ANN ARBOR, Mich. — While most eyes in Ann Arbor are set on the quarterback room in spring practice, perhaps the biggest question should be: who is the quarterback going to be throwing to?
Michigan football has very little experience at the wide receiver position. Though tight end Colston Loveland could (and should) be a primary target, there are only four touchdowns in the careers of those who remain at pass catcher. Sophomore Semaj Morgan (2), junior Tyler Morris (1), and senior Peyton O’Leary (1) are the only ones who have experience of getting into the end zone.
For Morris, as someone who’s seen more time on task than the others with the starting offense, he’s emerging as a leader this spring. And he’s seeing some of the second-year players stepping up to the plate, and calling on all — himself, included — to take their games to the next level in 2024.
“I would say Fred and Semaj — really it’s everybody,” Morris said. “Fred and Semaj, I feel like just being like young guys — they were the freshmen last year — and this year they’ve shown that they can they can step up.
“And Semaj I feel like last year had a lot of the quick game stuff. And this year, I mean — I’ve told him that was nice, but we need you to do more. And that’s kind of and that’s just kind of the expectation. We’re going to need everybody to step up.
“Fred — we’re gonna need him to really be one of those deep-ball receivers. Peyton — I mean, he ain’t played a lot — we talked about it, too. We just we need everybody to step up and just give it everything.”
While Semaj Morgan and Fredrick Moore are young, we usually see second-year receivers take a big step forward from year one to year two. Why is that?
The same could be said for Morris, though he was just the seventh-most prolific receiver in 2023. Still, it’s a trend we see, especially in the pro-style system that Michigan runs. Why do receivers tend to make that jump once they become sophomores?
“Honestly, I think it’s just there’s a lot of stuff that you learn with playing football at the receiver position,” Morris said. “So, sometimes it can be hard just to come in right away and just really understand football. So I feel like the more reps they get against the starting defense and just in practice, and more opportunities are given, everybody’s gonna step up and make more plays than they did.”
Michigan is about midway through spring ball with the annual spring game taking place on April 20 at The Big House at noon.