl, and the first Big Ten team to make it since Maryland in 2002.
Michigan’s No. 1 defense gave up the most points ever scored against it in a regulation game.