Michigan Football Tidbits: Five Good Points

Michigan Tidbits: Five Good Points

1) Fans should always look at recruiting in two-year cycles. With so many top dual-threat quarterbacks on tap next year, this could end up being good news, long term

Beaver probably would not have been of much use anyway, because of his shoulder injury he probably would have missed spring practices and would have lagged behind Tate.

In addition, if something drastic happened to both and Threet and Forcier this coming year, they still have Feagin, and, hopefully, a completely healthy Carlos Brown who could be used. Not a great situation, but as stated, might open up the doors for some real top dual threat quarterback's next year.

2) On the team front:

So far Threet has really been working hard on the things that we brought up last summer in regards to his mechanics.

Nobody here is saying that Threet is the answer to Michigan's Big 10 championship hopes next year; but even if Beaver had come to Michigan, Threet was going to be a big part of the team next year. He is not going to get much faster, but he can eliminate some of his mistakes by improving his mechanics.

Wide Receivers: What's really important is the need for the wide receivers to show some additional work ethic. (Let us be clear here: the wide receivers stick around and work on routes, but the level of intensity and their attention to fundamentals has been lacking. To be honest, the last time Michigan had great summer workouts with quarterbacks and wide receivers was when Navarre was quarterback. All throughout the Henne era they were very lax and last year everyone showed up, but did not seem to really go at it.)

Rogers is showing up. Some of the wide receivers are not responding to Coach Dews very well. We could use more leadership at that position, that's for sure.

Hemingway is a potential leader, but has been hurt all year, including missing time last spring, so he has not been able to get into the swing of things with this offense yet.

As for Matthews, we have not seen a lot from him and he had issues with the new scheme this year.

Stonum has the potential to be bonafide leader, and will hopefully show the necessary maturity this year, but he's not quite there yet. Remember he is only a true sophomore.

Clemons could have been The Guy, but felt like he was treated unfairly this year because of the way he was used.

Rountree has been a model: kid he is a hard worker, more of a possession receiver.

The talent level is down at wide receiver (split end) no doubt, but it is not that bad. We have enough players to be good enough. Final point on the wide receivers -- a lot of the time, Threet looked so bad because of our horrible route running.

Slot Receivers: The slot receivers are fine. The position should have a huge upgrade this year with all the kids coming in, along with having T-Rob healthy. They will still be very young though. Odoms, we hope, will be much improved. T-Rob is more explosive and elusive then Odoms; as for Gallon, it's hard not to be impressed with his talents on film.

Several of the other new recruits could see time at both slot and running back, depending on team needs. So, there will be much more depth, and maybe we'll some new wrinkles in the offense to utilize the talents of specific players.

Defense: On defense, hiring a defensive coordinator is the first priority before we can look at who will play next year. However, if we assume the goal is to put the most athletic players on the field, then B. Smith has to be one of them. Michigan is going to be stacked with players who are somewhat hybrid types (Smith, Vlad, Bell, Jones, Williams).

S. Brown is probably the fastest of all the players, and I think, (at least in Gibson's mind) is most suited for safety. Although his tackling suffered all year, coaches felt his pass coverage skills actually improved as year wore on.

Back to B. Smith for a moment: the secondary is the part of the game the coaches are most concerned about. On the one hand, he will improve physical play at safety, but he needs a lot of work on his pass coverage ability. However, as of now, going into the spring, Smith will compete at safety, though things could change.

J.B. Fitzgerald has a ways to go, physically, but is fully expected to play this year.

There have been no "player organized" practices yet.

3) Barwis seems to be pleased with the kids' attitude coming off such a bad season. He has vowed to step up his strength and conditioning program even more. Majority of the offensive linemen are way ahead of any other position group (which is common).

4) One of the drawbacks of not playing in bowl is that the team has no visitors for bowl practices. So instead, some recruits (in-state juniors) have been invited to watch off-season conditioning.

5) Usually, at this time of year we hear of some players who may not make it or are struggling academically. So far, it is all quiet on that front, though that's not saying there are not some under the radar someplace.

Written by MaizeMan and ErocWolverine