When Michigan football defensive line coach Lou Esposito left Ann Arbor for the Baltimore Ravens, the expectation was that the Wolverines would simply promote David Denham, who has been an assistant in the room for the past year. However, the longer Denham didn’t get promoted, the more obvious that it appeared that head coach Kyle Whittingham was looking outside of the program.
And on Saturday, it appears that he found his man, snagging a defensive line coach from the SEC.
Per ESPN’s Pete Thamel, the Wolverines are set to hire Vanderbilt defensive coach Larry Black, who has overseen the position group in Nashville for the past four seasons.
Originally a defensive tackle at Indiana, Black is a Cincinnati native, who got his start coaching at Carthage College and Notre Dame before coaching at Toledo for three seasons. He played pro ball for two years with the Bengals before suffering a gruesome leg injury that ended his career.
At just 36 years of age, Black is a younger coaching presence who will work with the tackles, pairing with edge coach Lewis Powell.
Vanderbilt’s second and fourth sack leaders this past year were tackles. 13.5 of the team’s 31 sacks came from interior linemen this past year. The Commodores also had the 18th-ranked rush defense last season, two spots ahead of Michigan.
Black’s brother, Jibreel Black, is a former Michigan defensive tackle.
