Kyle Whittingham continues to show impressive competence as the Michigan football head coach made another assistant coach hire over the weekend via Pete Thamel.
Lou Esposito, the D-line coach the past two seasons, recently took a job with the Baltimore Ravens, leaving open the defensive tackle job. Lewis Powell is the EDGE/defensive ends coach for the Wolverines, so the focus was to find a defensive tackles coach.
Whittingham, who has built an impressive staff already, on both sides of the ball, moved quickly to replace Esposito with another hire that should have Michigan football fans excited: Larry Black.
The Wolverines lost one of their best recruiters in Esposito, as well as a guy who has shown a penchant for developing NFL talent.
But in Black, Michigan, football is also getting a coach, like Esposito, with ties to the Midwest. He's from the Midwest and spent three seasons as the D-line coach for Toledo. Black joined the Vanderbilt staff in 2022 and served as the defensive line coach before being promoted to co-defensive coordinator. He was also the defensive run-game coordinator in 2025.
Black has tutored NFL players before with Notre Dame when he was a graduate assistant, while also coaching a slew of all-conference standouts with Toledo and Vanderbilt. His Vanderbilt defensive lines have also been more productive over the past two seasons as the Commodores made bowl games in 2024 and 2025, and greatly improved their run defense.
With his ties to the state of Ohio, Black should be able to add a Midwest recruiting presence to the coaching staff. He also played in Indiana and got his coaching start in Wisconsin. The development track record looks pretty good, according to the work he was doing with Vandy.
It's hard to compare recruiting at Vanderbilt to Michigan. Yet, Black seems to be a solid evaluator of talent, along with someone who can probably provide a bigger role in the big picture of the defense with his past experience as a run-game coordinator.
It's a strong resume for a defensive tackles coach, which shouldn't surprise anyone based on how Kyle Whittingham has operated in his first two months as Michigan football head coach.
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