Minnesota is reportedly bringing in some familiar faces after losing 2 of its assistant coaches. The Golden Gophers recently lost their TE coach Clay Patterson to Colorado and their Co-DC/Safeties coach Joe Harasymiak to Rutgers.

Danny Collins, who has been with Fleck since Collins was a student at Western Michigan, is being promoted to safeties coach per Matt Fortuna of The Athletic. He was a defensive analyst for the Golden Gophers this past season and has been in multiple roles with Fleck going back to WMU and since joining him at Minnesota.

Sources also told Fortuna that Fleck is bringing on Western Michigan WR coach Greg Harbaugh Jr. to fill his TE coaching role. Harbaugh was a quality control coach on various occasions for Minnesota and a graduate assistant for Fleck during his WMU days.

Minnesota has since confirmed those reports with the official announcement of the 2 hirings:

Fleck is sticking with a couple of connections he is familiar with for filling 2 of Minnesota’s coaching roles. A lot of teams in college football and the NFL have done this in the past, we’ll see how this works out for the Gophers in the long run.