Brian Jean-Mary, Michigan’s linebackers coach, discusses his return to Ann Arbor, his hopes for the Wolverines’ defense, and much more during his first news conference of the 2024 season.
Jean-Mary, who coached the Wolverines in 2020, returned to the maize and blue after three seasons in Tennessee. In addition to his 23 years of coaching expertise, he is faced with creating a University of Michigan linebacker room that has lost two studs to the NFL. This is what Jean-Mary said on Monday:
Regarding what brought him back to Ann Arbor:
Even after I departed, I told the men that the 2020 season felt like an incomplete portion of my coaching career, simply because of COVID and how things turned out. So, despite leaving and enrolling in another program, I still felt a connection to the University of Michigan and was an admirer from a distance. And nothing made me or my family happier than seeing their achievement. So when Coach Moore contacted, it seemed like too fantastic an opportunity to pass up. Because, as I previously stated, there was a lot of attachment and positive things that transpired here, despite the fact that 2020 did not go as planned. But it seemed right where I needed to be.
Regarding his initial impressions of the linebacker room:
It’s been good. Before we began practice, we had a major challenge: we had lost two of the best linebackers to come out of Michigan in the last two decades, Michael Barrett and Junior Colson. When I claimed I was an admirer from afar, two guys caught my attention because I had a personal relationship with both. And I believed they played linebacker at the highest level in the country. So we know the bar was set high, and that was the problem upon entering. And I believe the boys are striving to reach that level. Obviously, we aren’t there yet.
Ernest Hausmann has taken over the leadership role. As a linebacker coach, I was always impressed by their ability to adjust. And then coming here and watching the real games, the way they played the game was clearly incredibly physical and productive. However, their capacity to adapt to changing circumstances was as strong as any group I’ve ever coached or evaluated. And I believe that is the problem that these guys face. As I previously stated, Ernest Hausmann has performed admirably thus far, and we need to bring in a few of more players to match him.
On how his approach to recruiting has changed since his tenure at Tennessee:
I believe Michigan is a program that sells itself. You’re clearly at the top of your game after winning the national championship. However, the real work of recruiting has hardly begun.
I always tell kids that they have roughly a 24-hour window in which things will stick with them. When they wake up the next day, they don’t recall what happened the day before. So recruiting is a daily occurrence. You must continually engage their attention and keep things interesting. I believe the program sells itself, which is why I began by saying so. We simply need to do a terrific job of addressing the proper type of children. Obviously, we’re a national brand that can travel to all four corners of the United States and feel like we have a good opportunity of recruiting at a higher level. And that’s what we’ll continue to do: try to bring in the finest players who are obviously great people and fit into the culture that has been established here, which I believe is the best in college football.
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