Duck Dive: Michigan Football 2024 Preview

Special thanks to Jake Singer of Maize n Brew and WCBN Radio for joining me on the Quack 12 Podcast to discuss Michigan’s roster. LISTEN HERE!

In his ninth season as head coach of his alma mater, after three consecutive Big Ten titles and trips to the college football playoffs — the three seasons I’ve charted every team in the conference — Jim Harbaugh led Michigan to a national title. In January, Harbaugh returned to the NFL as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers, and the Wolverines promoted head coach Moore to the job after he had served as OC, OL coach, and acting head coach during their title run.

Michigan football in 2024 is somewhat paradoxical to describe in that there’s enormous turnover – the head coach, both coordinators, quarterback, starting skill talent, entire offensive line, half the defensive line rotation, both starting linebackers, and half the secondary – and yet the sense of continuity with which each of those positions is to be replaced is of a piece with the same steady internal, arguably insular development process they’ve used for the last nine years and which brought them so much recent success.

The Wolverines’ talent level has held steady, avoiding a big mass departure and lower-talent backfill problem which has affected other programs with departing head coaches. They’ve been the most modestly rated of the “big three” in the league up until now, relying on that development to catch up to and recently exceed the others, though the top is getting more crowded in 2024.

Michigan was a significant outlier in this century’s national championship winners — and the rest of the top-echelon postseason performers — in that they only achieved the elite threshold in one of the major advanced statistical metrics on offense. Furthermore, the area in which the Wolverines had an elite offense wasn’t the one most observers generally credited as the team’s strength, nor was it the area that their playcalling leaned into except as a last resort – it was explosive passing. Indeed, Michigan’s clearest advantage over the rest of the league was possessing far and away the most reliable quarterback in the Big Ten last year:

On the podcast, Jake and I discussed two-season starting quarterback JJ McCarthy’s ability to read the field, as well as his accuracy, consistency, and arm strength, but what struck me as transformational for Michigan’s offense was his ability to convert 3^rd & long plays even under heavy pressure or after breaking the pocket. Their passing conversion rate in that down & distance rose from a pretty typical 34% in 2021 and 2022, to an incredible 50% in 2023 as McCarthy almost single-handedly kept drives going. Since about 48% of all of Michigan’s meaningful drives in 2023 at some point ran into a 3^rd & long situation, this was a massive boost in their effective possession count.

McCarthy was drafted in the 1^st round by the Vikings, and Michigan faces quite a decision in replacing him. I thought Jake’s assessment that true freshman mid 4-star #2 QB J. Davis will be the quarterback of the future who best replicates McCarthy’s skillset was spot-on, but Jake was also probably right that Davis will redshirt in 2024. Jake also dismissed media speculation that walk-on #16 QB Warren is seriously part of the competition, and said that he had a prominent role in the Spring game only because #13 QB Tuttle was being held out with a minor injury.

In my opinion the real competition is between #10 QB Orji, a high 3-star in the 2022 cycle who was in for some gadget plays last year, and Tuttle, who was a mid 4-star in 2018 before bouncing between Utah and Indiana and getting some playing time behind Michael Penix and late garbage time last year. I think the fifth quarterback in the room, #4 QB Denegal who’s also a 2022 high 3-star, is too far off from what the offense needs as a pure pocket passer and with too many accuracy and consistency questions, which is why he was behind Warren in Spring.

I think Jake’s logic that Tuttle will win the job made the most sense of any case I’ve heard, which is that he has the best ability to improvise downfield passes as a seventh-year veteran and that’s where the premium is in this offense. Orji’s arm didn’t look any better than replacement value and it seems his first instinct is to run when there’s trouble, which would constitute a real step back in terms of what’s critical to the offense.

The Wolverines’ short-yardage rushing game was elite in 2023, and they knew it – they combined a spectacular 74% conversion rate in all downs having 3 yards or fewer to go with a 3:1 rush-to-pass frequency rate (passing in short yardage was very good too, 61.5% success). That meant that as long as Michigan had any successful play during a series of downs, they were pretty much guaranteed to earn a subsequent 1^st down.

However, the reason Michigan’s overall rush efficiency number is just average is that the reverse was true on any 1^st & 10 or long-yardage situations – their success rates in running the ball on those down & distances were underwater, and they didn’t seem to know it because compared to a much more successful passing game in the same situations (and controlling for field position and all other salient factors) they kept pressing the run game in ways that became counterproductive.

The 1^st & 10 run-to-pass split was 3:2, but their rush success rate was 47% while the pass success rate was 64%. In long-yardage situations (2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th downs with between 7 and 15 yards to go) they switched to passing more often but still rushed far more than most teams do, at a 2:3 basis, despite rushing having a miserable 35% success rate and passing an excellent 49% success rate in long yardage. (Note that these figures are from charting and exclude garbage time, and treat sacks and scrambles as designed passing plays, not rushes.)

On the podcast, Jake and I discussed potential changes to the offense with Moore possibly giving up playcalling and offensive line coaching, and QB coach Campbell taking over as offensive coordinator. Jake described a fidelity to “smash” football in the past from Moore, whereas Campbell may want to open up the passing offense more. It remains to be seen how that’ll go, and it’s difficult to disentangle the changing coaching situation from other factors like the running backs and offensive line to tease out the causes of the incremental tick down in rushing efficiency in 2022 and again in 2023.

In 2024, the running back unit loses leading rusher Blake Corum, who was drafted in the 3^rd round by the Rams. They also lose a few deep backups who saw garbage time play: sophomore CJ Stokes transferred out and walk-ons Leon Franklin and Danny Hughes, who had about a dozen carries between them, departed as well.

They return the two other backs who got all other meaningful carries behind Corum, #7 RB Edwards and #28 RB Mullings. Three other scholarship backs got garbage-time carries: #22 RB Dunlap, a 2021 borderline 4-star, and then true-freshmen who preserved their redshirts #24 RB Cabana, a mid 4-star, and #28 RB Hall, a mid 3-star. They’ll add 2024 prep recruits high 3-star Micah Ka’apana and mid 4-star Jordan Marshall in the Fall.

Edwards will no doubt become the primary back in 2024, given that he’s been a major part of the rotation since 2021 and has in a sense become the face of the program. However, his effectiveness in 2023 suffered a major hit, and in both an individual success rate and an adjusted yards per carry basis, Edwards turned in one of the worst seasons of any returning Big Ten running back last year who had at least 20 meaningful carries:

Mullings was far more effective last year, and really escaped the short-yardage pigeonhole that he might have been stuck in during the 2022 season. Jake and I talked about the opportunity he has to break out in 2024, which would be a long time coming for the grad student. Jake thinks it’s more likely to be Hall, since he thinks Hall has the best ability to be an every-down back … the staff has certainly seemed to look for those, though they’ve switched to new RB coach Alford from Ohio State so perhaps we’ll see a new approach. Cabana is a bit of a mystery – he played very little and behind the walk-ons even in garbage time last Fall, and I haven’t gotten to see him during Spring ball either year he’s been on campus because of injury limitations at those times. I suspect the ship has sailed on Dunlap and was surprised he didn’t transfer out; Jake had some kind words for him on the podcast.

There are a number of different tools and skillsets here, and even some good looking talent from the true freshmen to dip into if need be, so I have a hard time believing that losing Corum creates an insurmountable personnel bottleneck. The question for me is not if the Wolverines will rack up another 2,500+ yard rushing season, only whether they’ll get the most out of the room in adapting to a changing coaching, offensive line, and perhaps offensive balance situations. Doing so would require flexibility and self-scouting, and I’m not sure these have been Michigan’s offensive calling cards.

Michigan used three tight ends in distinct roles last year: Indiana transfer AJ Barner as the H with a pretty even mix of blocking and releasing into the pattern, 2022 low 4-star #18 TE Loveland as the Y who was usually split out and deployed as a receiver but blocked on around 10% of his snaps, and former walk-on from 2021 #44 TE Bredeson who lined up as the fullback in the I-formation or was otherwise used as an extra blocker in occasional heavy formations. Barner was drafted in the 4^th round by the Seahawks, and Matthew Hibner, a senior I’d never seen on the field in meaningful play, transferred out, but everyone else in the tight end room returns.

As a receiver, Loveland has an unusual split in his stats from charting: he was highly productive after the catch in 2023, with one of the highest yards per target on the team, but his per-target success rate was a mediocre 53%, reflecting a lot of incomplete passes where he was the quick-pass outlet under pressure and the throw wasn’t perfectly in rhythm. I don’t have many drops per se (those I only classify when the pass is clean and the fault is entirely on the receivers’ hands), but I think Loveland has room to improve his catch radius to help out the QB.

The three other returning scholarship tight ends who haven’t seen the field yet are 2022 high 3-star #17 TE Klein, 2023 high 3-star #83 TE Marshall, and 2023 low 4-star #43 TE Tonielli. All three were getting early reps in the Spring game in various roles. Jake said that the staff is high on Klein and he’s likely to become the new starting H, replacing Barner, with Tonielli backing him up and 2024 low 4-star #81 TE Hansen third in line. That leaves Marshall to back up Loveland at Y with the other prep recruit, mid 4-star #22 TE Prieskorn, behind them. Jake also said that Bredeson has taken redshirt freshman walk-on #42 TE Hoffman under his wing as the backup fullback.

The depth in the tight end room is great with appropriate body types for each of the sub-positions, proven guys at two of the three spots, and clear lines of succession. The only question is whether Klein will be able to replicate Barner’s effectiveness at both blocking and receiving right away. That seems like a tall order; Jake said Barner was a surprise when he’d transferred in for 2023 but I don’t know why that was, I’d just watched his previous two seasons in Bloomington when he played very well while younger and on a much worse team. Klein will be starting without the benefit of so much experience and the odds are he won’t immediately be an NFL-caliber tight end until he’s had some more of it.

Prior to garbage time in 2023, every target was going to one of four wide receivers: Cornelius Johnson, Roman Wilson, #82 WR Morgan, and #8 WR Morris. Johnson’s 6’3” and played on the outside and the 5’10” Morgan played out of the slot, while the 6’0” Wilson started and the 5’11” Morris rotated in and both were moved around various flexible formations. The targets heavily favored Johnson and Wilson, with those two getting about three times as many as Morgan and Morris did during meaningful play.

Johnson and Wilson were drafted in the 7^th round by the Chargers and the 3^rd by the Steelers, respectively. The WR corps also lost four guys to the transfer portal: big outside receiver Darrius Clemons left in January, then slot men Eamonn Dennis and Karmello English in March, and another tall flanker Cristian Dixon a couple days before the April 20^th Spring game.

Morgan and Morris return, as do two other taller scholarship receivers from the 2023 cycle, mid 3-star #12 WR Bell who redshirted and high 3-star #3 WR F. Moore who got a little garbage time play and special teams action. I saw two walk-ons used during the Spring game, #84 WR Chesson and #81 WR O’Leary.

There are four additions to the unit: the Fall enrollee prep recruits Channing Goodwin, a high 3-star, and I’Marion Stewart, a low 4-star, FCS transfer CJ Charleston, and 2022 high 3-star Amorion Walker who was originally recruited to Michigan as a wideout, converted to a defensive back last year, transferred to Ole Miss in January, and has now returned to be a wideout again.

Jake and I spent quite some time discussing the personnel here, because all the departures prior to Spring ball and the additions coming afterwards — both Charleston and Walker show the same dates, entering the portal on April 26^th and committing to Michigan on May 1^st – meant that the Spring game only had six wideouts available. Jake said that Chesson was only used because they needed a body, and while I thought the 6’3” O’Leary looked like he was getting attention that might indicate a serious part in the Fall rotation, Jake said it was probably a similar story for him too and he’d only get a bit of play at most.

Much of Jake’s report came as no surprise – that Morgan will continue his starting role in the slot, that Moore will step up to be the new starter at X, that Charleston was brought in as a depth piece, and that the late-arriving freshmen will redshirt or at most get their feet wet a bit.

But other aspects of this room were harder to believe. Jake said the staff wants Morris to be the new starting Z-receiver on the outside, which seems incredible to me with his stature and his modest 50/50 success rate on meaningful passes last season – his most consistently productive games were against UNLV and Indiana’s weak secondaries, while stronger DBs at Maryland and Washington collected multiple PBUs on his targets, and against seven opponents he had no targets at all. Apparently Bell (brother of 49ers WR Ronnie) has failed to make an impression on the staff and Jake said he’s probably behind Walker, in whom the staff has already signaled twice they were uninterested until the room got tight.

Johnson had been playing for Michigan for four straight seasons prior to 2023, when he broke through with the second-highest individual success rate on the team – an elite 64.5% — in his fifth year. It’s difficult to imagine the untested Moore will replicate that as a sophomore. It’s also hard to picture Morris vastly elevating his per-play numbers to match Wilson’s, who exceeded Johnson with an astonishing 70% success rate and 12.1 YPT.

Reproducing last year’s output would also require finding a new rotational player for the role Morris had held, the best bet among the options listed probably being an FCS player rated a mid 3-star transfer value by the scouting services and who missed Spring ball. The timeline suggests that the staff was left scrambling by the departures here and took who they could get, rather than a well coordinated plan of succession.

Jake and I spent some time on the podcast tracing how the offensive line configuration changed over the course of 2023, as well as how they went about replacing departures from previous seasons and they’ve come to use more transfers than in the past. The complete recitation is quite lengthy; as an upshot only Stanford transfer #78 OT Hinton returns of those who saw meaningful snaps last year, and his play was limited.

Longtime starting guards Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter were drafted in the 5^th by the Eagles and 3^rd by the Browns, respectively, while longtime multiple-role starter Karsen Barnhart signed a UDFA with the Chargers. Arizona State transfer LaDarius Henderson, who took over at left tackle for most of the year, was drafted in the 7^th by the Texans, while Stanford transfer center Drake Nugent and sixth man who finished the postseason starting at right tackle Trente Jones signed UDFAs with the 49ers and Packers, respectively.

Even though the offensive line will be almost entirely reset, from tracking play in earlier seasons and during garbage time, watching Spring games, and evaluating their recruiting rankings, it’s possible to make inferences how the lineup will shake out to begin the year, and indeed Jake and I independently came to the same conclusions before speaking. In summary from left to right, we think it’ll be Hinton, Northwestern transfer #68 LG Priebe, #51 C Crippen, #58 RG El-Hadi, and #75 RT Gentry.

Gentry is very straightforward – he was a mid 4-star in the 2020 cycle who’s gotten garbage time reps at tackle, which makes him older, more talented, and more experienced than all other tackle options. The rest of those options would be 2021 high 3-star #72 OT Bounds, 2022 mid 3-star #76 OT C. Jones, and 2023 low 4-star #71 OT Link, none of whom have really seen the field at all, with Bounds as the most likely backup on the combination of age and talent. There are four true freshman Jake and I think are tackles as well but all are likely to redshirt.

El-Hadi got three starts in 2022 and some garbage time play in 2023, and was a mid 4-star in the 2021 cycle, so like Gentry he’s fairly straightforward to pencil in, but he was held out of the Spring game with a minor injury so it’s a bit more of an educated guess. There’s one true freshman I saw playing guard in the Spring game, Jake Guarnera, but he’ll probably redshirt. The other Spring game guards were 2023 low 4-star #55 OG Efobi and 2020 low 4-star #79 OL Persi, plus redshirt freshman Amir Herring who transferred out immediately afterwards. Efobi is probably too young and inexperienced to play, but Persi has gotten garbage time reps at guard and tackle, is big enough to play both, and Jake said could swing between positions. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Michigan makes a midseason switch of their lineup and has Persi starting later in the year.

Crippen has been waiting his turn for a while; as we discussed with Jake, for each of the last two cycles the staff has talked up the 2021 low 4-star and then brought in a grad transfer center to play over him. He’s at least been getting garbage time reps, while fellow 2021 recruits low 4-star #62 C Anderson and low 3-star #56 C Giudice haven’t. Anderson figures to be the backup simply because of his much higher talent rating.

Michigan’s staff has clearly invested in Hinton and just like last year will probably start him, though at the left side this time. He started on the right in 2023, but after week 3 against Bowling Green in which significant pressure was getting through and McCarthy threw a number of interceptions, Hinton was benched three drives into the week 4 game against Rutgers. He re-emerged from the bench when Henderson was unavailable in week 12 against Maryland, but when they had to shuffle the line after Zinter’s injury and a tackle spot was available again they instead went with Jones, who’d only been used previously in jumbo packages as an additional blocker. This was all quite predictable as Hinton graded out terribly in the years I’d been charting him at Stanford, when he was also benched for ineffectiveness – although I was on record in over a dozen articles for this site that Nugent was Stanford’s only high performing o-linemen in the years since OL coach Mike Bloomgren left for Rice, I was baffled why Michigan accepted Hinton’s transfer.

I have the same degree of confidence in Priebe after watching Northwestern’s film for the last three seasons. Michigan’s staff clearly believes not only that they’re immune to the clear trend in seven years’ of post-portal data that even high performing transfer linemen’s grades take a dip at their new schools, but that they’re capable of fixing up poorly performing linemen from others. The data from charting contradict this, naturally – both Henderson and Nugent saw their per-play error rates increase by at least two percentage points in run and pass blocking compared to their most recent full season at their previous school (2021 for Henderson, 2022 for Nugent), while Hinton continued to be simply non-viable at a Power-conference level. It’s also borne out in significant falloffs in adjusted line yards, pressure rate per snap, and rushing average between 2022 and 2023.

This much line turnover without previous meaningful play is bound to have a negative effect, and in my opinion the film on the most experienced of the likely starters predicts poor performance from them. I am expecting the line to change its composition at least once during the season, as well. I think some degree of falloff compared to 2023 is inevitable, although I don’t think it will be some enormous collapse because much of the line and its depth are well recruited players who’ve been developing behind the scenes for several years, and because I don’t think the 2023 line was the essential reason for last year’s success as I don’t believe they were playing at the same Joe Moore-winning level as previous iterations of the Wolverines were.

Michigan fired five-year defensive coordinator Don Brown after the 2020 season. The defense for the next three seasons – and into the future – was put in the hands of coaches who had all been working in the Baltimore Ravens organization with the head coach’s brother John Harbaugh.

New DC Martindale, who’d been in the NFL since 2004 and with the Ravens since 2012, had Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter working under him as assistants starting in 2018 and for the next several years. In 2021, Michigan hired Macdonald to replace Brown. In 2022, Martindale left the Ravens to become the DC with the New York Giants, and Macdonald returned to Baltimore as DC there, so Michigan hired Minter as the DC for the next two seasons. In 2024, Minter, along with the rest of the defensive staff, has gone with Harbaugh to Los Angeles, and so Michigan has hired Martindale after he left New York (accounts differ as to the circumstances).

It has been somewhat surprising how much these coordinators’ defensive structures have diverged in their time apart. In New York, Martindale has been running a 3-4 with a persistent nose and couple of designated OLBs (including former Ducks Kayvon Thibodeaux and Jordon Riley) on every snap, and one of the league’s highest blitz rates.

Under Macdonald and Minter in the last three seasons at Michigan, the defense has been structured as a 4-3 but almost never played out of that look, instead staying in a 4-2-5 — with the nickel having closer to a STAR role than a slot corner — on all snaps in which the offense is in 11-personnel or lighter, and staying in that look most of the time against heavy offensive looks as well. It was only on about a third of opponents’ 12-pers or heavier snaps that they switched to a 5-2 by inserting a third DT, and in situations when a run call was most likely. On the podcast, Jake and I discussed the flexibility and dexterity of the Wolverines’ defensive posture, rather than being governed by rigid substitution rules which opponents might take advantage of.

In the Spring game with Martindale, the offense was frequently in 12-personnel, but there were plenty of passing situations and attempts … however unlike previous defenses, on every snap they stuck to a 5-2 (or perhaps 3-4). There were more ends available and the extra down linemen would come from that group, while other ends played stand up and often dropped into coverage, though there’s been no nomenclature change on the official website.

Whether this constitutes a scheme change, or the same scheme but a different philosophy about personnel matching, or nothing at all and during the Fall we’ll see the same patterns as previous years, is unknown at this time. But I think it’s worth watching out for as a potential difference despite the shared history of these coordinators. For the purposes of separating roster units for evaluation in this article I’ll treat the defense as though it’s unchanged from 2023, and within those groups identify players who might be candidates for alternate roles if there is a scheme change.

In 2023 Michigan used a five-man rotation at the mostly two, sometimes three defensive tackle positions. Those were #26 DT Benny, Kris Jenkins, Cam Goode, #55 DT Graham, and #78 DT Grant. Jenkins was drafted in the 2^nd round by the Bengals, Goode has graduated, and Reece Atteberry, a converted offensive linemen who got a few garbage time reps, has transferred out.

Benny, Graham, and Grant return. Grant is big enough to play nose and had done so during last year and in the Spring game, while Benny and Graham generally line up as 3-techs or shaded a bit. Benny was held out in the Spring game so I didn’t see if he might line up at 0-tech under Martindale; Jake said he could flex over at 296 lbs but I doubt we’ll see it, I think his skillset is one-gapping.

There are two other returners who got some garbage time play last year as true freshmen, high 3-stars #91 DT Brandt and #95 DT Pierce. Brandt is the relatively lightest of this group at 277 lbs and sure to be a 3-tech, but Pierce is tougher to figure at 300 lbs and held out of the Spring game with an injury. Jake said he had initially figured Pierce would be molded into a nose, but has been seeing him behind Graham instead. The guy both of us have penciled in as the backup to Grant if there is a dedicated nose position is #92 DT Iwunnah, a 2021 mid 3-star who’s never seen the field but was getting extensive play there for the opposite team in Spring and is big enough for it.

I’m puzzled as to the status of the last two tackles, 2023 mid 3-star #51 DT Bahr and 2022 mid 3-star #89 DT Lorenzetti. Neither have seen the field nor did they play in the Spring game, and no information has been released that Jake or I have been able to find that explains the absences (one of them shares a name with a BYU basketball player, making research more difficult). I will monitor Fall camp and would appreciate reader suggestions for any updates here, but at this point I have to doubt they will be significant contributors.

Michigan took eight prep defensive linemen in the 2024 recruiting cycle and no transfers. Jake and I both expect them all to redshirt this season, but came to the same conclusions about who’ll eventually become tackles vs ends. The tackles we have penciled in are mid 3-stars Manuel Beigel and Deyvid Palepale, and low 4-stars Ted Hammond and Owen Wafle.

The returners Benny, Graham, and Grant are three of the best d-linemen in college football and this should continue to be an excellent interior defensive line. Replacing the experienced and effective Goode and Jenkins, who both had multiple years of starting experience prior to the 2023 season, with the relatively green Brandt, Pierce, and potentially Iwunnah means that they have the numbers for nominal rotations in either configuration of the defensive front, but the potential that one or more of the new rotational guys isn’t at the same performance level. If they continue using the Macdonald/Minter-style fronts then they’ve got the depth to handle an injury with six playable guys, but if they go to Martindale’s 3-4 from the Giants then an injury would mean dipping into the freshmen or borrowing from the ends to complete the rotation.

The ends used a four-man primary rotation, plus one more backup who got about a third of the reps as any one of the others. The primary four were Jaylen Harrell, Braiden McGregor, #8 DE D. Moore, and #0 DE J. Stewart (who wore #5 last year), and the backup was #42 DE Guy. The only departures from the unit are Harrell and McGregor, both off to the NFL – the former was drafted in the 7^th by the Titans and the latter signed a UDFA with the Jets.

Guy was a mid 3-star in the 2021 cycle and had been getting more reps each year, Jake said the staff is high on him and a he’s sure bet to join the primary rotation in 2024. There are two other 2021 recruits in the room, low 4-star #52 DE Bennett and high 3-star #27 DE McLaurin. Neither has gotten any real meaningful play in three years, but Bennett started seeing garbage time reps last year while McLaurin didn’t.

The three remaining scholarship returners are all 2023 recruits who redshirted last year – mid 4-star #96 DE Etta, plus mid 3-stars #58 DE Ishmail and #90 DE Koumba. Jake and I wound up discussing Etta and Koumba quite a bit because of the novelty and potential implications of seeing them playing fist-down between the nose and other stand-up ends in the Spring game, but that may have simply been an artifact of how many DTs were out during Spring or any number of other transitory factors, and Koumba at 254 lbs is too light to really play inside during live ball. Etta is intriguing because of his high talent rating and his 295 lbs size, however; I believe Jake is right that he could contribute in meaningful play relatively early as a second year and even swing in to play fist-down if the tackles need help per above.

The four prep recruits who figure to be ends and will likely redshirt are low 4-stars Devon Baxter and Mason Curtis, mid 4-star Lugard Edokpayi, and high 3-star #33 DE Nichols.

This looked to me like a straightforward unit to pencil in and Jake agreed – Guy ascends from backup, and between Bennett and Etta they get at least one, possibly two primary ends, and so have a similar four-man-plus system as last year, anchored by several returners who have been excellent. There’s some chance of a dropoff in a similar sense as the tackles since they’re replacing part of the rotation of experienced and productive ends with players lacking meaningful reps, but it should be manageable barring a really bad luck scenario (combining multiple injuries and striking out with the untested players).

Both of Michigan’s starting linebackers for the last several years were drafted, Michael Barrett in the 7^th by the Panthers and Junior Colson in the 3^rd by the Chargers. There are several more departures of backers who didn’t play last year: grad student Joey Velazquez hit the portal in December, while three guys — redshirt freshmen Semaj Bridgeman and Hayden Moore as well as 2024 early enrollee Jeremiah Beasley — played in the Spring game and then transferred out immediately afterwards.

Last cycle Michigan brought in mid 3-star #15 LB Hausmann from Nebraska, who was the third backer in as a true freshman in 2022 during the last year of Scott Frost’s tenure in Lincoln. As a true sophomore in Ann Arbor, he continued to be the third backer in and the only other guy besides Barrett and Colson getting meaningful reps, though Jake and I agreed from watching his tape he was still pretty raw and a step behind the starters in play diagnosis. Hausmann figures to get one of the starting jobs in 2024.

The other will almost certainly go to another Big Ten transfer, 2019 mid 4-star #1 LB Barham from Maryland. He was a huge loss for the Terps as a major part of their defensive transformation featuring a similar type of linebacker body type and pass coverage style that Michigan employs. The other additions besides Barham are the remaining two prep recruits, early enrollee low 4-star #18 LB Sullivan who got some very late play in the Spring game and Fall arrival low 3-star Zach Ludwig; both should redshirt.

I think 2024’s third backer in will be 2022 low 4-star #30 LB Rolder. He got quite a bit of garbage time play as a true freshman, but then missed the first half of the 2023 season with an undisclosed injury and was only used sparingly in the back half. But based on his Spring game priority and talking with Jake, I think he’s higher in the pecking order than the other returners.

Those are 2023 high 3-star #19 LB Hewlett, 2021 low 4-star #34 LB Hood, and 2022 mid 3-star #4 LB Mi. Pollard. Hood has the most tackles of any returner besides Hausmann on the official stat sheet, but I haven’t seen him at all during meaningful play in three years and I suspect the younger Rolder has passed him up for that reason, assuming he’s healthy (which he appeared to be in Spring). Hewlett and Pollard have even fewer garbage time reps, lower talent ratings on paper, and appeared later in the Spring game.

Jake said he found this position the easiest to mark out, and it seems clear to me that there’s going to be a repeat of the transfer wave again next cycle – Barham, Hausmann, and probably Rolder as members of the 2022 class have jobs likely secured for the next couple years, with minimal rotation and a demonstrated appetite to recruit over the backups by swiping conference rivals’ best backers.

The Wolverines rotated each of their secondary positions extensively except for the nickel Mike Sainristil, who often didn’t come out even when they switched to the 5-2 look (if so they’d instead pull an outside corner).

The four outside corners in rotation during meaningful play were former walk-on #36 CB Harris, 2022 5-star #2 CB W. Johnson, UMass transfer Josh Wallace, and true freshman DJ Waller. The four safeties in rotation were 2019 low 4-star #28 DB Q. Johnson, 2021 high 3-star #9 DB R. Moore, 2021 low 4-star #7 DB M. Paige, and 2022 mid 4-star Keon Sabb. On a very few meaningful snaps I saw 2021 high 3-star #18 CB McBurrows playing backup at nickel.

Five of those won’t be available for the 2024 season. Sainristil was drafted in the 2^nd by the Commanders and Wallace signed a UDFA with the Rams. Sabb transferred to Alabama in February and Waller transferred out after the Spring game (in something of a surprise). Moore unfortunately tore his ACL during Spring practices and Jake told us he will likely miss most if not all of the season. There are four other departures of backups who got limited play last year as well: German Green and Caden Kolesar graduated, redshirt freshman Cameron Calhoun transferred out, and Amorion Walker’s winding path into and out of Michigan’s secondary has been recounted above.

The corner Johnson is sure to keep his job as starter, and Jake and I came to the same conclusion reading the tea leaves about 2023 mid 4-star #20 CB Hill from his talent rating, playing time as a true freshman, and priority in the Spring game over others in this room that he’ll become a new starter. The interesting set of questions concern how the rest of the room shakes out and if they’ll maintain a similarly deep rotation as last year. I think we’ll have to wait and see if Harris keeps the same amount of relative playing time, if 2022 high 3-star #24 CB My. Pollard (apparently unrelated to the linebacker) gets anything more than the paltry play of the last two years, or if the Fall-arriving 2024 recruits mid 4-star Jo’Ziah Edmond or mid 3-star Jeremiah Lowe burn their redshirts.

I’m also very interested to see if Jake is right and McBurrows simply replaces Sainristil with as near-constant playing time and at as high of a level (or potentially higher, there was some room for improvement in man coverage on deep routes out of the slot). Alternate scenarios include as much play but understandably lower performance than an NFL 2^nd-rounder, reduced play if they don’t build the structure around McBurrows personally as they had around Sainristil, or even for the nickel position to fade to just situational use if the scheme changes to a base 3-4 under Martindale. There’s not enough film on any of the relevant factors to make a prediction at the moment.

Prior to Moore’s injury, I was expecting the secondary to feature him at strong and Paige at free, with the safety Johnson high in the rotation like last year, and the Spring game to serve as audition between 2022 mid 4-star #10 DB Berry, 2023 low 4-star #6 DB Hillman, and 2022 low 4-star #14 DB K. Jones for Sabb’s fourth spot. But all of that got scrambled – in addition to Moore, Hillman and Johnson were also unavailable, and being so short on bodies caused them to play guys in positions I don’t think they’ll necessarily be in for the Fall as well as three different walk-ons and early enrollee low 4-star #5 DB Oden from the beginning of the game. After Spring, they added Michigan State transfer Jaden Mangham, a low 4-star from the 2022 cycle who started at free safety for the Spartans last year.

Assuming he’s fully healthy, I think Johnson — who missed all of the national title game except for one special teams snap with a torn hamstring suffered in practice just before the game and decided to reverse course and come back to school after declaring for the NFL — will get Moore’s starting spot. Mangham will probably join the rotation at free safety but not displace Paige as starter.

But I don’t have a good feel for how the rest of the room shakes out because of the distortions in Spring. It could be that they’ve already identified the guy they want out of Berry, Hillman, and Jones and their four-man rotation like last year is already locked in, or on the other end of the spectrum, Johnson could still be feeling lingering effects of his injury and the battle for a couple spots in the rotation among the three green backups (or possibly four including the true freshman) goes through Fall camp. In my opinion, the effectiveness of the safeties in coverage was the critical element to winning the title game last year and getting this right is the difference between an early exit and a deep postseason run against what are usually elite passing offenses in January, so this is the unit I’ll be watching the closest of Michigan’s defense in the Fall.