Michigan’s NFL Combine Winners and Losers

Tag: DeVeon Smith


21Jan 2017
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2017 East-West Shrine Game

The 2017 East-West Shrine Game will be played on Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. EST. The broadcast will be on NFL Network.

Here are some players to watch for Michigan fans:

EAST

De’Veon Smith – RB – Michigan
Erik Magnuson – OT – Michigan
Dan Skipper – OT – Arkansas
Kyle Kalis – OG – Michigan
Alex Kozan – OG – Auburn
Matt Godin – DT – Michigan
James Onwualu – LB – Notre Dame
Jalen Myrick – CB – Minnesota
Channing Stribling – CB – Michigan
Delano Hill – S – Michigan
Dymonte Thomas – S – Michigan
Damarious Travis – S – Minnesota

WEST

Gunner Kiel – QB – Cincinnati
Wes Lunt – QB – Illinois
Dare Ogunbowale – RB – Wisconsin
Austin Carr – WR – Northwestern
Hardy Nickerson, Jr. – LB – Illinois
Leon McQuay III – S – USC

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31Dec 2016
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Florida State 33, Michigan 32

Mike McCray II scored his first career TD (image via NewsOK)

Jabrill Peppers is worth 1 point. I predicted a 24-20 win in my game preview (LINK), but that was before any of us knew that Peppers wouldn’t play in the game due to injury. It turns out Peppers hurt his hamstring on Thursday and didn’t have enough time to heal up before kickoff. I tweeted out just before kickoff that I thought Michigan would lose the game without Peppers. It was going to be a tight game, anyway, and Michigan needed Peppers to make a difference. His replacement at Viper was Josh Metellus (with some Noah Furbush at SAM). Metellus did return a blocked extra point for a 2-point conversion, but he did very little on defense and left some plays on the field that Peppers might have made. His replacement on punt returns was Jourdan Lewis, who did nothing with the short punts. His replacement on offense was . . . the same guys who haven’t been playmakers all year long.

Hit the jump for some more thoughts on last night’s loss.

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27Dec 2016
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Orange Bowl Preview: Michigan Running Backs vs. Florida State Linebackers

Matthew Thomas

MICHIGAN RUNNING BACKS

Starters: Michigan’s starter is 5’11”, 228 lb. senior De’Veon Smith. Smith has twice as many carries as any other player on the team, totaling 165 carries for 810 yards (4.9 YPC) and 10 touchdowns. Smith is a powerful back who breaks tackles and runs hard, but he’s not much of a big-play threat. The high point of his season was a 23-carry, 158-yard, 2-touchdown effort against Indiana in mid-November. However, that was sandwiched by two games in which he averaged 2.3 and 2.9 YPC, against Iowa and Ohio State, respectively. Smith is also a solid pass blocker, though he doesn’t offer much in the way of receiving (13 catches, 59 yards). Redshirt junior fullback Khalid Hill (6’2″, 263 lbs.) leads the team in total touchdowns, including 10 rushing scores on goal-line attempts. He also has 14 catches for 105 yards and 2 TDs.

Key backups: Freshman Chris Evans (565 yards, 7.1 YPC, 3 TDs) got the most carries of the backups by a fairly slim margin. He’s a speedster with big-play ability. Redshirt junior Ty Isaac (417 yards, 5.6 YPC, 5 TDs) plays sporadically and offers a nice combination of size and skill at 6’3″, 228. Sophomore Karan Higdon‘s (422 yards, 6.2 YPC, 6 TDs) star was rising during the first two-thirds of the season, but over the final four games, he had 15 carries for 19 yards. I’ll list redshirt junior Henry Poggi here, even though he gets about 50% of the fullback snaps; he has 1 carry for 4 yards and 6 catches for 45 yards in mostly a blocking role.

Hit the jump for more on Florida State.

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