Tuesday Morning Brews: Quick and Dirty

Author’s Note: Folks, I started a new job yesterday and Tuesday Brews slipped my mind until Monday afternoon. As such, this morning’s Brews are going to be a little abbreviated - both in terms of links and blurbs. But fear not, we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled programming on Thursday.

Let’s hit the links:

As you may have heard, the NCAA passed a new rule intended to drastically reduce the ability of people like Jim Harbaugh to take their teams on trips during designated vacation periods. The rule goes into effect in 2018. Upon hearing the news, Harbaugh, never one to be outdone, promptly announced that he was taking the football team to Rome (yes, Italy) following the conclusion of finals in April 2017. The trip will reportedly include educational and public service opportunities for the players. The trip will culminate in a youth clinic and a scrimmage that will be open to the public. These activities will count as three of the team’s fifteen allotted Spring practices.

Jeremy Clark, who suffered an ACL injury back in September, has reportedly been denied another year of eligibility. While exceptions do occur, it’s generally difficult to be granted a sixth year of eligibility (Clark had previously redshirted). In his less than four games of action this year, Clark recorded ten tackles and three pass break-ups. Clark has not appeared on any mock drafts that your author has seen so far this year.

In a widely anticipated move, four star offensive tackle Kai-Leon Herbert decommitted on Sunday. Herbert had been expected to leave the recruiting class since about last month, when he announced that he would be taking visits to Miami and Florida in January. While there’s always a lot of drama surrounding late-cycle decommits, Michigan will be just fine following Herbert’s decommitment.

Coach Harbaugh reportedly had an in-home visit with four star linebacker Willie Gay yesterday. Gay, the number seventy-three player in the 247 Composite, is from Mississippi and has been trending toward LSU in recent days. If Harbaugh and staff were able to pull Gay out of Mississippi, it would be a big victory in the late days of the 2017 recruiting cycle. Gay would also have the opportunity to play a significant role in the Michigan defense early in his career.

The salary pool for Jim Harbaugh’s assistant coaches is increasing as we head into year three of the the former’s tenure. The salary pool, initially scheduled to be between four million and five million, is supposed to increase by ten percent in year three of Coach Harbaugh’s contract. Director of Athletics Warde Manuel recently said that the salary pool will indeed be increasing, but didn’t specify whether the increase would be the stipulated ten percent or a more significant figure. Increasing the salary pool allows Coach Harbaugh to continue to attract top-flight assistant coaches to his staff.

Former Michigan assistant, and current Indiana OL coach, Greg Frey is reportedly interviewing for Coach Harbaugh’s staff. If hired, Frey would fill the position vacated by Coach Wheatley. Given that Frey would likely be hired as an offensive line coach, such a move would require a reshuffling of the current staff to fill the vacant running backs coach position. In his previous tenure at Michigan, Frey coached the offensive line and helped develop standouts like Rimington Award winner David Molk, Taylor Lewan, Michael Schofield, and others.