Maurice Hurst, Jr. (image via MLive)
Michigan set a school record for the number of players chosen in the 2017 NFL Draft, and it’s almost impossible to replicate talent production like that in consecutive years. So the Wolverines are bound to have a less exciting draft weekend in 2018, but the cupboard isn’t totally bare.
Here’s a look at Michigan’s top NFL prospects for the 2018 class:
OL Mason Cole
At 6’5″ and 305 lbs., Cole looks more like a center or a guard at the next level. He played center in 2016 after starting at left tackle for his first couple seasons, and right now he’s back at left tackle. That versatility may give him a boost going into the 2018 draft. He’s not a great drive blocker, nor is he a superb athlete, but he has good technique and has proven to be a quick learner, along with showing good leadership skills.
Early projection: 4th round
FB Khalid Hill
Hill played tight end early in his career before moving to fullback in 2016. Listed at 6’2″, 263 lbs. – though he’s supposedly lost some weight this off-season – Hill led the team in rushing touchdowns with 10, improved as a blocker, and also offers some value as a receiver. He’s not the biggest or fastest H-back prospect around, but his experience in a pro-style offense, his soft hands, and his blocking ability should make him a decent prospect.
Early projection: 6th round
DT Maurice Hurst, Jr.
Hurst has improved steadily throughout his career. He was a backup nose tackle for his first few seasons, and now it looks like he’ll start at 3-tech in 2017. He probably won’t be a nose tackle at the next level due to a lack of size (6’2″, 282 lbs.), and he’ll have to use his quickness to beat offensive guards. He made 34 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks while playing a backup role as a redshirt junior. Hurst has NFL bloodlines (his biological father played cornerback for the New England Patriots) and might be a captain in 2017.
Early projection: 2nd round
RB Ty Isaac
Isaac will be a fifth year senior in 2017, and he probably won’t be a starter. That obviously limits his upward mobility. The 6’3″, 230 lb. running back has produced when given the opportunity (6.0 yards/carry at Michigan, 6 TDs), but he has had some fumbling issues and has been up and down as a pass blocker. He also offers the ability to catch the ball out of the backfield.
Early projection: 7th round
LB Mike McCray II
Another fifth year senior, McCray has an NFL inside linebacker frame at 6’4″, 248 lbs. He does lack some open-field quickness, but he’s solid in pass coverage (2 INTs, 7 PBUs) and pretty good stopping the run between the tackles. Personally, I think he got a bad rap for his edge containment, too, but that’s probably not a strength. He made 76 tackles, 12.5 TFLs, and 4.5 sacks during his first year as a starter in 2016.
Early projection: 4th round
UNDERCLASSMEN TO WATCH
DT Bryan Mone
Mone is huge at 6’4″, 310 lbs. and was heavier earlier in his career. The added weight negatively impacted his mobility, and then a broken leg in 2015 also slowed him, so he hasn’t spent much time at Michigan in optimal condition. Mone made 12 tackles and 1 tackle for loss as a backup nose tackle in 2016, and 2017 will be his first year as a starter. He doesn’t have the explosiveness to terrorize opponents in the backfield, but he is a space eater who may want to leave early to avoid health issues that might hurt his draft status for 2019.
DE Chase Winovich
Winovich was a backup to 1st rounder Taco Charlton in 2016, so the 2017 season will be his first as a starter. Winovich is just 6’3″ and doesn’t have a huge frame, so it’s questionable how much weight he can add to his 245 lb. frame. However, he made 35 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, and 5 sacks in a part-time role last year, and with a big season in 2017, he may consider coming out. He has some quickness around the corner and a non-stop motor.
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I wonder if Winovich couldn’t get just a touch lighter and play outside in a 3-4.
High school LB, if memory serves.
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Yes, he was a high school linebacker. And I do think playing OLB is a possibility.
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I’m torn on when Hurst will be drafted.
He had backup snaps last year, and put up insane numbers. If he can continue that production (or even slightly diminished production) with starting snaps he’ll be a first round pick.
However, if Gary, Dwumfour, or a true freshman can’t spell him, I’m worried he’ll be overused and worn out. If that’s the case, 2nd to 3rd round pick.
Then we have to look at the 2017 draft. First DT (McDowell) was taken in the second round. But then the 2016 draft had 4 DTs go in the first round. Can’t really project NFL team needs right now.
Either way, I’m ecstatic he came back for his 5th year.
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At 6’2″ and 282 lbs., I just can’t see a team taking him in the 1st round. That’s almost unheard of for a highly drafted defensive tackle. Amobi Okoye is maybe a good approximation, but that’s going back 10 years.
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Hurst reminds me a ton of Aaron Donald (6’1″, 285). But Donald was a freakish athlete (4.68s 40 yard dash, 35 bench reps), so maybe Donald Lite?
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Would he be able to play DE in a 3-4 system or is he too short for that?
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The NFL does not draft on production. Hurst doesn’t need more snaps to move his stock up. If anything Hurst would benefit from a backup that can keep the status quo (as you said).
If we’re being honest, Hurst probably cost himself money by coming back. Not that I’m complaining.
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Ain’t that the truth (for both DTs)
I’m torn on when Hurst will be drafted.
He had backup snaps last year, and put up insane numbers. If he can continue that production (or even slightly diminished production) with starting snaps he’ll be a first round pick.
“However, if Gary, Dwumfour, or a true freshman can’t spell him, I’m worried he’ll be overused and worn out”
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LOL Ty Isaac. Let the dream never die!
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Isaac has size and decent speed and LOOKS like he should be the kind of guy to interest somebody. It’s hard to see what he actually brings to the table for an NFL team, though. He does not get good yards after contact, he does not get tough yards between the tackles, and he is not particularly elusive or shifty. His pass catching and pass blocking are nothing to make anyone sit up and take notice. He is a decent 3rd or 4th RB in college, but unless he shows a lot more this year than in any year previous, I would say he’s no better than even money to get drafted, even in the 7th round.
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Someone once told me that the NFL drafts on potential, not production…
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Isaac is older than Deveon Smith. He is almost 2 years older than Christian McCaffrey.
Entering his 5th year in college, he has never finished a season higher than 5th on the depth chart.
Isaac is not particularly fast, agile, strong, reliable nor does he have great hands. There’s not a single physical attribute that indicates high potential for the RB position.
The NFL does draft on potential – Isaac just hasn’t exhibited much of it.
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I think this is flat-out false. What he hasn’t shown is consistency. He’s made some big plays, he’s looked good in spring games, etc. I’ll agree that he hasn’t shown a ton of toughness and has struggled in pass protection, but he wouldn’t be the first guy to make it to the NFL who struggles with pass pro. As for his hands, scouts raved about his hands coming out of high school and thought he should maybe play wide receiver because of it. Have you ever seen him drop a pass? (That’s a serious question – I’ve never seen him drop one.)
The potential is there. I don’t think there’s any question about that. It’s more a question of toughness, attitude, and “intangibles.”
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The DOBs are facts. The position on depth charts are facts. You can got back to the HS non-facts if you want but there’s been a lot of data since then.
You and many others have bemoaned the lack of “playmakers” on the Michigan offense – particularly at RB. If Isaac had pass-catching skills we would have seen them at some point in the last 4 years.
The potential is entirely imagined.
Isaac is what he is – a capable runner for a jumbo back, who fills out the depth chart. I’m sure he would be very productive running behind Alabama’s OL (as would our other backs), but he’s not a star waiting to be born. We would have seen it by now.
Running over high school dudes, UNLV, and Oregon State isn’t going to make NFL scouts wonder about what could be if he only just gets a little tougher. Anyway dude is 22 – he’s not going to go Chiron on us.
Every scholarship RB on the M roster has more potential than Ty Isaac. The only way Isaac gets drafted is if he embraces blocking to the point that people think he can be an H-back in the NFL. He has no future in the NFL as a RB. He simply does not have the skillset.
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Rabble rabble rabble. You could have said the same thing(s) about Mike Cox, Thomas Rawls, and others at some point. Cox got drafted in the 7th round, and Rawls has become a decent player for the Seahawks. We’ll see what happens in another year or two.
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If you consider Mike Cox a success story then yes I agree. Ty Isaac has Mike Cox like potential. He absolutely could be a guy who runs for 3.6 yards per carry his senior year. Or even Better!
Cox was drafted because he was
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I think Mike Cox was drafted to the NFL and played in the NFL, so yeah, that’s pretty successful. Only about 250 football players each year can claim that level of success. Whether that’s mild success or great success, I’m not predicting greatness, but it’s still an accomplishment.
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I would add Speight to the list of potential early entrants. As we’ve seen, competent QBs are in high demand. Jake Rudock is now an NFL backup. Speight is a similar player in many ways and had almost identical stats as a sophomore as Rudock had as a senior. Returning starter QB + Hamilton + Harbaugh + more of a spread offense to produce bigger stats…
Furthermore, if all the “Peters is coming!” optimists are right, Speight may think cashing in while he can is a good idea.
This is a good post. I agree with most of these (besides the Isaac laugher) but I think you have Hill and McCray a little too high.
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Sam Rogers (a FB) was taken in the 6th round out of Virginia Tech, and I think Hill has more positional flexibility than Rogers. Rogers is only a FB, while Hill can also be a TE/H-back. McCray compares pretty well with Gedeon, IMO, and Gedeon was a 4th rounder.
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Rogers looks like a FB and NFL teams can identify a clear vision for him. Hill is slow H-back who struggles to execute his FB-blocking assignments.
I think Gedeon is significantly better than McCray but we have a full season for McCray to prove me wrong.
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No one is going to draft Speight as a potential starter next year. His ceiling is just not that high. There is no reason to leave early to be drafted as a backup.
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I think there’s a decent chance you are wrong. Anyway, most QBs are not drafted to be immediate starters.
Speight could put up Trubisky numbers. He hasn’t hit his ceiling yet – but he might in 2017. If he has the kind of year I think he can have (all conference), graduates, and has Peters breathing down his back. Would risk what he has (let’s say a 3rd round draft grade) to try to move up?
We’ve been through this before with Jon Navarre. Speight is already way ahead of where Navarre was at the same time in his career. If he gets his QBR into the 150-160 range, gets his YPA to around 8.5, and throws north of 3,000 yards/30 TDs while keeping his INTs in single digits — I think he’s absolutely an NFL draft pick. Last year he was at 140 QBR, 7.8 YPA, 2500 yards and 18-7.
All the numbers above are achievable in his second year as starter – particularly if the offense is going to transition towards a pro-style offense (i.e., spread to pass).
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I don’t think those numbers are likely with our OL and no established receivers returning.
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I don’t dispute that the OL is a critical factor in QB production. I have no worries whatsoever about WR, which seems to be overflowing with talent, size, and speed. Maybe inconsistency dings Speight’s numbers a bit but that should be offset by playmaking, YAC, and catching radius.
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Anyway isn’t the lack of ‘established receivers’ offset by having an ‘established QB’?
I know which I’d rather have.
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Is he an established QB? From everything I’ve seen this spring, he’s throwing pick after pick, and both he and his coach are saying that he didn’t play well.
Even if the lack of established WRs is offset by the presence of an established QB, we’re talking about a QB who wasn’t very good last year and didn’t perform well in the biggest games. So if you take one step forward and one step back, you’re right back where you were – with a fair but unspectacular performance at QB.
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Yes. See the 2016 regular season.
Anybody putting Spring and Italy ahead of that (plus media reports, coaches comments, etc.) is reading too much into it. Wyatt Shallman led the team in yards in a spring game.
Speight was good last year. 2nd in the league in QBR as a sophomore was no small accomplishment. Injury was a factor in the late season fall-off. Performance in big games: how about against PSU, Wisc, and Colorado?
Was he great? No. Was he sophomore? Yes.
The crazy thing about all of this talk about Speight is that if Jourdan Lewis makes a play against FSU or if the refs spot the ball differently against OSU, perceptions of Speight are very different. He had no control over those things. But Michigan lost those games so Speight is “wasn’t very good”.
Yes he could have done more played better. Logic and history say he will.
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No, teams don’t necessarily draft QBs with the expectation that they will start IMMEDIATELY. So what? They DO draft some guys with the expectation that they will become a quality NFL starter within a few years. And they draft other guys specifically to fill the need for a backup QB (dumb IMO, but some teams do it). Speight right now would only qualify for the latter category. Sure, they may HOPE that the QB they draft in the 6th round turns into another Tom Brady, but that’s not where you go for a starter.
The numbers you hope for from Speight to get him to the level of a starting level draft pick and early entry are laughably unrealistic. When was the last time any Michigan QB, even one with a very good Oline and experienced, talented receivers even got close to those stats? The best single season TD pass total in the whole history of Michigan football is 25. A QBR rating of 150-160 is also vanishingly unlikely for Speight. You’re challenged to show us when the last time a full season starter for Michigan got that high.
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Every team hopes the QB they draft can become a starter one day. Almost every QB is a backup before they start. NFL teams do not know the future anymore than we do.
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I think Jim Harbaugh is the best football coach Michigan’s had in a long while. What happened under Schembechler, Hoke, Carr QBs is hardly relevant.
But since you asked – Denard Robinson had a 150 QBR in 2010, and according to Thunder he wasn’t even a good QB. Gardner hit 162 in 2012 (albeit not as a full-time starter).
I don’t think Speight was far off last year, but if you want to pick at 30 TDs or any of the other arbitrary targets I set, that is fine. I don’t think Speight is going to put up Andrew Luck type numbers, but I expect him to improve significantly from last year’s numbers. He’ll progress. As one would expect for a returning starter who is a rising junior.
I think Hamilton is going to help here. I think having a large group of talented and varied WR is going to help. I think having a playmaker at RB is going to help.
Speight is the new Navarre. Very underrated.
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If Denard had been a good QB, he wouldn’t have been drafted late and turned into a RB immediately. One would think he could be used as a gimmick passer/QB in the pros, but he’s 0/2 passing in the NFL and hasn’t even attempted a pass since 2014.
Anyway, for Speight 30 TDs would have been #1 in the Big Ten, 8.5 YPA would have been #2, and single-digit picks would have had him anywhere between #1 and #11 in the conference. So yeah, of course if he was the best QB in the conference, he could be a high draft pick. If Ty Isaac runs for 2,000 yards and scores 30 TDs, he might be a first rounder, too.
The chances of going from 18 to 30 TDs, from a 140 to a 160 PER, and from 7.7 to 8.5 YPA with a revamped OL and a completely new receiving crew are slim to none. It’s not going to happen.
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There are a lot of good college QBs who do not get drafted by the NFL.
All it took was the team drafting Denard to think he could be a better RB than QB. (Though this was pretty much consensus to everyone, including me).
Then there’s all those awards he got for playing QB…
As for Speight —
I said he could be in the 150-160 range. A 10 to 15 point bump in QBR is not only possible, it verges on likely. I do agree 30 TDs is less likely. That part hinges on playcalling in the redzone. YPA? We’ll see…
I think last year’s team was a little bit conservative because it was rarely behind, could lean on an elite defense, and had a first year starter at QB. Deveon Smith + a veteran line + not a lot of playmaking meant they were trying to grind it out a bit. This year’s offense will need to score more to win games.
I’m confident that the production will go up – the question is if the INTs can stay low.
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On Speight, our offensive line and wide receivers.
First of all, and I might have said this before, I don’t think Speight is right ….. on admittedly way, way, way insufficient information.
Second, with the addition of Frey, a predominately, by experience, zone guy, I think that we are going to see a bunch of moving the pocket stuff, which I also think is compatible with zone blocking technique as well as schemes. I’ll defer to Thunder on that last part. On that basis, I think we will face somewhat less pressure on the Qb than is the widely held fear, but QB feet will be moving, one way or the other, make no mistake about that.
I think our outside guys will be Crawford, DPJ and Black, not necessarily in that order. That is way young, but young receivers are probably better than young, pretty much anything else. My boy who gets to see practice some, uses the phrase Larry Fitzgerald when talking about Tarik Black. To which I respond with the traditional, “From your lips ….” Throw in a bunch of TE/flex type guys that we know can catch the football and I think we can be pretty scary throwing it around. That’s without even mentioning motioning Evans or McDoom outside and into a route. I also think we’ll see more run after the catch this year because I think we will have guys on the field this year who are better than the guys we had last year when it comes to that particular thing.
Having said all of that, my opinion is that between our two top guys, we have a chance to approach 3,000 yards throwing the football, with some more touchdowns. BUT ….. I think we will see more picks and some bad ones.
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Forgot.
I also think that we will see a bunch of Zone Read stuff, except that we will be optioning LBs and or DBs playing the run or the pass.
Dare I say it? YEAH I WILL!!!!! It’s gonna look a lot like our boy Rich Rod is coordinating the offense every once in a while.
At least, that’s what I’d be dong with the group we have this year.
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Heh…you said “dong.”
I don’t think we’ll see a lot of zone read stuff, at least not with Speight. He’s not the guy to run that stuff. You might see some RPOs where he’s deciding whether to hand off or hit an open receiver.
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Yeah, I meant RPO.
I like saying dong.
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It’d be long overdue
Get the LBs & Safeties to flinch a bit, and our Receivers have a better chance to break one
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Good thoughts here. If the pass spread is going to be the way forward, Michigan has a nice group of targets ranging from big guys like Gentry-Black-Collins, protypical Jerry Rice types in Crawford-DPJ and speedier options like Evans-Johnson. McDoom, Martin, Harris in there too.
Many weapons. Competition + opportunity should drive them.
Still, I can’t fully imagine that Harbaugh/Drevno/Hamilton are going to result in something that is so different than what they did last time together.
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