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Occupied by Jabrill Peppers and Khaleke Hudson for the last four seasons, Michigan’s VIPER position has been the source of much productivity and the bar was set high for the next player to follow in their footsteps, redshirt sophomore Michael Barrett.
A three-star “offensive weapon” out of Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia in 2018, Barrett made the switch to the defensive side of the football when he arrived on-campus as a freshman, picking the brains of defensive coordinator Don Brown and Hudson to learn the intricacies of the position.
While he had received playing time in 14 games over the previous two seasons, most of this work came on special teams, as his only defensive action came in the 2019 victories over Rutgers and Notre Dame.
Debuting against an AP Top 25 team on the road, Barrett proved, almost immediately, he was up for the challenge, delivering a bone-crushing hit on Minnesota redshirt junior quarterback Tanner Morgan on the Golden Gophers’ third drive of the game.
Morgan appeared to never see Barrett coming off the edge from the right side, and the football was knocked loose and caught in the air by redshirt junior defensive tackle Donovan Jeter, who strolled the 15 yards necessary to put the Wolverines ahead, 14-7, with 7:08 remaining in the first quarter.
More than doubling up Minnesota, 49-24, Michigan made a statement in their season-opener and Barrett’s name was all over the stat sheet, finishing with seven tackles (one-and-a-half for loss), his sack-fumble, and a 66-yard kick return late in the opening frame.
Interestingly, as ESPN’s Maria Taylor reported during the broadcast, Barrett accomplished all this despite apparently getting sick on the sideline shortly before his lengthy kick return.
When asked about this postgame, the Peach State product dispelled any possible reason for concern and offered a humorous response.
“I wasn’t sick, I just felt like I did a lot in a little amount of time, just going fast,” Barrett began. “Sometimes it just has to come up; once it comes up, you feel so much better. It just happens.
“I felt great, it felt good to finally be able to go out there with the guys I’ve been working with, Cam (McGrone) and Josh (Ross), just being able to go out there and let it loose. It felt great, felt like a new man.”
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Barrett credited Brown’s game plan for creating the pressure that caused Morgan and the Golden Gophers havoc all night.
“I just felt like we had a good game plan, Coach Brown put a game plan together to give some looks we haven’t (given) before,” he shared.
“It definitely made an impact on them. You can tell they started checking for blitzes more, started being extra cautious. It definitely had an impact on the game.”
Michigan outgained Minnesota, 481-326, even though the Golden Gophers ran 16 more offensive plays, 72-56.
This yardage total was 116.3 yards fewer than the 442.3 Minnesota averaged in 2019.
“I feel like our team is a ticking time bomb, you never know when a big play can happen, either offensively or defensively,” Barrett remarked.
“We just have a lot of guys who have that ‘it’ factor and can make a big play whenever, especially in crunch time. As a team, we have a lot of weapons, excited to use them.”
Wolverine fans have grown accustomed to watching No. 5 and No. 7, Peppers and Hudson, make plays at multiple levels of the defense over the last half-decade. If the season-opener was any indication, we can add Barrett’s No. 23 to that list.
No. 13 Michigan (1-0), who moved up five spots in the AP Poll with their convincing victory, will next be in action against the Michigan State Spartans (0-1) in their first home game of the season on Saturday, Halloween, at 12 p.m. EDT on FOX.
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