2011 Countdown: #14 Will Hagerup

Tag: 2011 Season Countdown


17Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #14 Will Hagerup

This is Will Hagerup’s crowning achievement: getting his picture taken with Erin Andrews.

Name: Will Hagerup
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 225 lbs.
High school: Whitefish Bay High School in Milwaukee, WI
Position: Punter
Class: Sophomore
Jersey number: #43
Last year: I ranked Hagerup #15 and said he would be the starting punter.  He started at punter in 10 games and had 33 punts for 1,440 yards (43.64 yards/punt).  He also was the kickoff specialist in 5 games and had 2 touchbacks.

Hagerup came in last season and immediately took over the starting punter role after Zoltan Mesko had graduated.  Hagerup had an excellent first season, finishing with the second-best yards-per-punt average in Michigan football history.  Michigan fans quickly forgot about Mesko and hopped on the Hagerup bandwagon, even though his name isn’t quite as cool and he’s clearly not as smart as Mesko.

Why do I say that?  Well, Hagerup will begin his sophomore season watching from the sidelines now that he’s been suspended for a second time in his two-year career.  He served a one-game suspension for the Ohio State game last November due to breaking team rules, and a separate incident has caused him to be suspended for the first four games of 2011 (Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, and San Diego State).  That leaves Michigan with the somewhat scary proposition of starting freshman placekicker Matt Wile (who averaged 41 yards a punt in the Army All American Bowl) or redshirt sophomore walk-on placekicker Seth Broekhuizen (who averaged 28.7 yards a punt in three chances last season).  Of Hagerup’s first 17 chances to kick a football in front of millions of people, he’ll only be available for 12 of them because he can’t follow team rules.

Hagerup was the Big Ten’s fourth-best punter last season, and the top three guys (MSU’s Aaron Bates, Illinois’ Anthony Santella, and Iowa’s Ryan Donahue) all graduated.  When he returns for the last two-thirds of the season, he has a good chance to be the Big Ten’s best punter.  Last season 30% of his punts went 50+ yards and 33% of them were pinned inside the 20-yard line.  Those numbers will almost certainly drop significantly in the first four weeks while Broekhuizen and Wile battle to replace him.  How much that affects the team remains to be seen, since two of the four games should be easy wins, one moderately difficult, and the Notre Dame game a toss-up.  But at this rate, Hagerup is turning into a punter’s version of Stephen Garcia, and that’s not a good thing.  Regardless, when Hagerup returns to action for the Minnesota game and beyond, he ought to be the best punter in the conference.

16Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #15 William Campbell

Teric Jones (gone), Thomas Gordon (here), William Campbell (here), Boubacar Cissoko (jailed)

Name: William Campbell
Height: 6’5″
Weight: 322 lbs.
High school: Cass Technical High School in Detroit, MI
Position: Defensive tackle
Class: Junior
Jersey number: #73
Last year: I ranked Campbell #29 and said he would be the backup nose tackle.  He was a backup NT (1 tackle, 1 pass breakup) for the first half of the season before switching to offensive guard and sitting on the bench.

Now for the curious case of William Campbell, the former 5-star defensive tackle who has made two position switches and barely played at either one.  As a freshman in 2009, Campbell inexplicably played defensive tackle despite a) not being very good at it and b) having upperclassmen around him who could have just as easily taken those snaps.  But there he was, getting pancaked or walled off and making a whopping 4 tackles, 1 tackle for loss, and 2 pass breakups throughout the year.  He should have been a redshirt freshman in 2010, when he had a lone tackle before being planted on the bench as a 6’5″ offensive guard.  Campbell had a hard time playing with leverage, which is admittedly a tough thing to do when you’re a 6’5″ nose tackle (notice that the new coaching staff recruited the 6’3″ Ondre Pipkins for NT and continue to pursue the 6’2″ Danny O’Brien), which is yet another reason that the switch to a 3-3-5 was ridiculous.

So here we are in 2011.  Campbell is a junior (instead of a redshirt sophomore).  He’s been playing nose tackle (instead of 3-tech defensive tackle) for 1.5 years and offensive guard (instead of 3-tech defensive tackle) for half a year.  When the new coaching staff was hired, they immediately put him back at defensive line and said, “This is what you’re going to do, and we’re going to coach you up until you do it well.”  Campbell was 342 lbs. in the spring and, according to Brady Hoke, slimmed down to 316-319 by August.  At times he looked dominant in the spring, and at other times he just looked okay.  Facing single blocking from opposing offensive guards (who are likely lighter and less athletic than Campbell) he ought to be able to disrupt opponents’ backfields on a regular basis.  With the pass rushing ability of Craig Roh on one side, the quick and strong Mike Martin on the other, and the well rounded Van Bergen at strongside end – not to mention improved coaching, focus, and conditioning – Campbell seems poised for a breakout season in 2011.

Prediction: 40 tackles, 3 sacks

15Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #16 Ricky Barnum

Ricky Barnum (#56)

Name: Ricky Barnum
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 292 lbs.
High school: Lake Gibson High School in Lakeland, FL
Position: Offensive line
Class: Redshirt junior
Jersey number: #56
Last year: I ranked Barnum #48 and said he would be a backup offensive guard.  He substituted at guard in 2 games and at tackle in 1 game.

Barnum was a highly touted recruit coming out of high school in 2008.  His role in college so far has been somewhat limited, partly by injuries and partly by four-year starter Stephen Schilling, who has since moved on to the San Diego Chargers.  Another issue has been size – in three seasons he hasn’t been heavier than 282 lbs., which will change this year.  Additionally, Barnum played offensive tackle in high school and has practiced at four different positions in college: both guard spots, left tackle, and center.  Those are a lot of things to overcome, but now he’s a redshirt junior and has been running with the first unit since the spring.

Barnum is a good pass blocker with excellent feet.  He’s lower to the ground than most defensive linemen, which allows him to keep leverage, but he’s quite undersized for a Big Ten offensive guard.  Head coach Brady Hoke would like to return to a power running game at Michigan, but that might be difficult with a front five that’s somewhat lacking in size.  Even the biggest of the bunch is barely over 300 lbs.  Due to the lack of size up front and a quarterback who excelled in the spread offense last season, it seems that Michigan might be headed for more of a spread look than Hoke wants people to believe.  If that’s the case, then Barnum should be a decent fit at left guard.  But if Hoke lines up and wants to play smash-mouth football game after game, the lack of size on the interior might prove quite daunting.  The Wolverines can still run power like Hoke insists they’ll do because he has two guards (the other being Patrick Omameh) who move extremely well, but expect to see more finesse than the road graders you’ve seen in Michigan’s highlight films from the ’90s and early ’00s.

Prediction: Starting left guard

14Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #17 Craig Roh

Craig Roh (#88)

Name: Craig Roh
Height: 6’5″
Weight: 269 lbs.
High school: Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, AZ
Position: Weakside end
Class: Junior
Jersey number: #88
Last year: I ranked Roh #8 and said he would have 45 tackles and 7 sacks.  He started at OLB and DE at various times, finishing with 43 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, 1/2 a sack, 2 forced fumbles, and 1 pass breakup.

Well, I overshot on Roh’s sack total by about 6.5 sacks.  Like everything that’s happened over the last three seasons, I blame the coaches.  Roh played outside linebacker for the first eight weeks of the season in a 3-3-5 defense, one in which he rarely rushed the passer and often found himself in coverage.  Who takes a 6’5″, high school superstar of a pass rusher and turns him into an outside linebacker in a 3-3-5?  Anyone besides Rich Rodriguez and Greg Robinson?  Probably not.  Things got so bad in 2010 that Roh and his father reportedly threatened to transfer schools if the coaches didn’t put him back at his natural defensive end position.  Whether that story is true or not, Roh was at defensive end by the Illinois game on November 6.  Roh showed plenty of promise as a freshman, when he had 2 sacks among 37 tackles and looked like a future star at the defensive end position; now he returns to that weakside end spot with about 35 more pounds on his frame than he had as a freshman in 2009.

Roh was being pushed by sophomore defensive end Jibreel Black in the spring, but recent comments by the coaches suggest that Black didn’t come back in August as advanced as they had hoped.  It seems that the weakside end position is Roh’s to lose now, whereas there were some questions back in April.  I have always thought highly of Roh, going back to the 2009 recruiting cycle, when I said he would be the best overall recruit in his class.  Now that he has a coaching staff who presumably know how to use a defensive end, we should see Roh take a leap forward after his sophomore slump.  In the 4-3 Under defense, he should see plenty of one-on-one matchups with opposing offensive tackles or even the occasional running back.  And instead of seeing meager sack totals from Michigan’s defensive ends (1/2 for Roh last season, 4 for Van Bergen), we ought to see them notch about 10 total between the two end spots.

Prediction: Starting weakside end; 50 tackles, 6 sacks

13Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #18 Martavious Odoms

Martavious Odoms

Name: Martavious Odoms
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 173 lbs.
High school: Pahokee High School in Pahokee, FL
Position: Slot receiver/wide receiver
Class: Senior
Jersey number: #9
Last year: I ranked Odoms #16 and said he would start at slot receiver, catch 35 passes for 420 yards, and score 2 touchdowns.  He started 3 games but missed the second half of the regular season with a broken foot.  He finished with 16 receptions for 241 yards and 1 touchdown.  He also had 8 kickoff returns for 180 yards.

I think Michigan fans can all agree that we love us some Martavious Odoms.  The man love started when he ran head first into a middle linebacker to block for Denard Robinson’s electrifying first play as a collegian and continued through his game-clinching touchdown catch from Tate Forcier in the 2009 Indiana game.  Before that he was just a fumble-prone punt/kickoff returner with occasional highlights like his 2008 punt return for a touchdown against Purdue.  Unfortunately, Odoms has started piling up injuries, missing one, three, and six games in the last three seasons, respectively.  At that rate we can expect Odoms to miss ten games in 2011, but I hope not.  He’s a tough player with a little bit of a burst, and his blocking is second to none from the wide receiver position.

The move to more of a pro-style offense this year suggests that Odoms will see a slightly diminished role.  He was on pace to catch 30-plus balls last year, but those will be harder to come by in 2011.  Michigan will likely run more I-formation plays (something that was all but abandoned last season), and the two outside wide receivers look to be Junior Hemingway and Roy Roundtree.  Odoms has been running with the first group as a slot receiver, and he might pick up where Roy Roundtree left off out of spread formations.  With Darryl Stonum redshirting this season and only one viable returner in the form of Drew Dileo, it would be nice if Odoms could also contribute on the return units, where he has averaged 22.1 yards a return in his career.

Prediction: Starting slot receiver; 25 receptions, 300 yards, 2 touchdowns