Michigan
Jim Harbaugh brings another staffer out west as Michigan adds young recruiting specialists
Former Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh is not quite done purging the staff of his alma mater.
Late Monday evening, Christina DeRuyter, previously the director of football operations at U-M who also held an integral role in the recruiting department, announced she is heading to join Harbaugh as the next director of football logistics in Los Angeles.
Or, as DeRuyter put it on her social media post, “Michigan West.”
“Forever grateful for the last 3 life changing years @UMichFootball,” her post began. “3x BIG10 Champs, 3 Wins vs OSU, Natty Champs, countless relationships & memories made. I’m thrilled to join Coach Harbaugh at the Chargers (Michigan West) as the Director of Football Logistics. BOLT UP⚡️& GO BLUE〽️”
Current wide receiver I’Marion Stewart responded to the tweet saying “I was looking for you today” before she replied it “hurt my heart” not to be in Ann Arbor any longer.
The move continues what has been a mass exodus from Ann Arbor to Los Angeles for those affiliated with last year’s team.
When Harbaugh left just weeks after helping lead the Wolverines to their first 15-0 season in program history and its first out-right national championship since 1949, he took with him nearly the entire defensive coaching staff.
Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, his father Rick Minter (who served as an analyst much of the past two years before finishing last year as interim linebackers coach), defensive line coach Mike Elston, and defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale, despite the wide-held belief he would stay on staff at Michigan.
That is without mentioning edge specialist Dylan Roney or strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert, who Harbaugh called the “x-factor for years” and whose name he was shouting to come join him when confetti rained down at NRG Stadium in Houston.
“People have choices to make, man,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel told the Freep in a sit down earlier this spring. “Jim knows what he wants to do at the Chargers, he made the offers and people had decisions to make. The mark of great success of people is when they come to a program or organization and leave it better than they found it. Jim did that. Those coaches did that. Whomever from the staff wants to go with Jim, I’m not going to have any animosity toward them.
MANUEL 1 ON 1 INTERVIEW: Michigan AD Warde Manuel exclusive interview: The hardest thing he has done in career
“As I told Sherrone (Moore) as we were dealing with it, on the flip side, ‘Look, now you can make it the way you want to make it, whatever that is,’ and he’s done that and I believe has a great staff he’s put together across the board.”
Manuel said the department was instead focused on adding new, young talent to the mix, which seems to have happened this past week. Over the past few days, the Wolverines announced the addition of a handful of new analysts and recruiting staffers.
Two of the new analysts, Reid Kuhn and Richard Perry, recently studied at Michigan, while the other faces come from some of the top football programs in the country like Preston Sagan (Clemson), Aidan Young (Oregon), Jacob Weber (Indiana) Jack Turner (Wake Forest), and Jacob Sakk (Pittsburgh).
Also as part of the staff movement, Albert Karschnia has taken over as Director of Player Personnel, while Sam Popper, previously the assistant, will fill Karschnia’s previous role as Director of Recruiting. It comes in the same time frame as Michigan nabbed a Michigan State graduate, Kayli Johnson, the older sister of All-American DB Will Johnson, to take over DeRuyter’s role, according to her social media profile.
Johnson was Rutgers’ assistant director of recruiting operations under Greg Schiano last year and an operations intern with the Detroit Lions the year before that, which comes after a standout track career at Michigan State (undergrad) and Texas Tech (grad school).
There’s hope around the program the influx of young talent can help kick start a month of June that is going to be incredibly important in terms of creating the foundation of U-M’s 2025 high school recruiting class.
Currently, Michigan has just five verbal commits, three of whom were pledged to the previous regime. As a group, Michigan ranks No. 41 in the nation, per 247Sports composite rankings.
Michigan
Police say Oakland County teen missing, endangered
Authorities are asking for the public’s assistance to find a missing Oakland County teen who is considered endangered.
Adrianna Smith, 15, was last seen in the 3500 block of South Fenton Road, just south of the city of Holly in northwest Oakland County, according to Michigan State Police.
She is believed to have left her home in a 2002 Jeep Liberty with an adult male, possibly a man named Derek Girtman, MSP said.
Smith is described as having blonde hair and green eyes. She is about 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 160 pounds. She has one tattoo above her right knee and another on her left ankle.
Anyone with information about Adrianna’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or the MSP Metro North Post at either (800) 495-4677 or (989) 370-8926.
Michigan
US supreme court sides with Michigan in its fight to shut down ageing pipeline
The supreme court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an ageing pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that the Enbridge energy company waited too long to try to move the case to federal court.
The case is part of a messy legal dispute about a pipeline that has moved crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953.
Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general, sued in state court in June 2019 seeking to void the easement that allows Enbridge to operate a 4.5-mile (6.4km) section of pipeline under the straits of Mackinac, which link Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Nessel, a Democrat, won a restraining order shutting down the pipeline from Ingham county judge James Jamo in June 2020, although Enbridge was allowed to continue operations after meeting safety requirements.
Enbridge moved the lawsuit into federal court in 2021, arguing it affects US and Canadian trade. But a three-judge panel from the sixth US circuit court of appeals sent the case back to Jamo in June 2024, finding that the company missed a 30-day deadline to change jurisdictions.
The pipeline at issue is called Line 5. Concerns over the section beneath the straits rupturing and causing a catastrophic spill have been growing since 2017, when Enbridge engineers revealed they had known about gaps in the section’s protective coating since 2014. A boat anchor damaged the section in 2018, intensifying fears of a spill.
The Michigan department of natural resources under Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s governor, revoked the straits easement for Line 5 in 2020. Enbridge filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging the revocation.
Enbridge won a ruling from a federal judge blocking the move, but Whitmer, a Democrat, has appealed to the sixth US circuit court of appeals. In March, the supreme court rejected Whitmer’s appeal claiming that she couldn’t be sued in federal court.
It was unclear how the federal ruling blocking Whitmer’s revocation attempt would affect Nessel’s case in state court. The company said in a statement that the judge in the Whitmer case had already decided federal regulators, not the state, are responsible for Line 5 safety and they had found no issues that would warrant shutting it down.
Enbridge also is seeking permits to encase the section of pipeline beneath the straits in a protective tunnel. The Michigan public service commission granted the relevant permits in 2023, but a coalition of environmental groups and Michigan tribes has filed a lawsuit seeking to void state permits for the tunnel. The state supreme court is weighing that case.
Enbridge also needs approval from the US army corps of engineers and the Michigan department of environment, Great Lakes and energy.
The pipeline is at the center of a separate legal dispute in Wisconsin as well. A federal judge in Madison last summer gave Enbridge three years to shut down part of Line 5 that runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior’s reservation. The company has appealed against the shutdown order to the seventh US circuit court of appeals, but it started work in February to reroute the line around the reservation.
The Bad River Band and environmental groups have filed a state lawsuit seeking to halt the work, arguing regulators have underestimated the damage the reroute construction will cause. That case also is pending.
Michigan
Hockey roundup: Three Michigan State recruits at U18 worlds; Bruins top Sabres
Porter Martone becomes first teenager to score game-winning goals in his first two NHL playoff games.
Porter Martone becomes first teenager to score game-winning goals in his first two NHL playoff games.
Three Michigan State recruits will represent Team USA at the world U18 hockey championships in Bratislava and Trencin, Slovakia.
The U.S. opens against Czechia on Wednesday (10 a.m., The Hockey Network).
The future Spartans are: defenseman Nick Bogas (Royal Oak), defenseman Tyler Martyniuk (Washington Township) and forward Brooks Rogowski (Brighton).
Other local commits include: defenseman Abe Barnett (University of Michigan) and goalie Luke Carrithers (Western Michigan).
Team USA’s head coach is Nick Fohr (Dexter) with Kevin Porter (Northville) and Dan Darrow (Livonia) among the assistant coaches.
The tournament features 10 countries with the final scheduled for May 2.
Bruins tie series with Sabres
The visiting Boston Bruins scored three second-period goals and held off a late Buffalo Sabres rally to post a 4-2 win on Tuesday and even their Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series at one victory apiece.
Viktor Arvidsson scored in the last two periods, giving the Bruins 1-0 and 4-0 leads. Morgan Geekie and Pavel Zacha also lit the lamp for Boston, which heads home for Game 3 of the best-of-seven series on Thursday.
Jonathan Aspirot, Casey Mittelstadt and David Pastrnak each dished out two assists for the Bruins, and Jeremy Swayman made 34 saves.
Bowen Byram and Peyton Krebs scored as Buffalo climbed within 4-2 in the closing minutes.
Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen allowed four goals on 19 shots before Alex Lyon entered in relief following Arvidsson’s second marker, which came just 16 seconds into the third period.
Buffalo had a 36-26 shot advantage, including 20-8 in the third period, but its power play went 0-for-5. Boston finished 1-for-6 on the man advantage.
The physical contest featured 47 penalty minutes for each team.
Following a scoreless opening period, the Bruins took over in the second, scoring on three of their 11 shots against Luukkonen.
Arvidsson broke the deadlock 4:54 into the middle frame, taking Aspirot’s lob pass in ahead of the defense and beating Luukkonen five-hole with a backhander from the left circle.
A gaffe by Luukkonen helped Boston double its lead with 3:31 left in the period, as Geekie’s high backhanded dump from the far side of center ice eluded him over the glove.
The Bruins’ power play got in on the action 1:41 later. After Geekie’s one- handed keep-in at the blue line extended the play, Zacha tipped in Pastrnak’s shot from the top of the right circle while stationed in the bumper position.
Arvidsson made it 4-0 early in the third, prompting Sabres coach Lindy Ruff to change goaltenders. Aspirot banked a long feed off the boards to set up the play, leading Arvidsson down the left wing to score on a 2-on-1 rush with Zacha.
The Sabres struck twice in a 1:14 span to make things interesting. Byram accepted Beck Malenstyn’s back pass for a wrister from the top of the right circle to break Swayman’s shutout bid with 6:06 left.
Krebs soon made it 4-2, batting down and scoring the rebound of a Rasmus Dahlin point shot that caromed off the post and back into the crease.
Detroit Red Wings received six A’s in The Detroit News’ final grades for the 2025-2026 season.
Grades and key takeaways for Finnie, Gibson, Seider, Larkin, Raymond and DeBrincat after the Wings’ late collapse.
-
Dallas, TX3 minutes agoWild vs. Stars Game 3: Key takeaways as Dallas takes series lead on Wyatt Johnston’s 2OT winner
-
Miami, FL9 minutes agoMiami-Dade deputies detain elderly father who they say shot and killed his son after a domestic dispute
-
Boston, MA15 minutes agoBoston has one of the best public markets in the country, says USA TODAY
-
Denver, CO21 minutes agoRed flag fatigue? Colorado sees near-record number of critical fire days
-
Seattle, WA27 minutes agoFOLLOWUP: West Seattle pickleball players band together to save court access
-
San Diego, CA33 minutes agoPadres sign Giolito to 1-year deal with option for '27
-
Milwaukee, WI39 minutes agoTempers flare, fans get involved in ugly end to Wave-Sockers Game 1
-
Atlanta, GA45 minutes agoBraves News: JR Ritchie called up, Didier Fuentes starts, more