Report: Strength coach Kevin Tolbert not returning to Michigan next season

Michigan safeties coach Brian Smith announced last week he was leaving the program to become the defensive coordinator at Rice University. Now another coach is reportedly leaving the program, but not for the same reason as Smith.

As reported first by Alex Marvez of The Sporting News, Michigan strength and conditioning coach Kevin Tolbert will not return next season. This was Tolbert’s third season as the strength and conditioning coach.

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has preached the last few weeks how the team needs to get stronger, and this was especially said after the Ohio State game. This move by Harbaugh shows how serious he is about that notion.

Tolbert, like many other coaches on Michigan’s staff, has been with Harbaugh throughout the years. He was an assistant strength and conditioning coach, and then head strength and conditioning coach, in 2009 and 2010 during Harbaugh’s run at Stanford. Tolbert was also an assistant strength and conditioning coach with the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-14.

Before that, he was an assistant strength coach at Michigan from 2001-07 during the Lloyd Carr years. Tolbert then went to the pros in 2008 to be an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Detroit Lions.

It is not known at this time who will replace Tolbert.