Sherrone Moore explains how and why he assembled his defensive staff
When Jim Harbaugh hired Mike Macdonald prior to the 2021 season, no one knew whether it would pay off. The former Baltimore Ravens linebackers coach was an acolyte of then-defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, and he came to Ann Arbor to run the system with Michigan football.
Macdonald parlayed his one year with the Wolverines into the defensive coordinator job with the Ravens, which he parlayed into the head coaching job with the Seattle Seahawks. His replacement in Ann Arbor, Jesse Minter, perfected the system and parlayed that into the Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator job.
So, when Sherrone Moore was hired to replace Jim Harbaugh, who took the head post with the Chargers (and brought Minter with him), he thought the best thing he could do was keep the scheme rolling. And the best person to do that wasn’t just an acolyte of Wink Martindale — it was Martindale himself.
On Tuesday, Moore appeared on The L.A.B. presented by Wolverine (hosted by Champions Circle) and explained his mindset when it came to making his defensive hires. When it came to bringing in Martindale, it wasn’t about getting a splash name (though he was certainly that) as much as he was giving his players what he felt they deserved.
“I wanted to make sure that one, I kept that scheme, kept those intact, I think one, because I think our players are really good at it and they’re really good players. And I wanted to make sure that they were comfortable first,” Moore said. “And two, that you want to keep that scheme, then bring somebody in that can run this game, and why not the person that it really originated from? So that’s how bringing coach Martindale came about and he’s a wonderful human being — great, phenomenal coach, but even a better person.”
Beyond Martindale, Moore assembled an experienced defensive staff. All three assistants have defensive coordinator experience, and there’s some NFL experience there as well, beyond Martindale’s long tenure in the professional ranks. But just as importantly, they all have been around different conferences in college football, which means they’ve seen just about everything under the sun on both sides of the ball.
“All the support staff, all the guys around him, the assistants around him, coach Brian Jean-Mary, Lou Esposito and LaMar Morgan, like they’re all phenomenal,” Moore said. “And all of those guys have been coordinators and called plays, which gives you even better insight, too. And the cool thing is that they’ve all been in college (and) the NFL, so they’ve all seen it from different spectrums. The MAC, and Conference USA and then the SEC with (Brian Jean-Mary).
“So I think it’s really huge that you have this mix of guys and mix of people there. And they all get along great. And it’s awesome to be around that great group of smart football coaches.”
