It’s 2020 and nobody knows anything, so here are my wild guesses for what we’ll see this year.
LEADING RUSHER Zach Charbonnet led the team in rushing as a true freshman last year with 729 yards. I do think Chris Evans will steal some of his carry share from last year, with Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum lurking, but Charbonnet should get the plurality of the opportunities. Prediction: Zach Charbonnet, 498 yards
Hit the jump for the rest of the prognostications.
Name: Josh Ross Height: 6’2″ Weight: 230 lbs. High school: Orchard Lake (MI) St. Mary’s Position: Linebacker Class: Redshirt junior Jersey number: #12 Last year: I ranked Ross #8 and said he would be a starting linebacker with 80 tackles and 3.5 sacks (LINK). He made 18 tackles in three games. TTB Rating: 79
Looking back on the 2019 season, I probably had Ross ranked a little too high. Michigan had some veterans at inside linebacker, and they had a potential star waiting in the wings in Cameron McGrone. When Ross suffered an injury early in the year that wiped out most of his year, McGrone stepped in and made some great plays. He also made some mistakes. McGrone and Jordan Glasgow manned the inside linebacker spots well, and the truth is that the weaknesses of the defense were the defensive tackles and the defensive back depth. Ross could have played the whole year, and it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
This year Ross has more of an opportunity to be a difference-maker, but I still dropped him down to #15. There’s very little linebacker depth after Jordan Anthony entered the transfer portal, Devin Gil transferred to USF, and Glasgow moved on to the NFL. McGrone and Ross are the leaders, and then you have . . . freshmen. While Michigan took a bunch of linebackers in the 2020 class and has a couple good ones, it still could be a difficult time if either guy drops. I expect good things from Ross and hope he lives up to the expectations we had for him last year.
Let’s see more of this guy on offense . . . Jon Runyan, Jr. Ryan Hayes had an excellent debut against Middle Tennessee State last week, and this week he fell back to Earth. He was (from what I could tell) responsible for two sacks, both of which resulted in fumbles by Shea Patterson. I think he will be a good player in the long run, but he’s not ready yet.
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Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit’s time! Fighting in the maize and blue corner, it’s . . . the 2019 season predictions. You can check out my 2018 season predictions and how they fared here (LINK).
LEADING RUSHER I am not confident in this pick whatsoever, but I’m sticking with what I predicted a couple weeks ago: Tru Wilson edges out Zach Charbonnet. Charbonnet is the most talented back to land at Michigan in years, if not decades, so I’m very willing to be wrong on this one. In fact, I want to be wrong. Please prove me wrong by rushing for 850 yards, Zach Charbonnet… Prediction: Tru Wilson, 700 yards
Hit the jump for the rest of the prognostications.
