What New Michigan DC Jesse Minter will bring on the recruiting trail

The Michigan Wolverines announced on Wednesday the hiring of former Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Jesse Minter to the same position in Ann Arbor. He replaced Mike Macdonald, who did an excellent job reversing the ship after a disastrous 2020 season but clearly preferred the NFL lifestyle that did not require year-round recruiting.

In Minter, Michigan has someone who has more experience in the college game and, specifically, recruiting. The biggest adjustment for Minter to make will be the level of recruit he has access to while wearing the block M on his chest walking into high schools.

Previously, Minter was a coach at Indiana State, Georgia State and Vanderbilt. None of those schools would be considered recruiting powerhouses by any means, though Minter did pretty well in these circumstances.

He should still have plenty of connections in the Peach State after coaching at Georgia State for four seasons. Minter mostly landed low three-stars and two-stars as he helped navigate the transition from FCS to FBS for the Panthers. He did do enough to get an honorable mention shoutout from Scout in its 2016 Conference Recruiters of the Year.

Once he moved to Vanderbilt, you can see Minter took a bit of a backseat in recruiting. In his lone recruiting cycle in Nashville, Minter was listed as a recruiter for six of their recruits. He was only the primary recruiter for one, though, and secondary for the other five.

All of the prospects played in the secondary, which is Minter’s position of expertise. The top guy is composite four-star Jadais Richard, who was the No. 20 safety for 247Sports. The remaining prospects were all three-stars who fell in the 500-1,000 range, with one at No. 1,208 overall.

In terms of a recruiting area, it would make sense for Minter to recruit Georgia after spending a big chunk of his time there. He obviously landed a bunch of in-state guys while at Georgia State, and he was also the secondary recruiter for two Georgia prospects while at Vanderbilt.

Minter also has some Midwestern ties. He attended college at Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, and he started his career with intern/graduate assistant stops at Notre Dame and Cincinnati before getting a position job at Indiana State.

Minter’s father, Rick, was a well-known coach as well who was the head coach at Cincinnati for 10 years and served two stints as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator, so that should also help with relationships in the area.

On paper, Minter’s recruiting track record doesn’t jump off the page in terms of landing blue-chip studs, but he has never coached at a school that had the ability to land those types of guys. The biggest question about his ability is if he is able to take that next step and compete against the biggest schools in the country and win national battles.