Lanknows.
LanknowsPre-Spring edition of premature expectations for each position group. A is an elite Big Ten unit. C is an average one.
Offense was covered here.
DL: A
The comparison that comes to mind is Brady/Henson. Henson wasn’t a proven starter heading into 2000 but he had rotated so much, looked promising, and demonstrated talent such that confidence was extremely high. Same goes for Gary/Hurst/Mone/Winovich in 2017.
But what about depth? It’s true that, unlike QB, you need to rotate the DL. But rotation doesn’t need to be as heavy as last year’s. As Ryan Van Bergen noted, sometimes you just lean on your starters more heavily. Nor does it have to be as clean by position as it was last year – people can move around.
No one should consider last year’s A+ unit to be the baseline. It was exceptional, and many of us will never again see a Michigan DL with that experience, depth, and talent in our lifetimes.
Back to 2017: The starters are poised to be elite. The only real questions are Mone’s health and Winovich’s ability to stand up against the run. Whatever losses there are in the run-defense should be offset but a more athletic pass-rush.
The backups will be sorted out from a bounty of young talent. Greg Mattison track record says the backups would be adequate at worst, even before you account for the loaded freshman class on the way. A class that’s already generating buzz from the early enrollees, before the most highly regarded talents hit campus this fall.
LB: C+
This refers to the 2 ILB positions and the situational OLB used against increasingly rare heavy sets. It does NOT include the Jabril Peppers VIPER spot.
Mike McCray returns and while he did put up respectable stats, he was generally considered the weakest link in the 2016 defense. At his best when attacking downhill, McCray struggled at times in space. More importantly, he rarely demonstrated the read-and-react skills you want to see from a LB. He did fine, but his job was very easy last year.
Devin Bush has gotten a lot of buzz and played a respectable number of snaps last year, but there’s reason to worry here. Size is an issue and the rumors of keeping Bush at MLB (where McCray would seem to be a far better fit) is a troubling sign for both players… But not as troubling as the rumors of a walk-on being the backup for both.
Michigan should be fine but neither Bush nor McCray can reasonably be project to be an all conference player. They’ll have a bigger run-stopping responsibility this year (without Wormley, Charlton, Glasgow, and Godin around) and for all of Ben Gedeon’s coverage issues his play against the run will be very difficult to replace.
Backups are uninspiring for now, but Noah Furbush was decent and could be moved inside if needed.
Safety & Viper: C
Michigan hasn’t had a better trio than Peppers, Hill, and Thomas probably ever. Those guys rarely left the field. Because of that, the presumed replacements (Kinnell, Metellus, Hudson) are very green.
Kinnel’s the vet (true junior) and played in dime packages. Groomed to start, reports have been consistently positive and on-field performance encouraging. Metellus wasn’t very highly regarded as a recruit, but played very well in low leverage situations until the Bowl game where it turned out he wasn’t Jabril Peppers. On the bright side, Hudson might not be far off, he just hasn’t played enough where anyone can confidently say he will be.
As with LB, a walk-on looms as the top replacement across positions. The brand name (Glasgow) mitigates the concern, but only by a bit.
CB & Nickel: C-
The good news is that inexperience at CB isn’t the worst thing. The bad news is that might not be as true in Don Brown’s system. Michigan has three young players (Hill, Long, and Thomas) leading the charge to replace the best CB combo Michigan’s had in a decade. At the same time, the position will be needed to do more without Jabril Peppers handling much of the nickelback duties. There are options at backup including Brandon Watson as a stablizing presence but everyone expects the talent of the young guys to win out.
Big picture
Don Brown’s been excellent regardless of talent but has had a lot more success with an experienced secondary than without. This year’s team will test that balance by offering a boatload of the former with a serious lack of the latter.
Your guess is as good as mine. It seems unlikely the defense will replicate last year’s top 5 performance. But also unlikely that Don Brown Year 2 + Michigan’s talent level adds up to worse than a top 30 unit. Things could fall apart, but Brown, Mattison, Zordich make it unlikely to be too bad.
The talent is there, even if depth and experience are not. A loaded DL will go a long way to mitigating worry on the back end. That unit should be able to carry the defense through the first part of the season and help get the talented secondary ready later in the year.
Brown’s got his athletes, it’s up to him to get them ready.
LanknowsMy grades are unkind to the LB and DBs but I think objectively fair. I’m far more bullish on the overall defense than the position grades would suggest.
Brown, Mattison, and Zordich are the reason for that.
Brown’s been great everywhere he’s been and the only real question with him was how fast he could get his system in place. That was addressed last year. The only real question now is if an inexperienced secondary will be able to handle his risk-taking. Given the talent there, there is reason for optimism.
Zordich plays into that optimism. Lewis, Stribling, and Clark all made massive strides under Zordich’s guidance. There was some concern that Greg Jackson’s departure would hurt Michigan but it appears not to be so. (That guy was always overrated by fans and I think part of the blame lies with Mgoblog overstating his qualifications repeatedly). Zordich has been brilliant.
Mattison everyone knows about, but what an asset to the program. Even if you set aside his impeccable work on the DL, the man is just a tremendous resource for all the other coaches. Having a veteran DC on the staff as a position coach is a luxury.
So is knowing that Michigan will have an excellent DL year in and year out thanks to Mattison. When you see guys like Heininger, Glasgow and Godin play at such a high level it instills a great deal of confidence. Brady Hoke has gotten a lot of credit for DL development over the years but you really have to wonder if it wasn’t mostly about Mattison.
GKblueI give you credit for the thought that you put into your analysis and your willingness to stick your neck out with predictions.
On the D I tend to think of maturation and wear and tear over the season. The LB and DB groups are just going to have to learn on the field this year. We have recruited the athletes and have superior coaching staffs, I am looking forward to a positive slope in performance over the year that can meet or exceed your grades.
The DL without enough depth to rotate personnel is a recipe for disaster should injuries occur just like the year before last. We want to rush the edge relentlessly and have to replace Taco etc. Can Mone hold up? Is Dwumfour healthy? Solomon get the job done? These guys have to learn on the job too. So, I agree that this unit is the strength of the D and will have to protect our LBs early on. I hope it grades high in Sept and can hold up for an entire season to grade out well in November and December.
LanknowsI agree DL rotation is important. I just don’t think we necessarily need to, for example, allocate 50% NT snaps to Dwumfour or Solomon. Mone can probably play closer to 70% of meaningful snaps and Hurst can cover the rest. The young guys might not be needed at all if Mone is healthy.
Michigan needs to find 3 interior DL it is comfortable rotating. They already have 2 in Mone and Hurst and, in the unlikely event all the freshman options falter (or the injury bug strikes) they can move Gary inside too.
That all said, I am VERY confident that between Dwumfour, Solomon, Hudson, Jeter, Marshall and others, Michigan will find another couple rotation players for the interior DL. Gary will be able to stay at SDE, Hurst will play most of his snaps at DT, and most QBs will be very very sad when they play Michigan.
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I’m far more worried about LB and Safety. If one of the starters goes down we are looking at a walk-on, position change, or throwing out a true freshman where experience tends to matter most on a defense.
We do have a strong recruiting class coming for LB, which I probably didn’t fully account for in my grade. Furbush should have some positional flexibility too. If you told me LB should be a B-, I wouldn’t argue.
But at safety there is almost no margin for error. If any of the 3 starters go down, Glasgow or JKP are probably coming in. Maybe Uche if you’re feeling optimistic. The recruits don’t profile to be immediate contributors.
AnonymousJust as in 2015, the DL will be tasked with taking pressure off the middle and back end defensive levels. If, unlike 2015, where injuries started taking its toll on the line, exposing our greatest weakness, and we can remain relatively healthy, I believe they are up to the task. We’re definitely young, basically everywhere and Hurst’s return is a major blessing. I am a strong believer, based mostly on Brown’s defense being so unique – when it should be more the norm in cfb – we’re never going to field a unit considered poor on that side of the ball. When assessing players this young, the largest benefit they have going into the season is regardless of whether they contributed on the field last season or merely ran the defense daily as a non-used or seldom used backup, everyone except the incoming freshman will be going into year no.2 under Brown. This is big and they’ll also be doing so with an extra year in the weight room.
There’s a reason Gary was selected ahead of a qb for this season’s spring game. If you caught the Louisville vs. Houston game last season, you saw the reason. Gary is capable of doing what Ed Oliver did in that game. It was actually rather impressive, imo, that at almost all schools not named Bama or OSU, Rashan might have been pressed into the starter’s role as a freshman, but he was able to apprentice under two of the nation’s best DEs last season and learned a ton. I believe he’s going to go off this year, and the combo of he and Hurst will change the momentum in a lot of contests this year.
Obviously our back end has the most ?s and regardless of who starts, we will be inexperienced. This would be more disconcerting, imo, given the performance of the CO qb prior to being injured if not for that constant pressure Brown can bring and in the two named above, along with Mone and a stronger – yet just as quick, Winovich, I’m of the opinion we will only have to incorporate a minimum of blitz packages involving the young lbers due to the ability of this unit.
Speaking of those young backers. As is the case at any position, young is not good. But when they go from just young to young and very good, things are improving. Obviously no one expects Hudson(except maybe Hudson) to come close to duplicating Pepper’s influence on the D. However, word leaking out of the practice field is that what was supposed to be a contest between two very good players, turned into a runaway, such was the difference in production by Hudson. Many questioned his abilities, based largely on h.s. size and level of competition he faced. I believe he’s answered those questions. I believe Bush, who hits with the same very mean intentions of Hudson will complement McCray nicely. I also think someone will separate themselves from a crowded group of Kemp, Uche and Furbush and make a statement they belong. And on both sides of the ball, every year a true freshman emerges, plays at a level totally unexpected and makes a major impact in year one.
Most of my confidence lies in Mr. Brown and his possessing a great feel for the correct times to bring and to stay vanilla. However, and many overlook this. Many of these players will have been around Harbaugh now for over two years. Even with the abbreviated recruiting of 2014, this is about the time the team usually leaves no doubt they’ve taken on the characteristics of their head man. So for many, nearing three years now, they’ve heard daily about how “talented they are and the improvement they’ll make from there, how the program as a whole is improving daily, a feigned surprise at (the level you’ve exceeded my expectations is amazing,) I think this team is almost to the point where they will refuse to lose,” basically all positive reinforcement on what they probably almost believed 100% but now they have no doubt. This man definitely does not believe in the instant photo. He takes a big picture approach and imagines nothing less than building the top program in the country. This type of attitude definitely rubs off. We’re close guys.
WindyCityBlueFor the time being, our back 7 is probably no better than a C+/B-…that’s not being too harsh. LB is not a train wreck, but no one is looking like a star, either. McCray is good, but probably not great, and Bush is limited in size and athleticism. We have a VERY good group coming in at LB, though, and I have some optimism that at least one will be contributing by mid-season. We probably have better talent at CB, but very limited experience. Over the course of the season, this could develop into quite a good group. Safety will probably be no better than solid, and if injuries hit that position, worry. Look for/hope for noticeable improvement over the course of the season.
ThunderI get that this is pre-spring, but we’re pretty much looking at this in competition with other teams. So whether it’s spring or fall, these grades don’t really fit with our expectations, IMO. All this adds up to an average grade of about 2.5, which is between a C+ or B-. Is that where we expect to be in the Big Ten? Out of 14 teams, that grade probably puts us at about 6th.
Who are the five teams that are better off than Michigan on defense?
LanknowsAs I said above, I’m far more bullish on the overall defense than the position grades would suggest because of excellent coaching. (Probably should have said this in the main post). The grades are for personnel.
I do expect that we can end up with one of the 3 best defenses in the conference. I don’t think we’ll be as good as last year (top 5 nationally). In the grading I’ve defined, that’s something like a B+.
A+ for coaching
A for DL (more important than back 7 IMO)
C- to C+ for the back 7
Overall B+ is reasonable.
LanknowsA C grade is average. So out of 14 teams, that would be the 7th and 8th best teams.
If you average out my positional grades (4 As, 2 B-/C+, 5 C/C-) it is probably a B-, which is probably around the 4th or 5th best team. Including coaching get us to 2 or 3.
If this group of players was getting coached by an average coaching staff (say Illinois) I think it would be a bit better than average (B-). Since they are getting coached by Don Brown, I think they’ll be near the top of the conference, but probably not as good as Ohio State.
This is far from scientific, but I think it’s logical.
LanknowsI’d bump up my LB personnel grade to a B- or even a B based on UMBig’s hype. Bush is really the key player here and it sounds like he’s on track to step up to be a quality starter, at least at this stage.
LanknowsPost-spring I’d bump the grades a bit – mostly down.
DL: A to A-. Having Kemp be the only guy that emerged to be really pushing for playing time is not ideal.
LB: C+ to B-. Bush and McCray seem on track to be plus starters. Depth is iffy but not critical.
CB/Nickel: C- to D+. Transfer interest and position-switches and luke-warm spring reports make this a worry spot. Desperately need Hill and Long to step up.
S/Viper: C. Starters on track despite inexperience, but depth is dodgy.