Newest AFC North coach hired by a Bengals rival team has very close ties to Cincinnati
A name the Queen City knows well is now a rival coach.
The Baltimore Ravens are hiring Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter as their next head coach.
Minter is being tabbed to replace John Harbaugh as the fourth HC in Ravens history, and is the first hire made by the Cincinnati Bengals’ rivals this month since the rest of the division began coaching searches. The Cleveland Browns have yet to replace Kevin Stefanski, and the same goes for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Tomlin.
Minter may’ve had his most recent job out west, but when he plays the Bengals in Cincinnati every season going forward, he’ll be very familiar with the area.
Ravens new coach spent many years living in Cincinnati
Long before Minter’s coaching career began in 2006 as a defensive intern for Notre Dame, the Little Rock, AR native spent most of his formative years growing up in Cincinnati while his father, Rick Minter, coached the University of Cincinnati football program from 1994-2003.
During the 10 years his dad worked in the Queen City, Minter attended Mount St. Joseph in Delhi Township, just west of downtown Cincy. Even three years after UC moved on from his father, Minter spent two years as a graduate assistant under Brian Kelly from 2007-08.
Minter’s time in Cincinnati ended when he became the linebackers coach at Indiana State in 2009. He would be promoted to defensive coordinator in 2011, and parlayed that gig to become the DC at Georgia State in 2013. He spent three years there before first making the jump to the NFL as a defensive assistant for none other than the Ravens. That’s right, Minter’s first NFL gig was courtesy of the Harbaugh he’s now replacing.
Minter coached against the Bengals from 2017-20, spending his last season as the defensive backs coach, before going back down to the college level as Vanderbilt’s DC in 2021. Jim Harbaugh then hired him as Michigan’s DC in 2022, and the two won the College Football Playoff National Championship together in 2023. Harbaugh then took Minter with him to L.A. in 2024 and kept his DC title.
All of that has led to Minter’s first head-coaching job in the same division in which he first entered the league, and he’ll now coach as a foe in the city he grew up in.