Mailbag: Plenty of Michigan football hypotheticals

Plenty of hypotheticals about what could be coming in the 2020 season.

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The mailbag is back, albeit delayed.

Unexpected family gatherings gave way to mere forgetting before we lost power for nearly 24 hours in the wake of the storms that ravaged southeast Michigan on Wednesday evening. However, Friday seems as good a day as any to answer your football questions, which are full of hypotheticals — which makes sense, since we still don’t have sports.

While we got a handful of basketball questions, we’re sticking to football here as that’s more our forte in the hypotheticals compared to the basketball front.

Without further ado, let’s get to your questions. Starting with the same deal asked by two different people.

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Well, thankfully for me, Michigan already has two of my top three scheduled: Oklahoma — the place I want to go to most — and Texas. Granted, these are some years away, with the first being at Texas in 2024 before going to Oklahoma in 2025.

And, in case you missed it, there’s a report that LSU is working to schedule Michigan in the future, but we don’t know yet when or if that will be at a neutral site location or if it will be a home-and-home.

So, since it’s not on the schedule as of yet, it’s not cheating to say I’d very much wish to see Michigan play LSU in Baton Rouge at night. All reports are that the night game atmosphere at Tiger Stadium is electrifying. Staying in the SEC, while I grew up rooting somewhat for Georgia, I tend not to be the biggest Bulldogs fan these days. However, I would love to see Michigan between the hedges, especially after catching (mostly on radio, as I was driving back from a game) their turn at hosting Notre Dame.

This next one comes with something of a caveat, as this team has lost pretty much all of its luster in the past decade, and it would require it to get back to where it was in the mid-2000s: USC. USC was the team I loved to hate while in college, perhaps just as much as Ohio State. It was dominant, had plenty of people I couldn’t stand at the time — Pete Carroll, Matt Leinart — but right now, there’s not much I dislike about the Trojans. And I lived in LA for four years after college, right when USC started falling from grace. There’s no team I’m clamoring to hate more than the flagship school in Los Angeles, but in its current iteration, it’s — lacking. Should the Trojans ever get back to actual prominence, I would love to see Michigan play in the Coliseum and in turn see the Trojans come to Ann Arbor. But, it’s gonna require some major changes to that team’s construct and coaching staff I fear before that’s something I would clamor for.

This is always something terribly difficult to project given that we usually have a good idea of players’ skill sets and we’ve seen some moonlight on the other side of the ball. Whether it be Hassan Haskins as a running back and linebacker, Ambry Thomas getting a little time on offense or Ben VanSumeren playing both fullback and linebacker, we’ve seen a few guys make that switch in recent years.

The obvious answer is a player we haven’t really seen much of yet in VIPER Michael Barrett. Expected to be the starter there this year, finally, he was brought onto campus as an offensive weapon and a former quarterback at Valdosta (GA) Lowndes. I’d be curious to see what he’d look like in offensive skill packages — but we still need to see him on the defensive side of the ball as of yet.

While this isn’t a permanent switch I’d ever advocate for, I’d love to see what Daxton Hill could do on the offensive side of the ball. Given his unparalleled speed, it’s tantalizing to think about what he could do with the ball in his hands in Josh Gattis’ ‘speed in space’ offense. Likewise, would love to see more Ambry Thomas on offense again now that he’s healthy, or even a guy like Brad Hawkins who was a former wide receiver at the high school level.

How about another menial switch? Michigan’s running backs room is loaded, but what if Joe Milton wins the starting quarterback job? Could we see Dylan McCaffrey get some snaps at running back? I think that could be interesting as a hypothetical.

Regardless, there are a lot of players who have split time, though it’s hard for me to project one player who will make a full-time switch. There were some obvious candidates when Michigan had a prominent fullback, as many of those players were also linebackers coming in, but the obvious answer is usually to put the speedy defensive backs as offensive skill players and the hard-hitting offensive backfield players as linebackers. Which is why we’ve seen some of that moonlighting in the first place.

This one is something I would likely have a good answer to if we had spring ball, but given that we didn’t, I don’t have an informed answer here. But, I can make some guesses.

On the defensive side of the ball, if you’re looking for names that the casual fan might not know too well, I have two: Donovan Jeter and Luiji Vilain. Of course, I asked Don Brown about the defensive line a month ago when we had him on a Zoom press conference and he raved about both:

“When they look back on it, they ended up having to play at the end of the year due to injuries at tackle and at nose. That’s only gonna end up paying dividends for them moving forward. It would have been nice if we could have had the ability to work in spring practice, but everybody was in that same scenario, so that’s just part of it. But we now have a chance, those guys played in two big games. Obviously, being able to play in a big game is an important piece, now we just need them to take it on an elite level in a big game.

“Christopher Hinton – I’m really excited about his potential. You mentioned Donovan Jeter. Mazi Smith is another guy as well. We think all of those guys, in evaluating and watching them in some of the winter workouts in the conditioning phases, I really feel like they’ve taken their game to the next level in terms of their physical ability, their ability to run and that’s –

“Sometimes things get said and the reality is they’re really out of context. For example: when you have four down linemen, you want each one of those four guys to have the ability to run and hit people. Now obviously, there’s a degree of size in the tackle and the nose scenario. And we have that size. Jeter’s a 300-pounder. Mazi Smith is a 300-pounder. Chris Hinton is a 300-pounder. And all three of those guys are very athletic. We’re excited about them, and obviously we’re very excited to have Carlo Kemp come back because not only will he provide experience, he’ll provide that essence of leadership that we desperately need there.

“But I’m very confident in the guys we have inside. Now, last year, we had another set of circumstances. Well, you’ve gotta play Josh Uche. And in that respect, we needed to play in some of our three-down, 3-3 stack-type structure to get that guy on the field especially on second and third down. And in some of our four down structures, we wanted him in some of the four down guys. I still think our defensive end scenario is really blessed, because we have Aidan, we have Kwity Paye. I’m very anxious to see how Ojabo does. Upshaw – Luiji Vilain in limited reps. I go back and watch Luiji play last year at times, and obviously he was hurt because Mike Danna was there. But, the bottom line is it’s his time now and he’ll have an opportunity to prove what he can do and I think we’re gonna get productive, solid play out of him as well.”

Jeter is a guy we’ve seen a high upside from back in his midyear, but he was derailed by his ACL tear. He hasn’t quite hit on his potential since returning, but since the bowl practices in 2018, we’ve heard about his ability in practice. It just hasn’t appeared on the field just yet. This year, Michigan truly needs him. It’s his time to step up. This is usually about when you finally see that potential turn into something static and tangible.

With Vilain, I overestimated his ability last summer to come in and be an impact player after missing two years of football after two corrective knee surgeries following his high school career. He made some big plays when inserted in relief positions last year which is the path of getting acclimated. We saw something similar from Josh Uche when he finally started seeing the field, but there’s more of an uphill battle for Vilain given the depth ahead of him last year, as Brown noted. Now, he should have a chance to make an impact, and I fully expect him to.

Offensively, I put Cornelius Johnson into my starting lineup even though he’s not often talked about compared to the other two second-year receivers and the incoming duo of A.J. Henning and Roman Wilson. I feel like Johnson is poised to come in and be a big impact outside receiver. He’s got the size and is a strong route runner. I would not be surprised if along with Nico Collins and Ronnie Bell he becomes a viable option.

Again, these are just guesses, because there’s little actual information to go on, but those would be my three picks for 2020 at this juncture.

I think you have the right three teams but the wrong order.

Personally, I don’t understand the Penn State hype. I think it’s a good team, on par with Michigan even. But James Franklin gets the benefit of the doubt due to beating Ohio State in 2016 in a game that the Buckeyes more gave away than the Nittany Lions taking it. Yes, that matchup has tended to be close compared to The Game the past few years, but I do think that OSU cares a lot more about beating Michigan than it does taking down PSU — which is part of the difference. Otherwise, Franklin’s PSU isn’t much different than Michigan. It struggles on the road against top-tier teams and usually loses a game it probably has no business losing to — I still feel that last year’s Minnesota game was an aberration more than the norm, despite the stellar job P.J. Fleck did in his second year in Minneapolis.

As I tend to do, I’m following the trends: Michigan tends to beat Penn State at home while losing on the road — same for Wisconsin. Plus, while Sean Clifford should take a big step forward after his first starting campaign, I tend to believe losing a big-time receiver in KJ Hamler is going to hurt the offense, the stacked RB room notwithstanding. I didn’t find them particularly daunting as a team, and while things change year-to-year, I still think PSU will remain in a holding pattern.

If Michigan can win at Washington and get past Wisconsin and Penn State at home in consecutive weeks, I could see the Wolverines, despite the breadth of players in new starting roles, coalesce similar to much of 2018. Those games come earlier this year than that year, but I still think Michigan could run the gamut — until The Game.

So ceiling is 11-1, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the maize and blue went 8-4 — which I’d call the floor.

Don’t have a long answer for this one, but there’s an obvious answer: Chris Evans.

He’s already doing it with CE Stars, his youth football 7-on-7 and camp circuit, which operates both in Metro Detroit and Indianapolis. It’s something of a mini-empire he’s building and overseeing, with a group of coaches which includes former Michigan defensive back Raymon Taylor in its ranks. Even if Evans gets his NFL shot, I feel like he’s destined for an actual coaching job and will be leading a team at the college level sooner than later.

And yes, I mean leading a team, not just working as a grad assistant or offensive analyst.

Another tough one to answer as the freshmen haven’t reported to campus, but I foresee this being closer to 2016 than 2018 — with the latter year only having three burned redshirts compared to the bulk of the 2016 class.

Here are the locks to have their redshirts burned: DE Braiden McGregor, RB Blake Corum, CB Andre Seldon, LB/S Makari Paige, LB Kalel Mullings, WR A.J. Henning, WR Roman Wilson, TE Matthew Hibner — whether that be via position or on special teams.

Additionally, I would expect to see safeties Jordan Morant and RJ Moten have theirs burned and wouldn’t be surprised if CB Darion Green-Warren, VIPER William Mohan, ATH Eamonn Dennis, LB Jaylen Harrell or LB Cornell Wheeler to play beyond four games as well.

As for the rest: maybe? The offensive linemen all will need time to acclimate and the defensive ends outside of McGregor have the benefit/lack of serving behind copious amounts of depth to start. Not a knock against him, but if Dan Villari is playing significant minutes, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

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