Greg Frey leaving Indiana football, hired by Michigan

According to several reports out of the State of Michigan, Indiana’s Assistant Head Coach and Offensive Line Coach is leaving the program to take a job under Jim Harbaugh at the University of Michigan. Frey, who previously coached the offensive line at Michigan from 2008-2010, will reportedly take on much less responsibility at Michigan where he will only be responsible for tackles and tight ends.

While most will look at this as a step up for Frey just because of the names of the respective programs, the real story may be non-struggle the haves and the have-nots. USA Today reported that Frey made $376,000 in 2016, making him just the 201st highest paid assistant coach in Division-I football. As a comparison, Jedd Fisch, who coached Michigan’s quarterbacks and wide receivers in 2016, made $700,000. (Michigan’s offensive line coach was also their offensive coordinator, so a position-to-position comparison would have been skewed.

It will be an interesting couple weeks for Indiana football now that Frey is gone. Indiana has made huge gains in recruiting in the recent weeks, and as the Tampa Bay Times noted this week, a lot of the gains are being made by grabbing players from the Tampa area. Surely, Tom Allen has something to do with that. But a good amount of the success in that area has to be attributed to Frey, who, as the Tampa Bay Times stated, “is Indiana's main recruiter for the bay area. His penchant for landing locals began in 2011 when former Largo standout Adarius Rayner signed with the Hoosiers.”

Tom Allen and company may have some work to do to keep some of the recruits from that area on board after Frey’s departure.