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After rapidly transforming a small Baltimore private school into a national power, Biff Poggi is returning to Michigan football to become Jim Harbaugh’s right-hand man.
Poggi, the head coach at Saint Frances Academy, told the Free Press on Saturday he will work with the Wolverines’ assistants in his new role which starts July 21.
The Baltimore Sun first reported the news.
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Poggi, 61, served a year as associate head coach at Michigan in 2016, when his son, Henry, was a fullback on the team.
He said he will have the same title in his second stint with the program.
Poggi became one of the most recognizable figures in high school football when he was seen on the sidelines in a cut-off T-shirt during a nationally-televised game two years ago. In just a matter of years, Poggi built St. Frances into a premier program — using the personal fortune he made from his own investment firm to finance the operation. Top players from the mid-Atlantic region and beyond transferred into the school after Poggi took over in 2017; HBO later chronicled the Panthers’ sudden rise in a four-episode series. As St. Frances dominated its competition, it became a destination for college teams looking to enhance their rosters.
Michigan was one of the programs that mined St. Frances. The Wolverines signed three players from there in 2020 — Blake Corum, Nikhai Hill-Green and Osman Savage. (Savage entered the transfer portal last year.)
The addition of Poggi raises some questions related to a 2017 NCAA rule that prohibits schools from hiring support staffers for a two-year period both before and after a prospect’s recruitment. Corum and Hill-Green signed in December 2019 and enrolled at Michigan the following month, well inside the time frame stated under NCAA bylaw 11.4.2.
Lijkewise, Michigan may be barred from recruiting St. Frances for the foreseeable future.
The addition of Poggi comes after Harbaugh spent the offseason remodeling his program. He brought in six new assistants and overhauled the recruiting department. Michigan opens the season Sept. 4 against Western Michigan.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Big Ten newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football set to rehire notable high school coach Biff Poggi