Tyrone Wheatley follows Jim Harbaugh back to Michigan as running backs coach

First the Raiders lose out on the hope of wooing Jim Harbaugh as their next head coach and then a former Raiders great also makes his trek back to his alma mater at Michigan. Former Raiders running back Tyrone Wheatley has become the running backs coach at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh as first reported Scout.com's Sam Webb.

Wheatley was a star running back for the Michigan Wolverines in the mid 90s and became the 17th overall pick in the 1995 draft by the New York Giants. After four underwhelming seasons in New York, he was given up on by the Giants and thought to be a 'bust'.

The Raiders didn't think so and they signed him in 1999 and he revived his career in Oakland. He teamed with Napoleon Kaufman that season as a two-headed monster in the backfield. In both of his first two seasons in Oakland, he led the team in rushing. His second season he went over 1000 yards and the Raiders had the first trip to the playoffs in seven years, and their first since returning to Oakland in 1995.

Ty-Wheat would spend the final six years of his ten-year NFL career with the Raiders, two of which were while Jim Harbaugh was the Raiders' quarterbacks coach. He re-joins him in Ann Arbor as a fellow coach.

This is not Wheatley's first coaching job. He was the Running Backs coach for the Buffalo Bills the past two seasons as part of Doug Marrone's staff who came over from Syracuse University.

He started out his coaching career as running backs coach at his old high school, Dearborn Heights. He then moved on to coach at Ohio Northern (2008) and Eastern Michigan (2009) before moving on to Syracuse.

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