benjamin st juste

Josh Metellus and Josh Uche at the Peach Bowl
The Brownification is complete. Release the 3-stars. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

On to the defense! Offense bits was last week and mentioned Chris Evans is an extremely good dude who did an extremely dumb thing. Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News caught up with Evans and got quite a bit more clarity on his status.

Not an insider article: I’ll reiterate my disclaimer about this feature: Football bits is about trying to gather what’s out there (mostly public information), triangulating from other information and heuristics, then guessing what it might mean. I get emails from insiders sometimes and will share what's believable, but if you want stuff from people who actually put some work into getting their own information, try Steve Lorenz and Sam Webb of 247/TheMichiganInsider (they’re having a three months-for-the-price-of-one special right now). Try Balas/Borton/Brown of TheWolverine (I missed an encouraging note about Onwenu($) from them last week). Try Isaiah Hole of WolverineWire/USAToday—he’s free. I have way too much respect for those guys to have my name erroneously included among them.

Defensive Tackle

image

Save us Jeter [Eric Upchurch]

What we want to hear: Mo Hurst but bigger, Donovan Jeter is the next big big thing, Mazi Smith impressing immediately, and a nice thing or two about Carlo Kemp.

What we’re hearing: Dwumfour had a foot injury he aggravated in the bowl game so he’s still out. :/ Jeter came out for a nice sentence when Harbaugh confused a reporter with which Donovan was injured (it’s DPJ). Carlo Kemp is getting the first mention at DT and Harbaugh went right from there to DEs and a fullback:

Donovan Jeter has really come on, has really stepped up and had a great winter. Looked really good in our first practice. Lot of excitement about him.

“Carlo Kemp has really turned himself into a strong, strong player. Inside player all the way now. Playing a 3-technique to 2, and it’s interesting: he came as a tweener between a linebacker and a defensive end. More of a linebacker— you know, body type. And he’s gone from that linebacker—really, we thought inside linebacker. We thought maybe traditional inside linebacker, then thought of him as an outside linebacker, then he moved to end, and now he is a strong—one of our strongest guys on the team.

“Excited about that position as well. There’s some real good players right there. Kwity Paye has continued to get better and better and he’s just doing a heck of a job. Aidan Hutchinson is outstanding, Carlo Kemp is outstanding, Ben Mason is gonna add in there, Donovan Jeter’s really doing a good job, so there’s…

It’s unclear from that sentence if they’re working Ben Mason at anchor or tackle. Chase Winovich was in town for his Pro Day and didn’t know, but told WolverineWire’s Isaiah Hole that Kwity’s a “dawg,” Hutchinson is going to be the “next G.O.A.T.” and Kemp/Dwumfour didn’t really know where they were last year:

“And then, inside – you’ve got Carlo Kemp (and) Michael Dwumfour. The list goes on. Those guys are gonna take on a big leap this next year. I just think Carlo was pretty confused – he was playing anchor, he was playing this. I think once he gets settled into his role – and same thing with Michael Dwumfour.”

Also this bit from Harbaugh’s presser (context: Nua’s coaching) will be relevant in a moment:

They are runnin’. There’s a real emphasis on running, getting out of the box, making the tackle, playing not sideline to sideline but at least middle of the field to sideline or numbers to numbers, and they’re looking good and athletic.

So the one downer bit I got from three different inside people is Mazi Smith came in super strong but also super-large. He’s a true freshman so he didn’t get to go through all of winter conditioning, and it’s showing in the sprints. On the other hand, according to the guy who emails me and Borton($), Mazi benched 9 reps of 395 lbs. That should be fine if they need him to be a planet for a few snaps per game; I worry because I worry, and because I don’t think Michigan feels comfortable playing a guy who can get tired if locked on the field.

What it means: Brace yourselves. Last year’s DT production was merely fair, Dwumfour is still mostly ceiling and needs reps, and unless they get an instant star out of Hinton it sounds like it’s last year’s rotation minus Aubrey if Mone’s a true freshman. A lot of spring left, but a long way’s to go here. I get trying to find ways to get Ben Mason Destructo on the field, but this is your tea leaves post, and one of our heuristics is position-switches are bad news for the position, more so the further the position was from what he played previously. When it was Vince Helmuth going from fullback to DT it was bad for Helmuth; in this case I think it’s an ominous sign for the position; if he’s competing at DT that means someone else isn’t.

[After THE JUMP: It gets a lot happier, and then suddenly silence.]

St-Juste in action vs Cincinnati in 2017 [Bryan Fuller]

Michigan's spring roster hit yesterday with only one surprise: redshirt sophomore cornerback Benjamin St-Juste was not on it. An insider posted to our message board, and 247’s Steve Lorenz confirmed last night that St-Juste has asked for and received a medical hardship waiver, meaning he can continue to receive financial aid but his career is done (and he no longer counts against the scholarship limit).

It’s a bummer since Michigan liked St-Juste enough his freshman year to go on a tall defensive back recruiting binge in the class after. An unknown Quebecois prospect who flew up the recruiting rankings after appearing at The Opening, St-Juste was the first of the many lengthy, bendy, hip-swingy cornerback prospects that Michigan began recruiting in earnest after the staff saw what Jeremy Clark (or Richard Sherman for the Stanford alums) could do. Michigan spotted the Canadian in the summer of 2015, but St-Juste chose to delay his matriculation to 2017 (Canadian high schools have 13 grades). The 247 and Rivals scouts used that year to catch up, skeptical Scout.com was folded into 247, and that’s how a guy from the land of Emmanuel Casseuses arrived as a 19-year-old composite four-star.

St-Juste was on track to pay that off; he got on the field in 12 games as a freshman in 2017, mostly on special teams as Lavert Hill, David Long, and Brandon Watson dominated playing time, and classmate Ambry Thomas was a more polished true freshman prospect. But St-Juste battled injuries all last season, and apparently that was going to continue.

St-Juste was the tallest and most exciting of his ilk, but thanks to the 2018 class Michigan has more St-Juste-like (Jeremy Clarketypes?) redshirt freshmen on the roster that you can fit in a midsize SUV, plus a pair of more cornerbackian true freshmen and a preferred walk-on (Hunter Reynolds) who was last year’s scout team player of the year to compete behind projected starters Lavert Hill and Ambry Thomas.

[Patrick Barron]

Sponsor note. I can say whatever I want in this one since Hoeg is probably knee-deep in spathi right now. This will make for a marked departure from earlier Hoeglaw-related sponsor notes, which were dictated verbatim from the sponsor. Soooo... let's get crazy.

hoeglaw_thumb[1]_thumb

Richard Hoeg has his own small business, which is in the business of helping other small businesses get off the ground and keep running through the maze of contracts that many small companies must navigate before becoming a success. If you've got a small business or are thinking bout starting one he can help you with all the legal niceties.

Woo!

Vitally important. Jordan Poole straps his cat to his chest like he has a newborn.

To go to Target? I think? I don't know.

Injury updates. Harbaugh just told the weekly teleconference that Benjamin St-Juste is out for the year and Luiji Vilain had surgery a couple days ago. Both guys are in that early Mike McCray zone where folks are getting a little nervous. Both guys have spent most of their first two years in AA on the shelf.

Recruit 'em all and let God sort 'em out. This tweet started out interesting and then got real depressing:

This shouldn't be interpreted as a shot at recruiting services. When your All-Pros include a walk-on, an Iowa State alum, and two guys so obscure they didn't have recruiting profiles it should be clear that the problem isn't with rankings relative to actual CFB scouting but rather the danged OL themselves.

And then you get into the top recruits, which are an "oh nooooo" if there ever was one: David Dawson. Ethan Pocic, the guy Michigan passed on only to go get a sixth OL later in the class, was a second-round pick. Patrick Kugler. Logan Tuley-Tillman. Chris Fox. All on one chart. Woof.

[After the JUMP: feet, as promised]