Preview
Michigan football hosts Colorado State on Saturday for the season opener. The Wolverines enter the season ranked in the top 10 in both the USA TODAY Coaches Poll and AP Top 25: No. 6 and No. 8 respectively.
These two teams have only played one time, which was back in 1994 in the Holiday Bowl where Michigan defeated the Rams, 24-14.
Things didn’t go well for the Rams last season. Colorado State fired Steve Addazio after just two seasons in Fort Collins. In 2021 Colorado State had an abysmal year when it had a 3-9 record.
The Rams, who are essentially, a brand new team entering the 2022 season. Colorado State hired Jay Norvell away from a conference foe in Nevada where he coached for five years. Between transfers and recruits, there are upwards of 50 new players on the roster from 2021.
On offense, Norvell will want to implement the air raid offense that he used in Nevada. He coached Wolf Pack star Carson Strong who threw for over 4,000 yards last year in the offense. Norvell brought redshirt freshman Clay Millen with him to Colorado State this year, and he will be starting. The Rams have one of the youngest and inexperienced quarterback rooms in all of football in 2022. Millen has only attempted two passes in his career — one of which was completed — and his backup Giles Pooler is just a freshman.
Millen was a four-star recruit by 247Sports that bypassed going to some Pac-12 schools to play under Norvell. While the Rams will primarily throw the ball, they do have a couple of reliable runners in the backfield. A’Jon Vivens will be the starter on Saturday who ran for 324 yards on 90 attempts in 2021. Vivens’ backup will be another Nevada transfer Avery Morrow who has only carried the rock 25 times in his career.
What will keep Colorado State in games this year will be the three receivers on the roster. Norvell brought over Tory Horton and Melquan Stovall from Nevada. The duo caught for over 1,300 yards together last season with Strong under center. But according to Jeremy Mauss with Mountain West Wire, the receiver to know is Dante Wright. Wright is one of the few holdovers from last year’s Rams team. He averaged 13.8 yards-per-catch while being underutilized.
Norvell has four new starting offensive linemen. There is only one holdover from the 2021 Colorado State team. But the unit does have experience. The left tackle, Brian Crespo-Jaquez, has zero starting experience, the other four combine for 92 career starts.
In 2021, Colorado State allowed 28 points-per-game which ranked it 82nd scoring defense in the country. The Rams allowed 166.3 yards-per-game on the ground in 2021 which was the 87th-ranked rushing defense.
Michigan did lose Hassan Haskins, but the Wolverines’ offensive identity last year was rushing the ball. The maize and blue ranked 15th in 2021 with 214.4 yards-per-game on the ground.
The Rams will run a 4-2-5 base defense on Saturday. There will most likely only be two linebackers on the field at once against the Wolverines, but the key cog to the Rams’ defense is linebacker Dequan Jackson. The fifth-year senior was third on the team last year with 84 tackles and 8.5 tackles-for-loss.
While he isn’t listed as a starter, linebacker Cam’Ron Carter returns in 2022 as well after he led the team in tackles last year with 100.
Another player on the defense that Michigan fans should keep an eye on is Rutgers transfer CJ Onyechi. The graduate transfer has compiled 87 tackles and five sacks in his career.
In the secondary, Novell has three transfers that will start, but the two holdovers have plenty of experience at Colorado State. The starting nickel Tywan Francis was second on the team last year with 88 tackles. Safety Henry Blackburn started five games last year and had 42 tackles.
See the next page for our staff predictions.