Going back to Spring Practices and what we saw -- Part 3

With all the debate about certain positions, certain sides of the ball and also recruiting in the past with what we have said I thought it would be interesting to bring some of our past articles back to life.

Here are a few spring practice comments and also e-mail questions we got during the spring practices. Thought it would be fun to bring them up again so people can remember what we said back then. It seems like most of our e-mails revolve around the defense and recruiting. So here are a few e-mails to share.

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4/24/09

Hey Guys,

Love the blog and the spring tidbits.

I have a question regarding the depth of our defense so far:

If Michigan is sitting on three more scholarships, why not use them on some more bodies for the defense, or perhaps mining some of the JUCO talent for another body to play DT, NT, or DE or perhaps, even LB?

In your opinion, will the defense be at all improved, or are we going to be completely dependent on a developing offense?

Best,

Rob
DIEHARDUMGUY

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Thanks for the question and comments.

We can sum up our feelings about the defense in one word: Frightening.

We are counting on so many players with limited experience, and need so many young players to step up and play big roles; the defense is a huge question mark.

There is very little depth, and most of the depth will be from untested true freshmen or sophomores. There were times when Michigan had four or more walk-ons with the second group.

If the defense can stay healthy they have a chance to be okay. One thing to keep in mind is it is a very small defense. It is also a much quicker, more athletic defense. What concerns us is when Michigan plays a team that lines up in a power formation and starts hammering them between the offensive tackles such as Wisconsin, or even like Ohio State did at times last year.

As for the offense, they looked good last week in the coach’s clinic. Just like in the spring scrimmage, Michigan practiced with the first group offense vs. second group defense (keep that in mind when assessing performance).

As far as bringing in a Juco kid right now, the biggest problem is getting him into Michigan, which is the tough because most of the kid's classes will not transfer. Usually the only time a kid can be a Juco and transfer in is if he went that route because he was not athletically ready for college and went Juco instead of the prep school route.