Kyle Whittingham arrived at Michigan to restore the program’s national championship standard. Before he can coach his first game, the staff has already lost a key piece. One assistant from Michigan’s 2023 title team has left for an SEC program in a defensive role.

Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers have hired Michigan Wolverines’ offensive analyst Josh Sinagoga. However, he was hired as a defensive staff member in Tennessee and will serve as a defensive analyst under Jim Knowles’ leadership.

Sinagoga spent three seasons inside Michigan’s offense, learning how quarterbacks think and how plays break down before the snap. Now he flips the lens. In Knoxville, he will watch that same chessboard from the other side, helping Jim Knowles anticipate what young signal-callers will try against Tennessee’s new defense.

Before moving to Youngstown State, he had other spells at different programs. He was first a graduate assistant at Northwood University before moving to Central Michigan, where he was the offensive quality control coach. Sinagoga then joined Iowa, where he worked as an offensive graduate assistant before serving as the offensive quality control coach with quarterbacks at Cincinnati.

His experience coaching the main offensive units, quarterbacks and wide receivers, made him very fit for the offensive analyst role at Michigan. But he will now put all of that experience to one side, as he takes on an entirely new path in Knoxville.

Sinagoga will work under defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, whom Heupel hired to fix Tennessee’s defense. Last season the Volunteers allowed 28.7 points per game, a clear sign the unit needed new ideas. Sinagoga’s film study of offensive tendencies will help Knowles anticipate snap reads and play calls. That inside view of how quarterbacks think is exactly what a struggling defense needs.

Another Michigan controversy induced Sinagoga’s hire

Michigan has navigated several coaching controversies in recent years, and Sinagoga arrived in the middle of that turbulence. The program had just fired offensive coordinator Matt Weiss, who worked with the quarterbacks and was also the team’s top offensive assistant. Weiss was in the midst of a police investigation for charges related to unauthorized computer access and identity theft.

Since Sinagoga joined, Michigan’s staff has turned over repeatedly. Jim Harbaugh left after the national title. Sherrone Moore took over, then was fired in December 2025 after an investigation into an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Campbell was also let go after the 2024 season as the offense struggled.

Sinagoga is the third offensive staffer to leave Michigan since the 2023 title. First Harbaugh’s inner circle changed, then coordinators, now analysts. The pattern shows a staff in rebuild mode, not a stable unit. When Tennessee called, he chose a fresh start in a defensive role instead of waiting to see how things would settle in Ann Arbor.