Former Michigan defensive coordinator Jesse Minter is now an NFL head coach.
The Baltimore Ravens announced the hiring of Minter on Thursday.
Your next coach of the Baltimore Ravens.
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) January 22, 2026
We have agreed to terms with Jesse Minter to be our head coach! pic.twitter.com/5VEBGk8iB1
Minter replaces John Harbaugh, who the Ravens fired earlier this month after 18 years as their head coach, after four years as an assistant for his younger brother Jim Harbaugh – two as Michigan’s defensive coordinator (2022-23) and two as the Los Angeles Chargers’ defensive coordinator (2024-25).
Minter, who helped lead Michigan to two Big Ten championships and a national championship, left Michigan alongside Jim Harbaugh in 2024 amid multiple NCAA investigations into the Michigan football program. Minter accepted a one-year show-cause penalty from the NCAA last April as part of a negotiated resolution with the NCAA for “multiple impermissible early recruiting communications with a prospect prior to June 15 of his sophomore year of high school.” Per the NCAA, “Minter was aware that these communications were impermissible but did not report the violations to the school’s compliance department.”
The penalty restricted Minter from working with an NCAA program for one year, but that’s now a moot point as Minter, who was previously a defensive assistant for the Ravens from 2017-20, gets his first opportunity to be a head coach at the NFL level.
Minter is the third Michigan coach from the Harbaugh era to now be an NFL head coach, joining Harbaugh and Mike Macdonald, who’s in his second year as the Seattle Seahawks’ head coach. Macdonald was Harbaugh’s defensive coordinator at Michigan for one year in 2021 before becoming the Ravens’ defensive coordinator, a role he held for two years before he was hired by the Seahawks.
