Does it get any better than Eyabi Anoma’s Michigan debut?
The former five-star, who originally committed to Alabama over the Wolverines, somehow found himself in Ann Arbor, after all, having journeyed from Tuscaloosa to Houston to UT-Martin before donning a winged helmet. Despite only being on campus for a few short weeks, Anoma was deployed relatively early in the season opener, and on his very first play, he had Michigan’s second sack of the season and his first in maize and blue.
According to PFF, Anoma played 10 total snaps on Saturday, nine on defense and one on special teams, and he was Michigan’s second-highest rated edge rusher — behind Jaylen Harrell — with an 81.9 defensive grade. But he’s just getting started and still getting acclimated, his defensive coordinator is quick to remind.
Talking to Jon Jansen on the ‘Inside Michigan Football’ radio show, Jesse Minter shared how the Wolverines intend to deploy Anoma given his lack of time on task and understanding of the defense. Though he’s still learning the playbook, Minter hopes to gradually increase Anoma’s playing time, and if all goes to plan, his production will continue as it did in Week 1.
“To his credit, the guy got here about three weeks ago,” Minter said. “He’s bought into what we’re trying to do. He’s a guy with a really a lot of physical tools, a high ceiling. I think he’s still learning and so he’s — we told him we want to try to feed him a little bit more each week and it was like, ‘Hey, let’s throw them in there, on the next third down.’ And, of course, the rest was history for him. It was good to get him in there more in the second half on normal downs and kind of get a feel for playing the run and playing a normal style of play. But he’s a guy that we can definitely utilize as a pass rusher as we go.”
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Michigan’s defensive front really showed out in the season opener, with other edge rushers really stepping up. We mentioned Harrell, but Mike Morris was involved in several key plays, as was Braiden McGregor from the edge rusher positions.
As far as Minter sees it, the more the merrier. The Wolverines may have relied most heavily on Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo last year, but this season, the production doesn’t have to come solely from two players, as there are multiple who can get involved and get to the uarterback.
“I think it’s just a mentality that we want to have, that everybody gets a chance and everybody eats — and a huge thing for us is when one person makes a play we all make a play,” Minter said. “And I’ve said this before like I’d love for the end of the year for us to maybe have a guy that can have 12-13 sacks but right now we want to spread it around. We want to bring different guys. I think we got all three levels of the defense involved in pressure and it keeps offenses off-balance and the if the guys really buy into it, and can continue to buy into it, I think as a team we’re gonna have a lot of success.”
Anoma and company will have another chance on Saturday when the Wolverines host Hawaii at The Big House at 8 p.m. EDT.
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