Michigan Wolverines football is set to begin fall camp July 31 ahead of the Aug. 31 opener against Florida State. Here are our answers to 10 questions ahead of the season, serving as a reset before camp begins.
1. What is the biggest offensive storyline heading into fall camp?
Michigan coaches are tasked with finding the team’s starting quarterback, and there’s no easy or obvious choice. In fact, the race is as wide open as it’s been in over a decade, probably since Denard Robinson broke out against UConn in 2010 in his first career start, after not being named the starter prior to the beginning of the season.
The Wolverines have a few top options in graduate Jack Tuttle , a seventh-year player, senior Davis Warren , a former walk-on, and junior Alex Orji , who appeared to be fourth string last season and has attempted only 1 career pass.
Tuttle has the experience, with five career starts (all at Indiana), including four against ranked opponents, but he’s 1-4 in those tilts. Warren has had a long journey, after beating cancer and seeing his prep senior season wiped out due to the coronavirus.
Orji, meanwhile, is interesting. He seems to be the favorite to land the job according to national preseason projections, and perhaps it’s because of his tantalizing, off-the-charts athleticism. It’s also because he’s the most likely quarterback on the roster to play. In fact, offensive coordinator and position coach Kirk Campbell said this offseason that Orji will be “part of the offensive game plan no matter what, but the competition is very much open.”
Whether that means Orji will be a change-of-pace, wildcat-type quaterback or the every-down starter remains to be seen. All of it will be determined during fall camp, with head coach Sherrone Moore saying that Michigan may not know who the main man behind center will be until one week out from the opener.
2. What is the biggest defensive storyline heading into fall camp?
Michigan lost seven starters to the NFL and senior safety Rod Moore to injury, yet there’s significant, top-shelf talent returning to the defense. In addition to graduate Makari Paige and senior EDGE Josaiah Stewart , a slew of juniors will lead the way in cornerback Will Johnson , defensive tackles Kenneth Grant and Mason Graham and linebackers Jaishawn Barham and Ernest Hausmann .
The Wolverines may have multiple first-round NFL Draft picks next spring, and they could all be from the defensive side of the ball. Johnson, Graham and Grant are all prime candidates.
There are depth concerns in the front seven and at cornerback, but it also has to be acknowledged that there’s perhaps little chance that a Michigan defense will ever again possess as much depth as last year’s unit did. The Wolverines will have to add to the number of capable players throughout the season, but there’s enough talent behind the starters to feel good about that development occurring.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy will be the hardest to replace, even though this is an extremely difficult question. We could’ve easily gone with running back Blake Corum , defensive back Mike Sainristil , one of the offensive linemen or some of the elite defensive linemen and linebackers that were on the 2023 squad that won the national championship.
McCarthy was an eraser of mistakes and a complete difference-maker for Michigan last season. He wasn’t the entire offense, but the group wouldn’t have been able to be nearly as successful without his timely plays. For example, he bailed them out on numerous occasions. McCarthy went 53-for-79 passing for 6 touchdowns and no interceptions on third down. He completed 72.9 percent of his passes with 6 scores on 3rd and 6 or longer.
There are also fairly obvious, and adequate, replacements for most of the key players Michigan lost, even if there will be a drop-off at multiple positions (that tends to happen when a team wins the national title and sends 13 players to the NFL Draft). But at quarterback, as mentioned above, there’s a wide-open race.
4. Keep an eye on these two breakout players
Predicting Michigan’s breakout players for this coming season is tough, since there’s a lot of opportunity for Wolverines who have waited their turn to seize the moment after many starters departed. But there are two that lead that pack in junior wide receiver Tyler Morris and junior defensive back Zeke Berry .
In fact, Morris is set to make a huge jump, after reeling in just 13 receptions for 197 yards with 1 touchdown last season. We predict he will lead the team in receiving yards in 2024. That leap will be similar to what Roman Wilson did between his junior and senior campaigns — catching 25 passes for 376 yards in 2022 before going off with 48 grabs for 789 yards in 2023.
Berry has played just 45 career snaps on defense, but he’s one of the most important players on the unit in 2023. He’s set to play both nickel back and safety, with it being unclear at this time how exactly that split will play out.
The nickel position has been one of the most key spots on the field ever since the Wolverines shifted to their current defensive system in 2021. Daxton Hill was great in 2021, and Mike Sainristil played at a high level over the last two seasons. The position is responsible for both playing in the box, getting physical and stopping the run, but also covering some of the best receivers on the field.
Berry has the athleticism to make it happen, and he said this spring that he’s really started to have a high-level understanding of reading offenses. Sainristil, of course, helped him during his first two years on campus.
5. What is the most difficult game on the schedule?
Ohio State.
Michigan has won at Ohio Stadium just once since 2000 — in 2022. It took an incredible performance with six plays of 30-plus yards and a second half in which U-M out-scored the Buckeyes 28-3. Ohio State was a fantastic team in 2022 — it almost made the national championship game — and slated to be even better in 2024, with a desperate group of boosters funding a talented roster as pressure mounts on head coach Ryan Day , who’s 1-3 against Michigan.
6. This season will be a success if…
Michigan making the College Football Playoff would signal success in the first year of head coach Sherrone Moore ‘s tenure. With this tough of a schedule, the Wolverines making the 12-team field would show that there wasn’t a massive drop-off from last year’s team and coaching staff. While there’s some room for error due to the challenging slate, making the playoff would mean Michigan won some big games and was a contender for the Big Ten championship.
The standard, expectation and primary goal at Michigan — going back decades — has been to win the Big Ten championship. The Wolverines have upheld that the last three seasons. However, with an expanded Big Ten and playoff, the conference crown means less than it did. It’s just the simple truth. We’ve already seen non-conference champs win the national championship during the four-team playoff era; it’s going to be even more common going forward.
7. This season will be a disaster if…
Michigan, never finds its quarterback, struggles on offense, stresses the defense and only wins the games it’s ‘supposed to,’ losing the tough ones.
There are five contests on the schedule that really pop off the page: Texas (Sept. 7), USC (Sept. 21), at Washington (Oct. 5), Oregon (Nov. 2) and at Ohio State (Nov. 30). It’s certainly possible that Michigan receives a scare in potential trap games against Minnesota, Illinois or Indiana, too.
If Michigan goes 7-5 with the talent it has on the roster — even though quarterback is a question mark — there will be concerns about how the Wolverines will proceed heading into 2025 and beyond with (presumably) a lot of top-level players leaving for the draft.
8. What question wasn’t really answered this spring?
The quarterback situation and Michigan’s offensive identity. Tuttle missing spring practices while recovering from an injury, making for an incomplete evaluation of the signal-callers during the 15-practice period, which included an April 20 intrasquad scrimmage in front of fans at The Big House. That’s what makes fall camp so paramount for the offense.
9. What was the biggest coaching staff change this offseason?
Other than the obvious, with Michigan going from a legend in Jim Harbaugh to Moore, the new head coach was tasked with replacing his entire defensive staff.
Bringing in Wink Martindale to lead the defense was a grand slam home run, at least in terms of early returns before any games have been played. Martindale spent the last 20 seasons in the NFL, so returning to college is an adjustment, but he was one of the architects of the scheme the Maize and Blue have utilized over the last three seasons.
Martindale has connected well with players and provided system continuity, but he’ll add his own twist on the defense. He’s known as more aggressive than former coordinators Jesse Minter (2022-23) and Mike Macdonald (2021), but he’s also flexible and will run what he believes will work on a week-to-week basis.
10. Who is the biggest transfer portal addition?
It’s hard not to point to someone who was a third-team All-Big Ten performer last season in graduate left guard Josh Priebe , who joined the team from Northwestern. But we’ll go with Barham, who’s set to be a stud in the middle of the defense.
Moore even said this offseason that when preparing for Maryland last year, where Barham spent the previous two seasons, he said to himself, “We have to play this guy again?”
That’s what kind of a disruptor he is, and he’s versatile. Barham can pass rush, fit runs and play in coverage. He’s a fast, athletic linebacker who plays with a level of physicality requisite of being a standout at Michigan.
The Wolverines lost two starting linebackers from last year in Junior Colson and Michael Barrett — both of whom were NFL Draft picks this past spring — but Hausmann and Barham are a formidable duo.
The post Answering 10 big Michigan football summertime questions appeared first on On3 .
Local Ann Arbor, MI
Most Popular
Comments / 0