Michigan made a duo of coaching hires official on Saturday, with former Mississippi State/Tennessee/Penn State defensive coordinator Bob Shoop taking over the safeties role and former USF defensive coordinator/Texas linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator Brian Jean-Mary taking over the linebackers vacancy.

Both are home runs from different standpoints.

With Shoop, he’s got more than 30 years of coaching experience and has been a longtime defensive coordinator. While he doesn’t have much prowess in the recruiting department, he brings fresh eyes to a defense that needs — something — given the lopsided losses to Ohio State the past two years. Though the Bulldogs didn’t have a good season this year, which ended with the firing of head coach Joe Moorhead, they held LSU’s vaunted offense to its lowest season total in this national championship-winning year. He also oversaw the top-rated defense by yardage allowed in the country in 2017 — one spot over Michigan.

Jean-Mary is an even more interesting hire. He’s been a longtime linebackers coach under Charlie Strong before becoming the defensive coordinator at USF the past three years. His best year on that front was their first in Tampa, where the Bulls posted the No. 37 defense nationally. It fell off as it went along, but where Jean-Mary was particularly impressive was at Texas with his recruiting.

Being at a big Power 5 program like Texas is much different than a Group of Five school like USF — you can’t expect to be atop the recruiting rankings at the latter. But, at Texas, with all the resources, Jean-Mary proved to be a solid recruiter/recruiting coordinator, overseeing top ten classes and bringing in high-level recruits. For instance, in 2015, according to the 247Sports Recruiter Rankings, Jean-Mary was 7th nationally (No. 1 in the Big 12), bringing in prospects such as five-star Malik Jefferson from Mesquite (TX) and four-star Anthony Wheeler from Dallas (TX) Skyline. He was 26th overall in 2016, as the primary recruiter for four-star Erick Fowler and star wideout Lil’Jordan Humphrey, as well as being secondary on QB Shane Buechele, who was sixth in the country in passing this past season with SMU.

Jean-Mary also worked mostly in a 3-3-5 base defense (as well as 3-4) under Strong, which could certainly be helpful given Michigan’s lack of depth at defensive tackle, and defensive coordinator Don Brown’s proclivity to show a variety of looks.

Ultimately, having both Jean-Mary and Shoop on staff gives Michigan more high-level voices in the defensive coaching room and given the rumored hire of assistant strength coach Tank Wright to linebackers coach — while that may have been a quality hire, having the breadth of experience that Jean-Mary has on both the recruiting trail and the playing field, going with the experienced coach is more optimal.

We’ve seen both coaches have great success at the Power 5 level, and Michigan has more resources available than most any of the stops that either have been — though Texas, Penn State and Tennessee are certainly in a similar caliber. But considering that both have the experience of being defensive coordinators, with them overseeing singular position groups, these, holistically, are home run hires by the Michigan football coaching staff.

The only thing is, given departing assistants Chris Partridge and Anthony Campanile’s abilities on the recruiting trail, with the amount of proverbial runs put up on that front equal the replacements’ predecessors? If not, the on-field results theoretically could help make up much of the difference.