Going back to Spring Practices and what we saw -- Part 4

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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4/26/2009

Hey dude,

Apparently, Coach Rod and company have done a good job recruiting for our secondary. However, I am almost beginning to believe that he does not think that big strong guys that play in the trenches and are the heart and soul of any football team are worth anything.

It almost seems as though he wants to make everyone on our defense a linebacker, including even his safety recruits. I know that you have mentioned on your blog that many high school recruits usually play safety and have to be moved once they are in college, but seriously, it is getting a little ridiculous. We have a major surplus of linebackers now, when what we really need are safeties and d-linemen.

Like I said, they have done a pretty good job recruiting for the secondary now, but I'm still extremely concerned about our d-line. So my question is, where do we stand with our major d-line recruits? Are we in pretty good shape with guys like Gholston (who apparently Coach Rod is also thinking about for linebacker) and Gabe King, or are we going to end up just recruiting a couple three star d-linemen?

-Nate

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Thanks for the question.

First off, we are concerned about defensive depth at every position for this season. Last recruiting season our defense took several hits, especially when it was obvious that Coach Shafer was not going to be retained, and then we had a period where recruits did not know what or who was going to be coaching the defense. Then throw in the distance factor for some of these recruits, which only made things worse. The 2010 recruiting year needs to bring kids in on defense that can play right away or at least bring better depth than what we have right now.

In fact, Michigan 2009 might be thinnest at safety and there were only three scholarship cornerbacks playing this spring. If people watched the spring game and noticed all the new players that just came in, or all the walk-ons in the second group, they'd have not trouble noticing how thin this defense is right now. Health will be a primary concern this season.

As for defensive line recruiting, Michigan is actively involved with a few quality defensive ends such as Easley from New York and Bryant from Ohio; we have a shot with them.

Defensive Tackles are a different matter. We are not hearing about many defensive tackles at this time. This could change in a hurry, though. It is looking like Michigan is transitioning from a big strong defense to more of a smaller, quicker, more athletic defense.