Princeton transfer running back John Volker committed to Michigan on Monday morning. Volker visited Michigan toward the end of last week.
Volker is listed at 6’0″, 215 lbs. and was a captain for the Tigers. As a redshirt junior in 2024, he ran for 514 yards and 6 touchdowns. Altogether, he played in 29 games at Princeton with 245 carries for 1,183 yards and 17 touchdowns. He also caught 31 passes for 273 yards and 2 touchdowns. (Oddly, both career touchdowns came as a freshman, when he had his lowest receiving output with 4 catches for 96 yards.)
UMass transfer running back C.J. Hester committed to Michigan on Saturday. He had visited for the spring game.
Hester is listed at 5’11” and 195 lbs. As a freshman at Western Michigan in 2023, he ran 29 times for 124 yards and 2 touchdowns in seven games. He then transferred to UMass in 2024, ranking as the team’s second leading rusher with 119 carries for 529 yards and 4 scores across eleven games. Coming out of Cincinnati (OH) Wyoming in 2023, he was a 247 Composite 3-star, the #113 running back, and #1702 overall.
I think Hester’s size is exaggerated; he’s probably closer to 5’9″ than 5’11”. And I don’t think he’s 195 pounds, or at least he wasn’t during the 2024 season. But he does run tough. His numbers aren’t great, but he was playing for UMass, one of the worst FBS teams. There are several highlights of him running through tackles and fighting for extra yardage, and that’s a step up in a way from the type of tackle-breaking ability Donovan Edwards showed over the past few seasons. That’s not to say that Hester is a better overall running back, but at least Hester has the ability to fight through tackles. Hester also has a little bit of wiggle and a little bit of quickness, but he’s not going to be a breakaway threat like Edwards.
Overall, Hester is a notch below Jordan Marshall and Justice Haynes, and that’s probably the best Michigan can hope for from someone committing from the portal at this point in the cycle. Michigan has Marshall and Haynes and then a bunch of unproven players, including redshirt freshman Micah Ka’apana and a couple freshmen.
Hester would be the only player other than Jibreel Black, who finished his college career in 2013, to play for Michigan out of Cincinnati (OH) Wyoming.
Michigan landed a punter in the transfer portal in the form of former Missouri punter Luke Bauer.
Bauer is a 6’5″, 207 lb. former walk-on who joined the Missouri program in 2020, the COVID year exemption making it irrelevant for his eligibility. He then sat on the bench in 2021 and 2022 before becoming the starting punter in 2023 and 2024. He punted 49 times for 2,047 yards (41.8 yards/attempt) in 2024 and punted 22 times for 927 yards (42.1 yards/attempt) in 2023. In addition, he completed a pass on a fake punt against Kentucky in 2023, resulting in a 39-yard touchdown.
Michigan needed to replace former starting punter Tommy Doman, who transferred to Florida this off-season. The move to Bauer seems to be a downgrade, but we’ll see; he may not even win the starting job, since Mississippi State transfer Hudson Hollenbeck looked solid in the bowl game against Alabama, punting 6 times and averaging 46.2 yards/attempt. Doman averaged 42.6 yards/attempt last year, down from 44.3 in 2023.
Michigan now has options at punter, at least. The potential roster limits might make it difficult to carry several potential punting options, but word coming out of bowl practices and spring ball was that tight end Marlin Klein was the backup punter to Hollenbeck. Obviously, relying on your starting tight end to be a backup punter is fraught with issues, including fatigue, injury, etc.
Bauer would be the first player to play for Michigan from St. Louis (MO) DeSmet since 1980.
Redshirt sophomore Jason Hewlett has decided to enter the transfer portal.
Hewlett is a 6’2″, 227 lb. linebacker who played in nine games, mostly on special teams and all of them in 2024. He made 2 career tackles after redshirting in 2023.
Hewlett was committed to Cincinnati at one point in the process but Michigan swooped in and stole him. I gave him a TTB Rating of 81 when he came out of Youngstown (OH) Chaney (LINK) listed at 6’4″, 220, but the fact that he’s two inches shorter than that and has only put on seven pounds in two years did not bode well for his playing much in 2025.
This makes ten players from the class of 2023 who have already transferred, where Hewlett joins LB Semaj Bridgeman (Michigan State), RB Cole Cabana (Western Michigan), CB Cam Calhoun (Utah/Alabama), WR Karmello English (West Georgia), OG Amir Herring (Kansas), LB Breeon Ishmail (Purdue), LB Hayden Moore (Wasington), K Adam Samaha (North Carolina), and CB D.J. Waller, Jr. (Kentucky). All the linebackers from the class (Bridgeman, Hewlett, Ishmail, Moore) have transferred as the linebacker room has seen some coaching turnover in that time, going from Chris Partridge to Rick Minter to Brian Jean-Mary.
UMass transfer portal wide receiver Anthony Simpson committed to Michigan on Sunday. He has one season of eligibility remaining.
Simpson is a 5’11”, 184-pounder. Last season he caught 3 passes for 16 yards while playing in just two games for the Minutemen before an injury ended his season. However, his career-best season was in 2023 when he caught 57 passes for 792 yards and 3 touchdowns.
Simpson was a 3-star, the #2 athlete, and the #5 overall prep school player coming out in 2021 after playing traditional high school ball at Pawling (NY) Bloomfield. He spent his first two years of college at Arizona playing for former Michigan assistant Jedd Fisch, who was the Wildcats head coach from 2021-2023. Simpson made just 8 catches for 102 yards while playing in eighteen games those first two years before transferring to UMass and playing for head coach Don Brown, who had been the defensive coordinator and Simpson’s recruiter when Brown was Arizona’s defensive coordinator.
Along with his receiving ability, Simpson has 14 carries for 108 yards and 1 touchdown throughout his career. He seems to be a bit of a screen and gadget guy, a little bit like current Michigan receiver Semaj Morgan. (I still think Morgan is capable of more based on his high school film, but Michigan has so far been unable to use him effectively as a downfield or intermediate receiver.) I think it’s good to have multiple guys on the roster who have that skill set in order to keep defenses off balance, provide competition, and account for the possibility of injury. But it will be interesting to see how they dole out opportunities.
Michigan has now added two transfer portal receivers: one a quick slot guy in Simpson and the other a 6’5″ outside guy in Indiana’s Donaven McCulley. Meanwhile, they lost Tyler Morris to Indiana.
