1. Cole – Very good player, critical position, injury would be devastating
2. Speight – season rides on his ability to handle pressure and stay healthy.
3. Hurst – essentially backed by freshman
4. Gary
5. Kinnel
6. McCray – vet backed by a freshman or walk-on
7. Mone – worrying spring doesn’t change how talented and important he is
8. Bredeson – only second sure starter on weak OL unit
9. Evans – maybe a star. The only back who looks like he can make his own yards.
10. Winovich – everyone would be talking about him if it wasn’t for Gary
11. Bush – The less proven version of McCray
12. Bunting – TE so important, but Wheatley is an option.
13. Kugler – If he stabilizes OC it helps the rest of the OL so much.
14. Metellus – Young guy Michigan really needs to step up. This goes for 14-20
15. Onwenu
16. Hudson
17. L. Hill
18. Long
19. Nordin
20. Crawford
21. Bushell-Beatty – penciled in as starter but OL jumbled from 4-7
22. K.Hill – Very good player but FB has a backup and can be schemed out of relevance
23. Wheatley
24. Watson – Can make a strong case even this is low for vet DB.
25. Glasgow – might be top backup for 3 starters
26. Runyan – might be top backup for 4 or 5 starters
27. McDoom – demonstrated playmaker but WR skills are speculative
28. Perry – security blanket?
29. Dwumfour
30. Kemp
31. Robbins
32. Higdon – Likely to get a lot of carries as 1b RB but hasn’t separated from Isaac yet.
33. Poggi
34. Peters – backup QB is most popular guy on campus, especially when he’s “the next Andrew Luck” but step 1 is passing O’Korn. His “emergence” drops Speight off the #1 spot but no further until he proves he’s better than Shane Morris – the guy who was in a “legitimate” competition with Speight one year ago.
35. Ruiz – they probably need him to be the backup OC
Notable Omissions:
People-Jones, Black, Solomon, Vilain, Anthony and all the other freshman DL, WR, and LB. These are loaded recruiting classes (in quality and quantity). I don’t doubt there will be impact players at each position group, I just can’t justify putting any one of them significantly above the others. I’ll admit temptation to put Tarik Black on the list based on the spring, but then I remember who he was covering him.
Could add freshman DB here also but there it seems more likely the vets can handle it.
Washington – He could start. He could also sit on the bench. Same goes for St.Juste just with a dash more spring hype.
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