Tag: Trente Jones

Michigan 51, Colorado State 7

Who’s your QB? Cade McNamara started the game and completed 9/18 passes for 136 yards and 1 touchdown. It was not a great start. He threw an easy completion into the dirt, had guys drop a couple passes, and had to throw a couple balls away. One play looked like a bad interception initially, until you realized that tight end Erick All fell down coming out of his break; luckily, the pass was ruled incomplete after replayed deemed it hit the ground. Meanwhile, J.J. McCarthy played sporadically, completing 4/4 passes for 30 yards and running 3 times for 50 yards and 1 touchdown. I don’t put too much stock in either performance. McNamara started off slowly last year and had a good season. McCarthy’s package against an inferior team is not a large enough sample size to make an overall decision.

Hit the jump for more.

2022 Season Countdown: #19 Trente Jones

Name: Trente Jones
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 311 lbs.
High school: Loganville (GA) Grayson
Position: Offensive tackle
Class: Redshirt junior
Jersey number: #53
Last year: I ranked Jones #34 and said he would be a backup offensive tackle (LINK). He started two games as a sixth lineman and played in all fourteen games.
TTB Rating: 88

Last year there was quite a battle on the offensive line to see who would start. Trente Jones, Karsen Barnhart, and Chuck Filiaga were all in the running to start somewhere along the line, and all three lost their position battles. Jones became the sixth lineman and played in every game wearing #80 as an extra tight end (or #53 when he came in as a tackle during blowouts). Barnhart played as a backup, and Filiaga was a part-time starter. It portends good things when you’re the sixth offensive lineman for a team, and there was some buzz about Jones, particularly about his athleticism. And it helped the offensive to have a 300+ pound tight end.

Fast forward to 2022. Filiaga has transferred to Minnesota for his sixth and final year, while Barnhart and Jones have remained to duke it out at right tackle. While Barnhart has more experience playing standard offensive line positions, it seems that Jones has at least written in pencil his name on the starting offensive line. It appears that Barnhart will once again be a backup – at least until Ryan Hayes leaves after this season – and Jones will be replacing Andrew Stueber at right tackle. I think Jones is a good athlete with a powerful base, and I expect him to give a Stueber-like performance. In other words, he should be very reliable without being a truly dominant player.

Prediction: Starting right tackle

3 Position Changes to Consider

With spring practice starting next week, I think it’s time to look at what position changes might occur to benefit the team. With a lot of pieces remaining the same on offense and a similar scheme on defense, we generally know what type of systems we’ll see on each side. It’s more of a question about which players might slide around a little bit to fill some holes.

Mike Barrett (RS Sr.): OLB —> ILB
Barrett is a former starting Viper in 2020 under former defensive coordinator Don Brown, but that spot was largely eliminated early in 2021 when Michigan played Daxton Hill at the slot corner position. Barrett didn’t play much early in 2021 until defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald was forced to make some adjustments. He started just one game last year and made 20 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, and 1 pass breakup on the year. Now with middle linebacker Josh Ross headed to the NFL, Michigan loses a leader in the middle but returns a freshman All-American in Junior Colson at the other inside linebacker spot. While Nikhai Hill-Green also returns, I think Barrett and Colson are the two most productive linebackers; Hill-Green played okay but his youth showed with some missed reads and false steps. Plus if Barrett is going to have a minuscule role, I’m not sure he can be convinced to stick around for a fifth year. I think Barrett is enough of a well rounded athlete that he’s worth keeping around, and his speed and athleticism could be a plus if the defensive linemen and the scheme can keep him clean.

Hit the jump for more.

2021 Season Countdown: #34 Trente Jones

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Name: Trente Jones
Height: 6’4″
Weight: 305 lbs.
High school: Loganville (GA) Grayson
Position: Offensive tackle
Class: Redshirt sophomore
Jersey number: #53
Last year: I ranked Jones #72 and said he would be a backup offensive tackle (LINK). He played in one game.
TTB Rating: 88

Jones seems to have been lost in the shuffle over the past years, so some may have forgotten that he was an Under Armour All-American and the #108 overall player in the country. After redshirting as a freshman and then playing in just one game last season, it’s understandable that he might have been forgotten. Scuttlebutt out of practice is that he and former offensive line coach Ed Warinner did not quite see eye to eye. While Warinner has proven to be a very good offensive line coach, sometimes people just don’t mesh.

According to that same scuttlebutt, Jones and new offensive line coach (former tight ends coach) Sherrone Moore get along much better. And it doesn’t hurt that a couple starting-caliber offensive linemen moved on in Zach Carpenter (transfer to Indiana) and Jalen Mayfield (drafted by the Falcons), the latter being more significant for Jones’s case. With the right tackle position open, it appears to be coming down to Jones and classmate Karsen Barnhart to see who will start. I’ll give the edge to Barnhart, who started four games at left tackle in 2020 when Ryan Hayes was injured. But injuries always happen, and Jones should be one of the first guys off the bench.

Prediction: Backup offensive tackle

Which offensive players will not be here in 2021?

It’s time for unbridled speculation, because this is sadly a rather dull time to be a Michigan fan, what with all the bad football and lack of football we’re seeing. Keep in mind that this information is purely speculative.

So what kind of attrition are we likely to see going into the 2021 season?

Hit the jump.