i am irrationally excited about short guys

Last offseason I was making these Michigan All-____ Teams and I didn't get around to all of the ideas. So let's.

Previously:

• Ancient History: 1879 to 1968
• The 5-stars
• The 3-stars
• The Extracurriculars
• Position-Switchers
• Highlights
• All-Numbers Team Part I: The Offense
• All-Numbers Team Part II: The Defense
• The Best of Michigan (the state)
• All-Name Team

Today's Rules: You must be in the bottom quartile of height for your position and get extra points for being shorter than that. Weight doesn't matter as much as height (because most of these guys had to add a lot of it). Also this has to be relative to the players of your era—with a heavy recency bias—because there was a time when a six-foot offensive tackle was considered huge. For example, here's 5'11" Anthony Carter with some of the other 1979 offensive starters (via a Dr. Sap article on MVictors):

I'm going to use my discretion as we go, but if a player wasn't remarkably tiny for his era, even if he would be in ours, he doesn't count.

The problem: Rosters lie, especially regarding these players, because listing a short guy at his real height could depress his pro future. Where I have knowledge of a guy's actual height I'll use that, and beyond that I'm just going to do my best.

Quarterback: Denard Robinson

Last listed size: 6'0"/197 (2012)

[Brian Fuller]

Strangely, 2019 recruit Cade McNamara, at 6'1", is the third-shortest Michigan scholarship quarterback since Bo, with Denard and 2008 proto-Denard Justin Feagin both listed at a straight six. Or maybe that's not so strange because height in a quarterback is so highly valued. In my opinion it's highly overrated; the last two Heisman winners were Oklahoma quarterbacks listed at 6'0" and 5'11", QED. Notably, despite Michigan's clear preference for tall guys, some of their best were all on the shorter side, including Chad Henne and Shea Patterson, both just 6'2". Anyway, the rosters lied about Denard's height, which was probably 5'11" or just under it. I should mention the 2011 roster lists Denard as 5'9", which is wrong but feels right. His height led to a few batted balls, but since his center also appears later on this list (and Ricky Barnum wasn't very tall either), and because defenders in space had to approach warily lest Denard escape the pocket, the % of batted balls from Denard in the UFRs is lower than that for Henne.

Honorable Mention: Dennis Brown (5'10"/175), Tate Forcier (6'1"/190), Harry Newman (5'7"/174), Boss Weeks (5'7"/161) lots of other old dudes. Michigan's first great quarterback (and college athletics' first great athletic director) Charles Baird was listed at 5'6". Michigan's shortest QB on the Bentley database was 1914-'16 bencher Harold Zeiger, at 5'4".

[After THE JUMP: Not who you think]

Upchurch

It is spring, the season with all the rebirth and egg-laying rabbits and such. In this pastel, paschal period of the year, everything is positive. Your baseball team could win the World Series, your backups arrived with 20 lbs more muscle/less fat ready to decapitate enemies, and your linebackers exploding everything in the backfield says everything about your linebackers and nothing about your offensive line. So question:

I am about to devote all of my attention to Spring Football. What can I learn about this team with this exercise? Is there anything that my eyes can show me that the hype is hiding?

-----------------------------------

Ace: In previous years, I've had the opportunity to see a few spring practices (in the RichRod days, which coincided with my internship at The Wolverine) and get to know a few players both on Michigan's squad and at other levels of college football. Almost universally, the first thing I've been told about spring practices, and the spring game in particular, is to expect the defense to look well ahead of the offense—and that, if this is the case, it's a good thing. That's especially true when installing a new offense, as Michigan is this season.

Mmmm true freshmen dominating walk-ons. [Fuller]

If you're skeptical, think back to those Rodriguez spring games and the general excitement they brought as Tate Forcier or Denard Robinson slashed through the defense with ease. Those were fun games. Those were also bad defenses. It's a whole lot easier to install and run a base defense than to get the offense fully up to speed, even with a limited playbook; if the offense looks like they know what they're supposed to be doing better than the defense, it's a point of concern.

So, strangely, I'm hoping for an ugly spring game—if it even resembles a "game" at all, which it hasn't for years. That's not to say I hope the offensive line looks totally overmatched—quite the contrary—but with a Doug Nussmeier's system still being put in place, the defense should more than hold their own at this juncture. Since we'll be seeing a very unfinished product on offense, I think more than anything we'll learn where the defense stands as they also make a transition, albeit a smaller one, to playing more 4-3 over with a reshuffled coaching staff.

[After the jump: preparing for platitudes]

Brian,

As I sit here watching Missouri and Auburn roll up and down the field, with the only defense being turnovers, I'm wondering what can be done to curtail the wave of offense in football so that defenses have a chance again.  Maybe people are fine with all of the offense, but it seems like it is so tough to play defense (get held on nearly every play, called one in 30 times) that I would love to see something to help even things up without drastically changing the game (such as 3 downs instead of 4 or having to go 15 yards for a first down instead of 10, etc.).  I think I figured out a simple change that may help:  with offenses spread out to make one on one match-ups all over the place, what if there is a rule that all of the offensive players have to line up between the numbers?  This wouldn't be such a drastic change and it would allow defenses to be a little less spread out at the snap.

What do you think?

A loyal reader,
Ppudge

Despite the attempt to not seem drastic, that seems kind of drastic. That would affect a lot of teams from spread to, uh, concentrate. And I'm not even sure what the impact would be. If teams just stack two guys up at the numbers is that better or worse? It doesn't seem to have a huge impact. Apologies, but thumbs down.

If we're going to change football to slow down the offenses, my suggestion is to simplify and liberalize pass interference by making it a (nearly) arms-only offense. I can't stand it when a defender gets nailed for the WR trying to run through him; some of these back shoulder things are basically prayer ducks relying on the fact that the DB isn't looking and hoping he'll run over the DB. In the hypothetical world where I am king, whiskey is free and pass interference is a thing that can only happen when a defensive back uses his arms in an unfair fashion or blows a guy up early. No more of this stuff where the DB is running in a direction and the WR changes his path such that the DB is now impeding the WR. You have a right to your momentum. In exchange, offenses can have full NFL penalties for flagrant you-tackled-that-guy offenses.

Not that any of this will do much to slow down Auburn, which just runs and runs and runs and runs. They beat Alabama and their QB threw for 97 yards. They got outgained by 100 yards, but they also ran for 5.7 yards a carry against Alabama. It boggles the mind.

Moving Willie Henry?

Brian,

OK, there are many candidates to play the DT next year, but few candidates to play NT if Pipkins doesn't come back strong after injury. You and others are very high on Henry at DT, but I haven't seen him mentioned at a possible NT. His weight and height look fine, but is there something about his build that makes him not well suited to play the nose?

Rod

Henry is a very plausible NT with his size and strength. Michigan lists him at 6'2", 306, which is about ideal NT size, and we've seen him throw away more than one OL this year. In an ideal world, Pipkins is full-go by late spring and playing well in fall camp, allowing Henry to continue doing his thing at three-tech.

But if that's not happening I bet we do see Henry slide over to the nose. Michigan's other options there are Richard Ash and redshirt freshman Maurice Hurst Jr, which doesn't sound too appealing. At three tech, Strobel, Poggi, and Glasgow are returning and Michigan has the option of bumping either Godin or Wormley down from SDE with Beyer the projected starter there.

A Henry move is 50/50 right now.

[After the JUMP: Smith vs Green, annual #1 jersey speculation, and evaluating a potential onside kick in The Game.]

Green was getting more PT for a reason. Was that recruiting hype? [Fuller]