The All-Rodriguez Team: Defense and Special Teams

Tag: Tim Jamison


13Jul 2019
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The All-Rodriguez Team: Defense and Special Teams

Brandon Graham

This is the second installment of the All-Rodriguez Team (offense here), the brightest and best of the players coached by Rich Rodriguez and his bumbling henchmen defensive colleagues.

And I’m choosing players for a 4-3, not that moronic 3-3-5* they tried to shoehorn in there.

DE: Brandon Graham (2009)
64 tackles, 26 tackles for loss, 10.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovery
Graham was the single most dominant defensive player during Rodriguez’s tenure.  He put up ridiculous numbers for a bad defense, even though he was double-teamed frequently.  And the best thing about Graham was the way his motor improved throughout his career.  He ate his way into playing defensive tackle as a freshman, but by his senior year in 2009, he never stopped going 100%.  That year turned him into a first round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles.

DT: Mike Martin (2009)
51 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble
Martin seemed like a better player at the beginning of 2010 than in his sophomore year, but a couple sprained ankles slowed him down as a junior.  Even as a crippled junior, though, he would have deserved to be on this team.  Undersized for a nose tackle at 299 lbs., he still defeated double-teams on the regular.

DT: Ryan Van Bergen (2009)
38 tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, 5 sacks, 1 fumble recovery, 1 touchdown
Van Bergen’s production in 2010 was virtually the same as 2009, but technically, all thirteen games he started in 2010 were at the defensive end position.  I need a tackle, and he’s my man.  He’s another high-motor guy who played well at DT despite having the body of a strongside end.  I was tempted to choose Terrance Taylor here based on overall talent, but Taylor really didn’t produce much in his only season under Rodriguez (2008: 35 tackles, 1.5 sacks).

DE: Tim Jamison (2008)
50 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles
Jamison didn’t really stand out in 2008, but I think Michigan fans were shell-shocked by how bad the team was overall.  And while Jamison wasn’t a huge difference maker, he would have fit in just as well on a good defense, too.

LB: Steve Brown (2009)
80 tackles, 8 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 3 pass breakups, 1 forced fumble
I don’t know if Brown was miscast as a safety or if he was just coached poorly in his first three years, but he took a quantum leap as a senior when he was moved to the SAM linebacker position.  Brown never came off the field, playing linebacker on first and second downs and then becoming the nickel back on third downs.  Brown’s position change was perhaps the best personnel move of Rodriguez’s tenure, and Brown parlayed it into being a late draft pick by the Oakland Raiders.

LB: Kenny Demens (2010)
82 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, 1 pass breakup
I will be the first to admit that I was not enamored with Demens during his first couple years, but he made me a believer in the second half of the season.  He only started seven games after backing up Obi Ezeh for the first half of the year, but he still ended up third on the team in tackles.  I still think Demens makes some poor decisions due to being overaggressive in attacking the line of scrimmage, but that’s probably better than whatever Ezeh did from 2008-10.

LB: Jonas Mouton (2010)
117 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, 2 pass breakups, 1 forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries
Based on statistics alone, Mouton was borderline First Team All-Big Ten.  He averaged 9.8 tackles a game (which was .9 more than teammate Jordan Kovacs and 1.1 more than the next best Big Ten player, Indiana’s Tyler Replogle) and led the conference in tackles, despite playing in only twelve of Michigan’s thirteen contests.  But players on bad defenses don’t get much respect, especially when they make some inexplicably bad plays (see the long TD run by Illinois’s Jason Ford).  With a solid supporting cast, I think Mouton’s play would have stood out more.

CB: Donovan Warren (2009)
66 tackles, 4 interceptions, 7 pass breakups, 1 touchdown
Warren thought his junior season would propel him to NFL stardom, but just like Ernest Shazor, he left early and didn’t even get drafted.  Four interceptions isn’t too shabby, and it helps that one (vs. Iowa) went for a touchdown and another (vs. Indiana) was a fantastic diving interception that preserved a victory for the Wolverines.

CB: Morgan Trent (2008)
41 tackles, 3 interceptions, 2.5 tackles for loss, 2 pass breakups
Michigan fans will hate me for this, but Trent beats out James Rogers.  This just shows how poor Michigan’s defense was over the past three years, because everybody’s whipping boy was the second-best cornerback.  The thing that bugged me about criticism of Trent was that he took a lot of heat on message boards for playing 10 yards off the line of scrimmage, but that was clearly a coaching decision.  I think Michigan fans realized this by 2010, and if Trent had played for Michigan a year or two later, he might not have drawn as much ire.  Trent wasn’t the most agile corner, but he did have good speed and was a better tackler than many gave him credit for.  All that being said, I would actually like to put Troy Woolfolk here, but I need a free safety.

FS: Troy Woolfolk (2009)
46 tackles, 1 pass breakup
Woolfolk could fit on this team at cornerback or safety, but Michigan’s horrible defense was horribler once Woolfolk moved to corner for the second half of the year.  The Wolverines gave up 23 points per game with him at safety, an average that ballooned to 37 points per game (not counting FCS soup can Delaware State) once he switched to cornerback.  His statistics aren’t great, but stats don’t tell the whole story.  He was a consistent presence, a solid tackler, and had the speed to prevent some big plays.

SS: Jordan Kovacs (2010)
116 tackles, 2 interceptions, 8.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 1 pass breakup, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery
For two years, I’ve been hoping that someone more athletic would take Kovacs’s job.  But I’ve got to give credit where credit is due – Kovacs has been the best guy so far.  He rarely gets out of position, and I didn’t see a more dependable open field tackler on the team.  His 116 tackles (second only to Jonas Mouton in the Big Ten) speak for themselves, but he fills up the stat sheet in other ways, too.  You can’t help but love the guy.

P: Will Hagerup (2010)
33 punts, 1440 yards, 43.6 yards per punt, 11 punts inside the twenty
This was the most difficult choice of the entire All-Rodriguez team, a head-to-head matchup between Hagerup and Zoltan Mesko 2009.  Mesko averaged 44.5 yards per punt in 2009, but fully one-third of Hagerup’s punts were downed inside the twenty yard line (only 28% of Mesko’s were downed inside the twenty).  If you have a good offense (which this squad does), then you want a guy who can pin the opposing team deep.  It doesn’t matter if you can boom a punt when your offense moves the ball down the field before having to give it up.  But if you do need a long punt, Hagerup has a 72-yarder to his credit.  Both players would be good choices, though.

K: Jason Olesnavage (2009)
11-for-15 on field goals (73.3%), 42-for-43 on extra points (97.7%)
Special teams weren’t a strength under Rodriguez, but Olesnavage was pretty solid.  Along with being nearly perfect on extra points, he was 9-for-10 on field goals longer than 30 yards (only 2-for-5 from 29 yards in).

PR: Martavious Odoms (2008)
10 returns, 126 yards, 12.6 yards per return, 1 touchdown
Do I have to choose?  Seriously, this is painful.  Punt returns have been atrocious since 2008.  Odoms is really the only choice, even though he seemed to muff a punt every other game.  That’s not an exaggeration, either.  I wish it was.  I can either choose Odoms (who did have an exciting 73-yard touchdown against Purdue), or a handful of guys who averaged somewhere around two or four yards a return (Donovan Warren, Greg Mathews, Jeremy Gallon).  I would like to choose Drew Dileo, who looks like the best returner for the near future, but he only had 2 returns for 13 yards in 2010.

KR: Darryl Stonum (2009)
39 returns, 1001 yards, 25.7 yards per return, 1 touchdown
Partially due to the defense giving up a ton of points, Stonum had the most kickoff return yards in any season in Michigan history.  He beat Steve Breaston (2004: 28 returns for 689 yards) by 312 yards.  His 94-yard touchdown return against Notre Dame was one of the most exciting plays of the year.

*For clarification purposes, the 3-3-5 itself is not a moronic concept.  It can work, just not when your personnel is more suited for a 4-man front and your defensive coordinator is clueless about how to run it.

This content was originally posted on April 4, 2011.

25Sep 2014
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Former Michigan Athlete of the Week: Ryan Mundy

Ryan Mundy (#21 in white)

In his first year with the Chicago Bears, safety Ryan Mundy made 2 tackles against the New York Jets and then picked off a Geno Smith pass, which he returned for a 45-yard touchdown in Chicago’s 27-19 victory.

Honorable mention: Tom Brady was 24/37 for 234 yards and 1 touchdown as the New England Patriots beat the Oakland Raiders. In that same game, Charles Woodson made 4 tackles and broke up 2 of Brady’s passes for the Raiders. Tim Jamison made 5 tackles for the Houston Texans, but they lost to the New York Giants by a score of 30-17.

18Oct 2012
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Former Michigan Athlete of the Week: Jay Feely

Jay Feely missed a 38-yard field goal that would have won the game for the Arizona Cardinals at the very end of regulation.  Instead of securing the victory, his team was forced into overtime and eventually lost to the Buffalo Bills, 19-16, giving the Cardinals only their second loss of the season.  That’s not a great way to get named the former Michigan athlete of the week.
Then again, Feely’s team never would have been in position to win the game if not for his incredible 61-yard game tying boot just one minute before.  The kick sets Arizona’s franchise record for longest field goal and is only two yards short of the NFL record.  Only five kickers in NFL history have successfully kicked a field goal of longer distance.  
“You don’t think there is any way a guy is going to make a 61-yarder,” Buffalo Coach Chan Gailey said, “and then you think for sure he is going to make the short one and he doesn’t.”
Honorable Mention:  Mike Martin recorded six tackles, a tackle for for a loss, and a hit on the quarterback, as his Titans won over the Pittsburgh Steelers by a score of 26-23.  Martin helped his defense hold the Steelers to only 56 yards on the ground and a mere 2.5 yards per carry.  He came in for some praise from the Titans’ head coach following the performance.

“I think when we drafted him we felt really good about him, and I think we all felt he could contribute right away like Casey did, like Klug did,” coach Munchak said.  “He’s hard to block.  That’s why we like him.  He beats double teams, he’s hard to block in the zone game when the center is trying to reach him on the back. . . .He’s going to be a very good football player for us.  You saw flashes of that last night.  He was making plays.  Those (defensive tackles) are doubled a lot, and I think our defensive tackles have really all year played pretty good.”

Miscellaneous:  

  • Tim Jamison tore his Achilles and was placed on the Texans’ Injured Reserve.
  • Tom Brady put the ball in the air 58 times and threw for 395 yards in a 24-23 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.  Braylon Edwards caught his first touchdown pass of the season in the game.
  • Brandon Graham recorded one tackle and Jason Avant caught two passes for 21 yards as their Eagles lost to the Lions, 26-23.
  • Stevie Brown tracker continues:  he tallied four tackles for the Giants in their shocking 26-3 beat down of the 49ers.
13Sep 2012
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Former Michigan Athlete of the Week: Larry Foote

The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos on Sunday Night Football in the first week of the NFL season by a score of 31-19.  Pittsburgh’s defense as a whole didn’t live up to expectation, but Larry Foote delivered a strong performance, tallying eight tackles, one sack, one forced fumble, and a pass deflection.  The eleven year veteran again started at “Buck” linebacker for his team–which is just another term for “Will” from what I gather–despite being “questionable” headed into the game.  Also the home to former Michigan athletes Ryan Mundy and LaMarr Woodley, the 0-1 Steelers face off against conference rival the New York Jets next week.

Honorable mention:  A strong case could be made for Charles Woodson, who recorded 1.5 sacks, a handful of tackles and a forced fumble in a 30-22 loss to the 49ers Sunday.  But I’m going with Mike Martin for earning playing time in the first week of his rookie season and getting his first three career tackles. The Titans got shellacked, 31-13, by Tom Brady and the Patriots.
Miscellaneous:  

  • Junior Hemmingway bought a Ferrari Spider for his girlfriend and was then cut by the Kansas City Chiefs.  Then the Chiefs signed him again.  Then they cut him again.  [EDIT:  Junior tweeted out, “I just bought a Ferrari Spider for my girl.  I told her to drive it like it got eight legs!”  But I guess those are lyrics from a Lil Wayne song.  Thanks to the commenter for the heads up.  I do not listen to Lil Wayne.] 
  • Adrian Arrington was released by the New Orleans Saints [Update:  Arrington re-signs with the Saints and is placed on the Injured Reserve].  
  • Tim Jamison signed a two year contract extention with the Houston Texans.  
  • Ryan Van Bergen did not make the Carolina Panthers final roster cut.  
  • David Molk is listed as the second string center on the San Diego Chargers depth chart.  
  • Stephen Schilling is no longer with the Chargers and now a free agent.
  
18Oct 2011
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Former Michigan Athlete of the Week: Leon Hall

Former Michigan Wolverine and first-round draft pick, Leon Hall, starts at cornerback for the Cincinnati Bengals. Shockingly, they have the NFL’s number 2 ranked defense, giving up only 278 YPG. That’s second only to the Pittsburgh Steelers and just in front of the Baltimore Ravens. On Sunday, Hall recorded 5 tackles, two pass deflections and a nice-looking interception in a 27-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts. Hall’s interception came with only 2:36 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, taking away any hopes of a Colts comeback. The interception was the first of the season for the Bengals’ defense and the 19th of Hall’s relatively young career. Fellow ex-Wolverine CB, Morgan Trent, also saw playing time as a member of the Bengals’ dominating defense of doom on Sunday, but he did not register on the stat sheet. Cincinnati holds a 4-2 record heading into their bye week.
Honorable Mention: The Houston Texans lost to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday by a score of 29-14, but Texans defensive lineman Tim Jamison lit up the stat sheet on a single play when he “strip-sacked” Joe Flacco and then recovered the fumble. Watch video of the play here. He had two tackles, two TFLs, two sacks, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery on the day.