Michigan football director of recruiting Aashon Larkins departs to SEC school

Michigan football’s director of recruiting Aashon Larkins has left the program to take a lead defensive analyst role with Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, he announced on Twitter Thursday night.

Larkins was hired in 2019 when he joined the Michigan Wolverines’ staff as a defensive analyst. Last season, Larkins was reassigned to the director of recruiting role where he replaced Matt Dudek, who is now with Mississippi State.

Just prior to coming to Michigan, Larkins was a special teams coordinator for Bethune Cookman from 2015-19. He also held other roles with Jacksonville State and The Citadel.

This adds to the list of staff shakeups this offseason. Michigan also lost defensive line coach Shaun Nua to USC, defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald to the Baltimore Ravens and offensive coordinator Josh Gattis to the University of Miami. The Wolverines hired Mike Elston and Jesse Minter, respectively, to replace the defensive coaches, while they stayed in-house and promoted Matt Weiss to co-offensive coordinator with Sherrone Moore.

Michigan’s director of player personnel, Courtney Morgan, left the program in December for the same role at Washington and was replaced by Albert Karschina from Central Michigan.

The Wolverines also shuffled some other coaches around on the current staff, including Ron Bellamy switching from safeties to wide receivers coach. Jay Harbaugh will still coordinate the special teams unit but moved off the tight ends to coach safeties, while Grant Newsome is taking over the tight ends coaching role.