{"id":712665,"date":"2026-01-29T00:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/712665\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:18:13","slug":"brian-knorr-joins-michigan-football-in-special-teams-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/712665\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Knorr joins Michigan football in special teams role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kyle Whittingham isn&#8217;t done hiring, it appears, as the new Michigan football head coach is looking for all the help he can get to get the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/michigan-wolverines\/3435\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Wolverines;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Wolverines<\/a> to where he wants them to be.<\/p>\n<p>Even as all of the coaches and the new strength staff have been announced, Whittingham moved to bring in another wily veteran to help out with an oft-overlooked unit that has already shown improvement. The last thing that former head coach Sherrone Moore did was hire former <a href=\"http:\/\/buckeyeswire.usatoday.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Ohio State;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Ohio State<\/a> defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs to oversee special teams, and against <a href=\"http:\/\/longhornswire.usatoday.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Texas;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Texas<\/a> in the Citrus Bowl, Coombs&#8217; unit was vastly improved upon that which preceded. And now, he&#8217;s getting another voice in the room to help shore things up.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>According to CBS Sports&#8217; Matt Zenitz, Michigan football is hiring former Air Force defensive coordinator Brian Knorr to help out on special teams, after spending four years with the Falcons.<\/p>\n<p>Air Force&#8217;s defense fell off this past year, ranked No. 118 in the country. But it was 40th the year before, sixth the year before that, and No. 1 in his first season at the helm.<\/p>\n<p>Knorr was expected to accept a demotion to inside linebackers coach this season. He previously was a special teams coach at Arizona in 2017 and was Ohio State&#8217;s special teams quality control in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>A former quarterback for the Falcons, Knorr was the head coach at Ohio from 2001-04 before he returned to Air Force and then worked at Wake Forest. He was the defensive coordinator for the Hoosiers from 2014-15.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/wolverineswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/wolverines\/football\/2026\/01\/28\/michigan-football-brian-knorr-special-teams-hire\/88404273007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Michigan football adds Brian Knorr to special teams staff;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Michigan football adds Brian Knorr to special teams staff<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyle Whittingham isn&#8217;t done hiring, it appears, as the new Michigan football head coach is looking for all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[6707,375,103353,2792,7,932,103354,33137,957,580,1446,2948,51],"class_list":["post-712665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-air-force","tag-arizona","tag-brian-knorr","tag-defensive-coordinator","tag-football","tag-indiana","tag-kerry-coombs","tag-kyle-whittingham","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-football","tag-ohio-state","tag-special-teams","tag-texas"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115975520568436607","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}