New Michigan QB coach Kirk Campbell had integral role as analyst last season

Michigan has a new quarterbacks coach in Kirk Campbell. However, his presence and impact at Schembechler Hall is nothing new.

Campbell has been with the program since last season, where he was an offensive analyst.

A major reason why Campbell was elevated from analyst to quarterbacks coach was because of he developed strong relationships on the coaching staff and excelled with game planning and scouting.

Campbell played an integral role scripting practices, early-down passing situations, and huddle flow.

“Last year I was in charge of all first and second down pass game for the game-planning,” Campbell told Jon Jansen on the In the Trenches Podcast. “I’d present all of that to the coordinators as we would go into the game plan. I was also in charge with a lot of things behind the scenes. I would script a lot of the practicing, I would be in charge of our of operation on a daily basis as far as making Making sure we were flowing in and out of the huddle or lining up fast. Just making sure organizationally we were inlined.”

Campbell’s offensive expertise and versatility should come as no surprise. Campbell has playcalling experience from his time at Old Dominion, where his unit averaged 28.5 points per game in 2021. Before being OC at Old Dominion, Campbell was an offensive analyst at Penn State where he worked with the quarterbacks and helped with game plans. During Campbell’s time at Penn State, the offense averaged 36.8 points per game.

When Michigan announced that Campbell would be elevated to quarterbacks coach, head coach Jim Harbaugh spoke highly of Campbell.

“Kirk is a bright, young offensive mind that immediately meshed with our coaching staff last year,” Harbaugh said. “Our offensive staff was really impressed with his knowledge and expertise of the entire offense, and he was integral to the success of the offense with game planning and opponent scouting. Kirk does an outstanding job developing relationships and I know he will have an outstanding rapport with our quarterbacks.”

While Campbell now has an on-field coaching role, his contributions to the gameplan should remain steady once again in 2023. Michigan could have hired a lot of talented coaches outside of the organization but chose to promote someone in-house. This speaks to the confidence Michigan has in Campbell to help the quarterback room, and QB1 J.J. McCarthy improve.