Michigan Football Tidbits: Offense Thursday Practice Report

First off, The Rumor around the clinic today -- Jason Forcier might be coming to Michigan as a Graduate Assistant. This is good in two ways: 1. more Forcier’s in Ann Arbor, and 2. somebody to help Tate deal with a lot of pressure on him this fall.

Okay, now moving on to what we saw:
We want to point out that MaizeMan, ErocWolverine, Josh Turel, twebber55, Morencie124 all were there and discussed most of these topics while at dinner, so they all helped with this report, even though they were not in chat.

Overall, we were impressed with how much fun the kids seem to be having today. Coaches and players are a lot more comfortable and seemed to enjoy practice, unlike last year. We'll here the coach's speechs tomorrowm so we'll have more information on what they are looking for and also what they want to do.

The team is way ahead of last year, but still has many of the same issues. Our running game looks good, but the passing game still a long way to go -- especially the quarterbacks. We're specifically refering to the big difference between drills, scrimmages, and games, which we have been trying to point out.

One comment on the Florida kids -- it is so obvious that they have football instincts better than most. (Something the water? the air? the oranges?)

In our opinion, if we had to numerically judge, the defense won Thursday practice 55% to 45% over the offense.

There were two different types of scrimmages on Thursday. First, there was a running game only scrimmage in which the offensive line gashed the defense big-time. Then they went to a full scrimmage -- including passing -- where the defense beat up the offense.

Remember, our observations are based off of this ONE PRACTICE. Things change daily, especially in spring practices. So do not go overboard with the comments below, especially on our evaluations on how certain players played today. Good or bad, it is only one practice.

First Group Offense on Thurday:
Forcier (QB), Minor (RB), Stonum (SE), Odoms (Slot), Ortmann (LT), Schilling (LG), Molk (OC), Moosman (RG), Huyge (RT), Koger (TE), Mathews (SE).

Second Group Offense on Thursday:
Cone (QB), Brown (RB), Savoy (SE), T. Robinson (Slot), Dorrestein (LT), Mealer (LG), McAvoy (OC), Ferrara (RG), Omameh (RT), Webb (TE), Hemingway (SE).

Quarterbacks are way ahead of last year -- WAY ahead, but they still raise major concerns. The main one being depth, they need more players. Obviously, Tate is athletically better than what we had last year.

Our best position group -- it is not even close in our opinion -- is Tight End. Webb was very good today. Moore is the third tight end, but impressive.

We did not get the ball to the wide receivers enough, but we did pass to the tight ends and, of course, to the slot receivers.

No I-formation in the scrimmage today, but they used it a couple of times in drills with Grady at fullback.

Quarterbacks:
Feagin did not practice. Cone is Cone. Forcier had a rough practice, and I mean a ROUGH! (which is expected at this stage with him still being practically a high schooler.) He does fine when moving, but when he tries to go in the pocket, he cannot see, so he moves out of it too fast. His release is impressive. They are rolling Tate out a lot, which might be because of the height issues. Tate is a football junkie, so things will get better, but he is not going to win the Heisman this year. So all those of you that are so high on him from reports of practices -- cool your jets. We think Denard is going to see playing time -- somewhere, sometime -- maybe not as starter, but some way. With his speed, he is a weapon that must be deployed.

Running Backs:
Minor, C. Brown, and V. Smith all had a good day, all with the first group. C. Brown looked very good and has his speed back -- no red jersey today either. V. Smith was in there a lot and went with both groups. Cox barely played.

Slot Receivers:
T. Robinson had a great practice and caught a bunch of passes. T-Rob is as good as Odoms, however, he caught a pass and went out of bounds: lets just say he "heard about it" from Coach Rod. Roundtree played a lot at slot receiver.

Split Ends:
Stonum played well, though he dropped a touchdown pass. Rogers was in a green jersey -- not great today.

Offensive Line:
Khoury was on third team at OC. Ortmann is huge and our left side of the offensive line looks pretty good right now. Huyge's play was the shock of the day. Omameh is just not ready, but he works his ass off. In our opinion he is a year away, but again, with depth issues he might be forced to play. He is raw, but works hard, so give him some time. Have to think Barnum is going to play, but Huyge has won the spot as of now at RT.

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Written by MaizeMan, ErocWolverine, JT, twebber55, and Morencie124.