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.
