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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — We’ve seen it before when it comes to a five-star Wolverines defensive player taking the field when former Michigan star Jabrill Peppers did more than just play the safety position that he was projected at in high school.
Peppers became Michigan’s do-it-all man, not just on defense, but also on offense and special teams. While the maize and blue aren’t asking as much of junior safety Daxton Hill, a fellow former five-star, they will look for him to play a handful of different roles.
It was learned before the season last year that Hill was trying his hand at a bit of cornerback, though he remained at his native safety position throughout the season. He got his start during his freshman campaign in 2019 playing the nickel position, which appears to be a part of where the Wolverines plan to keep the talented Tulsa, Oklahoma native.
New Michigan defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale spoke about Hill moonlighting at multiple positions in the secondary, and while he didn’t provide much detail about where we might see the talented DB, he did confirm that the coaching staff is asking him to do multiple things on defense.
“Our plan right now is for Dax to do a little bit of everything,” Clinkscale said. “We’ve had a lot of situations where we’re teaching the game, so we’re focused on that aspect of it. Today, we had a little bit of slow down; yesterday – we had a break today. I talked to him a little more about getting him a little more positions in there. We’re gonna need him to be a jack of all trades. I think it might help his skillset. He has the ability to play corner with the ability to make plays at safety and a mindset of a safety. I’m really, really excited about all of the plays he can make and his demeanor, his championship effort – he’s a very, very good football player. Very instinctual. So I feel we can build stacking on top for Dax. The more we push him to learn, the better he can be.”
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The big concern, as mentioned, is putting too much on Hill’s plate so that he never quite reaches his potential. One of the knocks on Peppers in his Michigan tenure is that while he was excellent at a lot of different positions, he was never truly elite at any of them.
To boot, the Wolverines are already introducing a new defensive scheme under coordinator Mike Macdonald. So at what point does too much become too much?
Clinkscale says that the key to not overwhelming Hill is to make sure that each position has separate nomenclature, as to not confuse them if they’re learning multiple concepts.
“You teach them in families. You keep them in families,” Clinkscale said. “You keep the verbiage different in each family so it doesn’t spill over into the other one and confuse. And once they understand the menu and those families, they’re able to pull it out. Sometimes we learn from the players. Sometimes, they might do something that may not be in the playbook. But they learn from the menu in that coverage and they’re able to apply it as long as everybody is on the same page. They understand it that way. And then, repetition. Repetition over and over of film study.
“We do a lot of things like teach tape, offer NFL film, show them those guys the success they have and how they’re doing it. I think things like that will help Dax and things like that. It helped me! It helped me definitely. That’s the way I learn. I’m a visual guy. We walk through a lot and then we team them same as, same as. Like I said earlier, football is about 11 guys on offense, 11 guys on defense, special teams. And you have a variety of ways of getting to the same exact thing: the come and gos, protect the ball, score more points than the opponent, eliminate big plays, take the ball away, keep the ball, have a plus-10, 15, 20 turnover margin, play smart, be coached smart, have a good football IQ, play poised and win the big games by winning one game at a time. Stay healthy and be versatile. And the players understand that.”
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