Why new Michigan coaching staff is making Detroit a recruiting priority

Detroit — In any college football coaching transition, among the top priorities is establishing a home base in terms of recruiting. For new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham, who spent the last 21 years as Utah head coach, and his staff, that means making inroads with in-state recruiting, particularly in Detroit. Most of his assistants, however, coached with him at Utah and never have focused on recruiting Michigan.

To help establish local ties, Ron Bellamy, who played at Michigan and most recently was the Wolverines’ receivers coach after a long career as West Bloomfield High head coach where he won a state championship , was brought back recently as director of player personnel . Running backs coach Tony Alford has recruited in the Midwest, as has special teams coordinator Kerry Coombs, who has deep Ohio roots as a high school coach for 24 years before making the move to college coaching. New offensive line coach Jim Harding also has local roots but has coached out west since 2009, first at Wyoming and then at Utah when he joined Whittingham’s staff in 2014.

Harding is from Maumee, Ohio, was a standout offensive lineman at Toledo, and coached at Troy Athens from 2005-2008, spending his last season as head coach. To get acquainted with coaches from Detroit Public Schools, Michigan’s two coordinators and the assistants attended a recent event at the Horatio Williams Foundation in Detroit where they met local coaches and then broke down into position groups. Michigan general manager Dave Peloquin also attended, but Whittingham did not make the meet-and-greet because he was delayed completing exit interviews with current players.

“If it was in a perfect world, you'd like to build the offensive line room from inside out, meaning trying to get the top offensive linemen from the state,” Harding told The Detroit News at the event. “I think that promotes pride and interest from fans around the state. Having seen the kids play in high school and having coached in the state of Michigan, I know there's really good high school football here, and so we’re doing things like this to try to network and get the high school coaches comfortable with a brand-new staff.