Washington Hires Courtney Morgan as Director of Player Personnel

Washington made a huge move today announcing the hiring of Courtney Morgan as new Director of Player Personnel. Morgan was hired this past spring at Michigan in the same role but will instead be joining the Husky recruiting crew right before the early signing period.

Those who aren’t firmly plugged into the recruiting world will be forgiven if they aren’t intimately familiar with Morgan’s career. The Los Angeles native was a starting offensive lineman for the Wolverines in the early 2000’s but returned to the college football world as the Director of Player Development at UCLA under Jim Mora. From there he worked at Vanguard Sports Group working in contract negotiations, marketing, social media consulting, and brand strategy among other things for NFL clients. He also founded his own company, Pure Influence Group, which connected athletes and businesses to opportunities to increase their brand and make connections in the community. In 2019 he became the Director of Player Personnel at San Jose State, jumped to Fresno State in 2020 in the same role, and finally to his alma mater Michigan this past year.

The clear connection to Morgan and new Husky head coach Kalen DeBoer is of course the stint at Fresno State in 2020. When Morgan was hired at Michigan earlier this year it seemed likely he would remain on staff there for a long time given the success of the team and that it is his alma mater. However, it appears he thought highly enough of working for DeBoer that he was willing to move back out to the West Coast and join the Huskies.

Morgan has been mentioned as a key factor in the recruitment of a number of prospects including perhaps not coincidentally local 5-star OL Josh Conerly. He has deep ties across the West Coast and should be an elite recruiter for the Huskies who badly needed to see some improvement in that regard under the new administration. The experience that Morgan has with increasing athlete’s brand names stands to be a major asset now that we are in the NIL era and he can be a huge resource for players looking for those kind of opportunities.

It is worth noting that this will be the 4th stop for Morgan in the last 4 seasons. Up until this move from Michigan to Washington it could be argued that he moved up in prestige with each subsequent jump. Being as generous as possible the move to UW can be viewed as lateral. Leaving his alma mater for this position though hopefully speaks to how thoroughly Morgan wanted this job, how highly he thinks of DeBoer, and how being back on the West Coast is a priority for him and his family.

We’ll see what kind of influence Morgan can have on Husky recruiting but it seems clear based on his reputation around the industry and how Michigan folks feel losing him that Washington and DeBoer hit a home run with this hire.