And Here's A Mallory

#1 qualification: has practiced looking exasperated.

Finally. After years and years and years, one of the infinite Mallorys coaching college football will coach at Michigan. This edition is Curt, and he'll be the defensive backs coach.

Mallory is a former Michigan player, a defensive back who won letters in '89 and '90. He stuck around to earn his degree a couple years later and then started a coaching career under his father Bill, who was then at Indiana. After three years as a grad assistant at Indiana and Michigan, his paid coaching career:

• 1995-99 - Ball State University (linebackers)
• 2000 - Ball State University (defensive secondary)
• 2001 - Central Michigan University (defensive secondary)
• 2002-04 - Indiana University (defensive secondary)
• 2005-06 - University of Illinois (defensive secondary)
• 2007-09 University of Illinois (co-defensive coordinator/defensive secondary)
• 2010 ? Akron (defensive coordinator)

Like Montgomery, that's a steadily increasing profile as a position coach, albeit one that took more time. After a couple years at Illinois he was promoted to co-DC with Dan Disch. This was a disaster. Whether it was awkward co-DCs or a wholesale lack of talent or Disch and Mallory just not being good DC material is unknown. The talent bit has to be a factor, but even so the numbers are mixed at best. Mallory's history as a DC, with season under him bolded:

Team	Year	Rush D	Pass D	PEff D	Total D	Scoring D	FEI
Illinois	2006	51	31	31	33	91(!)	?
Illinois	2007	36	83	52	55	26	35
Illinois	2008	78	49	71	57	67	41
Illinois	2009	76	100	103	91	96	91
Illinois	2010	32	61	58	38	48	26
Akron	2009	91	31	56	59	87	86
Akron	2010	72	113	116	99	106	107

Mallory inherited a decent situation that was masked by the vast incompetence of Juice Williams as a freshman, saw his unit steadily regress in yardage and FEI terms until it was a basket case and then watched the new guy turn things around immediately. I'm not sure the Akron numbers mean anything?that team was a biohazard?but I'd be pretty leery of grabbing him as a DC.

But he's not the DC, Greg Mattison is, so that's fine. Mallory's around 40, has plenty of experience recruiting the Midwest, and is a relatively young for a former DC. He'll be coaching the secondary, where he's also got a ton of experience. At Illinois he seemed to do a good job of turning Vontae Davis and Terry Hawthorne, amongst others, into fine players individually even if the stats didn't show it. Former player Allen Ball has described him as "my boy." His career is one of steadily moving up the food chain and he's the proverbial Michigan Man.

Insofar as we know anything about career assistants he seems like a good choice as long as he stops dressing his kids entirely in green. Seriously, someone stop by Moe's for him before the press conference Monday.

UPDATE: FWIW on Mallory's tenure under Zook:

There will be new faces at the most important coaching positions below Zook. The most important question, will Zook cede control of the defense to the new DC, or will it continue  completely unaltered, because Zook has been in control of the D, regardless of who the assistants were.

I wouldn't put much weight on his tenure as Illinois DC

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