Name: Devin Asiasi
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 265 lbs.
High school: Concord (CA) De La Salle
Position: Tight end
Class: Freshman
Jersey number: N/A
Last year: Asiasi was a senior in high school (LINK). He made 17 catches for 311 yards and 5 touchdowns on offense; he also made 49 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, and 5 breakups.
Final TTB Rating: 92
Asiasi was kind of a unicorn in the 2016 class. A Californian who didn’t want to go far from home, he was suddenly very interested in Michigan toward the end of the recruiting cycle. It makes sense that a good tight end wanted to play for Jim Harbaugh, but the Wolverines had to fend off Alabama, UCLA, and Washington, among others. It came down to the last minute with him choosing Michigan on February 3. Despite playing his senior yearat 265 lbs. with a little bit of bad weight, he danced around opponents at times and showed some light feet on his way to averaging almost 18 yards/catch. He ended up playing in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, where he caught a touchdown pass.
I like Asiasi a lot, and I think he’s the type of guy who can make an immediate impact. Like Kekoa Crawford in yesterday’s post (LINK), I think blocking ability might push him a little bit ahead of some other guys. Add in some quality receiving skills, and I think Asiasi gets some playing time this year behind Jake Butt at the Y position. Michigan has a lot of tight ends, but Asiasi probably has the highest upside and the best combination of size, blocking ability, and receiving ability. He can play on the line, or he can be split out into the slot to outmuscle safeties or outrun linebackers. Last year with Jake Butt being the receiving tight end and A.J. Williams mostly blocking, it was pretty easy to game plan to stop Butt, even though he still had pretty good production. However, the staff has some new doors opening now, because if you concentrate on stopping Butt on one end of the line, there goes Asiasi or Tyrone Wheatley, Jr. or Ian Bunting popping free in the middle of the field. Wheeeeeeee!
Prediction: Backup tight end
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Thunder, are you a fan of the multiple tight end sets that Michigan uses, or in an ideal world (with ideal personnel) would you rather run something like a spread offense (like Ohio State) and go with more wide receivers? I can definitely see some upsides and downsides of both — but if you got guys like Wheatley Jr. and Asiasi on board — your tight ends are basically bigger stronger and (almost) as fast as the extra WRs, giving you a lot of versatility.
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Wheatley and Asiasi aren’t as fast as WR and never will be. Even Butt isn’t that fast. Funchess was called a ‘freak’ and even his speed was below average for an NFL-caliber WR.
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Yep—Funchess ran a 4.70 at last year’s combine, which was the slowest time for a WR that year.
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You can win either way if you recruit like Meyer or JH. The tempo spread is more forgiving if you don’t have top talent and coaching across all position groups, which is why it is ubiquitous. The cool thing about JH’s system is that it is magnetic to passing QB’s and TE’s, guys who may not fit well in tempo spread. UM is never going to beat Meyer at his own game. So JH’s style is a good fit and contrast for the rivalry. UM has little shot without a good passing game/QB, so strengthening that capability is key.
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Can’t agree more. I bet the JH era will be remembered as excellent QB play. Not that we lack history in that department but I think we will see truly GREAT Q B play. Can’t wait to see a QB demolishing OSU defense with a 400 yard passing game. That will be the epitome of JH football I think…
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Good question. You can win with either if you recruit the right personnel. Everything in football goes in waves. The spread is/was difficult to defend because it was new and evolving, and nobody knew exactly what to do to solve it. Personally, I think it’s hitting a wall here soon when it comes to new looks and innovation, because coaches are now pushing the limits of the rules with the Run Pass Options (RPOs) by sometimes having linemen 5 or 7 yards downfield before the QB throws the ball.
If you asked me a few years ago, I probably would have said I prefer the spread. At this point I think Harbaugh’s offense is just fine when he gets the right guys in the right spots. Teams don’t practice against tight ends and fullbacks enough for formation recognition and muscle memory to kick in, so they have to adjust somewhat. It’s kind of like watching the Spurs dissect the rest of the NBA with old-school, half-court offense and Tim Duncan, while the Warriors, Suns, etc. run up and down the court. It worked for the Spurs because the rest of the league got caught up in young, exciting, athletic players and didn’t develop fundamentals and team chemistry to the same level. Of course, the Warriors got a championship, but the Spurs have been the NBA’s most consistent team over the last 15-20 years.
OSU is an odd example, though. When I think of spreading the field, I don’t think of OSU much. They’re a team with a power running game who pounds the rock inside. They use tight ends, H-backs, etc. a fair amount. They’re not markedly different schematically than the offense Harbaugh ran in college, except the QB is 5 yards behind center. It’s an option offense based on on power rather than finesse. The teams that are significantly different than Michigan’s offense are Baylor, Washington State, Texas Tech, etc.
In summary: The answer will change every few years, but right now I like the direction Michigan’s program is going because players don’t understand how to defend them.
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Agree with the conclusion but I have 3 quibbles.
1. OSU is a spread team. They use tempo, lots of WR, QBs that can run and pass, etc. Yes they run a power version of it, but they’re still a spread that tries to create number advantages, get people in space, etc. That word is losing a lot of meaning these days but they definitely still fit – even if they use a TE who blocks most of the time. Yeah, there are passing spreads that are MORE different than Michigan, but OSU’s O has some major differences to Ms.
2. I think you mischaracterize the Spurs. It’s true that they have tried to zig while others zag but they’ve evolved a lot during Duncan’s career. They actually copied the Suns (Dantoni/Nash), completely rebuilding their offense to model on them (except for the tempo part). That eventually led to them becoming the frenzied passing and 3-point shooting team that won a title a few years back. The Warriors took it to another level that they realized they could not matched, so they changed their offense again to a jumbo post-oriented team in 2015 (more like what you said). But they adapted and changed.
The Michigan equivalent would have been Carr hiring Rodriguez to be his OC in the early 2000s and changing to run-based spread, then Carr and Rodriguez going back to a pro-style attack after they realized they couldn’t beat OSU at their own game once Meyer arrived.
3. Not everything goes in waves. Some things evolve and stick. The forward pass for example is here to stay. Blitzing isn’t going to disappear. The innovative spread offenses of the late 90s and 2000s introduced a ton of elements that are here to stay. The RPO stuff is just an extension of the triple reads that spread offenses introduced. The advantages of having a QB who can run and pass are so inherent that you will never see a reversion to the 80s NFL game where running QBs nearly became extinct. I think there will always be a place for gifted passers too, but the benefits of running QBs have been established. I don’t think it’s a passing fad or trend, as implied above.
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They’re obviously not the same offenses, but a lot of the principles are the same. It’s a tempo offense (I’m waiting for a team to run a pro-style, hurry-up offense) that spreads the field, but so does Michigan with bubble screens, quick passes to the outside, etc. In fact, earlier today I was just looking at an inside zone with a bubble screen attached that Michigan ran against Rutgers last year.
There are a lot of QBs in the NFL who can’t run. It’s funny because so many guys come into the league with the ability to run, but then a lot of them either a) don’t run or b) lose their speed after 5-7 years. If you look at the best QBs in the NFL right now, they’re still pocket guys (Brady, Roethlisberger, Rivers, Brees, Rodgers, etc.) with an occasional runner sprinkled in (Newton? Mariota?). It’s an advantage, but it always has been. There have been guys in the NFL like Tarkenton, Vick, Cunningham, Steve Young, McNabb, etc. over the past several decades, but there are rarely more than a couple solid running QBs in the NFL at any given time. The running QB thing won’t disappear, but it’s yet to be seen whether that’s the new norm or whether it’s just a continuation of what the QB position has always been.
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Most of those non-runners are around 35 years old. The next generation is mostly guys who can run. That’s the spillover effect of the spread offenses and concepts taking over much of the HS and college landscape.
The only non-runners who are under 30 in the top half of the league in passer rating are Stafford (28), Dalton (28), and Cousins (27). There’s an equal number of guys who can run in that age group (and in the top 15) are Wilson, Taylor, and Newton.
Guys in the top 25 who are 25 or less years old are: Mariota (22), Winston (22), and Osweiler (25).
Limited data to be sure, but to me it seems like a changing of the guard so to speak. It could change this year or next and then maybe top QBs will be Luck, Osweiler, Bortles, Goff, etc., but to me it seems like the future is headed more towards more guys making quick reads with run/pass options that the spread systems teaches like Newton and Mariota.
And it should be noted that this isn’t exactly a simple dichotomy. Luck and Wilson can run really well even though they came from Stanford and Wisconsin. Bridgewater has more in common with Goff than Mariota.
I think we already have more than a couple solid runners at QB in the NFL today. To me the question is: 5 years from now, will it be more common to have a guy who threatens to run or guys in the tradition of Brady/Manning/Rivers/Brees who are pure pocket guys. We’ll see.
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I don’t have the inclination to go back and look, but there have always been multiple guys who can run in the NFL. Back in the early 2000s, you had Michael Vick, Daunte Culepper, Donovan McNabb, etc. In the 1990s you had Steve Young, Randall Cunningham, etc. You mentioned a few guys who can run (Wilson, Mariota, Newton), which isn’t an appreciable difference from the number that I mentioned. I don’t view Winston as a runner, and we’ll see if Tyrod Taylor can hold his spot since he’s had only one good year.
There are some good, young runners. I won’t deny that. But sometimes guys who can run when they’re 22-28 years old end up being pocket guys when they’re 33 or 35 years old. Brett Favre is an example of a guy who could run a little bit when he was young, and that ability/willingness declined with age. So is it because the NFL is changing? Or is it because there are just a lot of young QBs in the league right now while some seasoned veteran pocket QB types finish out their careers as elite throwing QBs (Brees, Brady, Manning, etc.)? I’m guessing Andrew Luck won’t look like quite as good of a runner when he’s 33 years old…
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True to that. And it could also be that as the league evolves there is a premium on decision-making, where QBs will continue to trend to older players.
I just think that some of it will be natural consequence of supply – more of the most talented QBs coming from college can run. Because of the change in scheme/philosophy there are more running QBs in college than there were in the 80s and 90s. The NFL doesn’t really have an alternative supply of talent the way say the NBA does.
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You might be right, but for all the running QBs in college football, the 2016 NFL Draft class wasn’t full of them. Wentz, Goff, Lynch, Cook, Hackenberg, Brandon Allen, Kessler, etc. aren’t going to light the world on fire running the ball. Wentz and Lynch can run a bit, but at 237 and 244 lbs., respectively, they’re not going to make long careers of scrambling. They will be pocket guys by 30 or so, if their careers last that long. Probably the one guy in the draft who *might* make it as a runner is Dak Prescott (Cowboys).
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Wasn’t Williams the Y and Butt the U? I have to admit I can’t keep up with all the terminology for positions. Are you saying Butt is going to change roles/positions?
I like Asiasi but to me his biggest value is as an insurance policy to Wheatley. Harbaugh uses a lot of TEs but with Bunting and Wheatley looking like they could be tough to surpass and Hill and Poggi looking entrenched at FB/H-back, it’s hard to imagine a big role for Asiasi unless a couple of those guys get hurt.
I don’t expect him to red-shirt, being that he seems physically ready, but I also doubt he sees a meaningful snap – even if there’s an injury to a TE above him.
Relative to the WR situation, opportunity for TE’s is tough to find.
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The difference between Harbaugh’s tight ends isn’t as stark as some former offensive coordinators’. The demarcation was clear when we had Funchess at TE, because he just couldn’t hack it as an in-line TE. Butt isn’t going to “change positions.” It’s just a matter of how the plays are schemed/called.
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Butt’s still the pass-catching TE right? M needs a blocking TE beside him more than another pass-catcher.
For that reason I have a hard time seeing Bunting or Eubanks being the guy paired with him. Seems like Asiasi, Wheatley, or Jocz are the best bets, or perhaps the nominal FBs (who are really H-backs) Poggi and Hill.
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It depends on what Michigan wants. I think two pass-catchers could be used at the same time. I think Eubanks is going to redshirt, but it’s entirely possible that we’ll see Butt and Bunting on the field at the same time.
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Oh I’d expect to see it on occasion – if nothing else it’d be good for Bunting to play some Y at times. But I’d be surprised if that was a common lineup.
You may be right that there will end up being more similarities between TEs and less differentiation between ‘positions’ – but last year the dichotomy seemed as clear as ever with Williams/Butt.
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Well, sure, but you work with what you have. If we’re being honest, Williams wasn’t anything special as a blocker or receiver, but he was very experienced by last season. Who else was Harbaugh going to throw out there at TE? The other options were H-back types (Khalid Hill) or freshmen (Bunting, Wheatley, etc.). So you have a guy who mostly catches, and a guy who mostly blocks, and you just build your offense around their strengths. If you go back to 2010 when Harbaugh really got things going at Stanford, he had Fleener (28 catches, 7 TDs), Reuland (20 catches, 1 TD), and Ertz (16 catches, 5 TDs), along with a couple other guys who played TE but were less productive as pass receivers. That’s 13 TDs from the TE position. Michigan got just 3 TDs from the TEs in 2015, all of which came from Butt. Give the QB some more options roaming the middle of the field, and production should increase.
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Fair point about working with what you have. But if Butt could handle the blocking TE role, I think you’d have seen a lot more of Hill or Bunting.
If Bunting gets more snaps than Wheatley this year I think your point will likely be proven true. I don’t expect that to be the case, but it could be.
I don’t think you can glean much insight from analyzing TDs. The fact that production was down (relatively) with Jake Butt being an elite pass-catching TE speaks to that point. Standford didn’t have skill position guys like Michigan.
They also didn’t have 270+ pound TEs who can also get open (as far as I remember anyway). If your point is that they had balance when they had a bunch of pass-catching type TEs, that would support your work-with-what-you-have argument.
Maybe it will be so for Michigan, but I think that given the OL shakiness and need to improve the run game, that they’ll continue to use a blocking TE regularly. Nice thing about Wheatly and Asiasi is that they could be prototypes who make the distinction irrelevant.
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Like you’ve said before about other positions, there’s more to playing football than one thing. Butt isn’t a great blocker, and Williams wasn’t a great receiver. But altogether, they were probably the best two TEs on last year’s team. I think if you can get another guy on the field who’s a clone of Butt, then you go ahead and put him on the field with the understanding that he’s not going to be an A+ blocker. The trade-off is worth it, IMO.
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I see it as a similar situation to RB and FB. The RBs may have more talent, but you need a certain number of people who can block effectively and consistently. Ty Isaac may have more talent than Kerridge but Kerridge got the snaps.
There are practical limits to the maximimizing talent on the field philosophy.
I think Butt kind of is who he is and isn’t going to suddenly be an asset as a blocker. He’s probably not a liability either, but he’s getting drafted for his pass-catching skills. You can’t have 2 guys like that in very often, would be my guess, unless your OL unit is really dominating.
So, if Bunting wants to get Williams’ snaps this year he better have made a leap in his blocking from last year. Like you said, Williams wasn’t a great player, even as a blocker. The other side of the coin is if Wheatley/Asiasi aren’t ready to block still then OK you’re probably not playing them over Bunting. Or even more likely, you’re just not using double TEs all that often.
I’m just saying that I think, for the role available (complement to Butt) blocking is going to be the overriding consideration.
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Asiasi is one of those guys who (absent serious injuries) we won’t NEED to make much of a contribution, and who we might even be able to get away with redshirting if we really wanted to, but who will probably be too good to keep off the field. Hopefully we’ll have a lot of those.
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Do you think that Michigan’s lack of depth on the offensive line will carve open more of a role for Wheatley/Asiasi in lieu of a sixth offensive lineman?
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Yes. More so for Wheatley, maybe Asiasi.
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It takes time for OL to develop to be effective blockers, especially in a power scheme. Same goes for TEs though. You might get a freshman who can be a good receiver right away but it’s tougher to find one that can block. It’s not a slam dunk that Williams will be replaced w/o issue.
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I still think Michigan will use a sixth lineman (Bredeson, Dawson, Ulizio, someone) at times because it messes with formation recognition and pass coverage responsibilities, but if Wheatley’s up to the challenge of blocking like an extra tackle, I think he’ll be used a lot. Asiasi’s a good blocker, but I’m not sure if he’ll be ready to be the “sixth OL” right off the bat.
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Great discussion above re: scheme. Some salient points:
1. It’s working. Don’t mess with it. The anonymous quotes that Michael Spath got made it clear that at least some teams had a hard time preparing for Michigan. Which makes sense. The spread Os are the new normal. The 90’s pro-style NFL offenses are still around too but far less common than 5-10 years ago. Harbaugh is running a very creative and sophisticated offense that is the 90’s NFL thing with a whole lot more creativity and variety.
2. M can’t beat OSU by doing the same things they do. We don’t have to have a different offensive scheme, but SOMETHING about our approach has to be different.
3. The M scheme DOES provide a recruiting advantage for prostyle QBs and TEs. It would also seem to have the potential to produce feature/primary RBs and WRs who will put up impressive enough stats to land elite talent as well. The only guys it probably won’t attract are the ‘super’ backs, slot WR, scatbacks that the the high octane offenses like to feature. That’s OK, M can still land good talent there because its M. The real place where I’d LIKE to see the recruiting advantage arise is on the OL. Drevno and Harbaugh did great work together in finding and developing elite talent, but Shaw was prominently involved too. Need to reestablish the OL-U thing we had going in the 90s.
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Agree, still waiting for OL recruiting to take off. The lack of elite commits (Bredeson aside) has been surprising to me given the amount of NFL experience Drevno brings. Also, no matter how you slice it losing Devery Hamilton last year was a major blow.
Lots of top guys interested but recently trending elsewhere in the 2017 class. So far M has accepted the commitments of a lot of high ceiling guys, but if the 2016 season is as big as some predict it to be, look for a few elite guys to swing our way.
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I’m less worried about this because OL recruiting seems more uncertain than other positions. I’m still smarting from misses like Jake Fisher and Joshua Garnett that could have been game-changers, but then there are the Kuglers and Kalis examples that indicate it’s more about development.
What I really want to see this year is Newsome turning into an average starter, and then the guys like Runyan and Ulazio looking solid in mop up duty, with some good practice reports too. Less worried about the true freshman because those guys almost always take time. Long and Lewan didn’t get a lot of attention as freshman and that’s how it’s supposed to be. By year 2 you should at least be making some noise and handling your business in mop up situations. Of course if Bredenson is ready to play from day 1 no one will complain.
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