Our ongoing series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: Our Favorite Blocks, QBs, RBs, and WRs, TEs, FBs, and OL, Defensive Line, Linebacker, The 2000s.

Methodology: Going by individual years but only one per player can be nominated. We discussed them and decided together, then split the writeups. There will be a special teams and then we're taking requests on offbeat editions to fill the long offseason.

SAFETY: Jordan Kovacs (2011)

Today, even after Michigan has exhausted the eligibility of an entire generation of Glasgows, we call the walk-ons who emerge into draftable players members of the "Blessed Order of St. Kovacs." Secondaries of the rest of the decade would be filled with top-100 types whose natural abilities contributed to top-five defenses. But to get there first Michigan had to survive Never Forget plus three years of Rich Rod and Tony Gibson.

In 2009 I made a sad depth chart to introduce a series—The Decimated Defense—about the recruiting and attrition that led us to the program's defensive back nadir. On said depth chart, all walk-ons, including a redshirt freshman student body one that then-DC Greg Robinson had recently mistook for Matt Cavanaugh, were represented by suicidal cats.

Corner	Safety	Safety	Corner
NFL-ready junior guy (Donovan Warren)	(Jordan_Kovacs)	Current Infinite Safety Disaster, who is worse than the walk-on (Michael Williams)	Legacy who is halfway decent and was our FS until a few weeks ago (Troy Woolfolk)
Dust mite true freshman who was a running back until a few weeks ago (Teric Jones)	(Floyd_Simmons)	True freshman recovering from knee surgery who can't be that great if he hasn't seen the field (Vladimir Emilien)	Redshirt freshman with clear talent deficiency to be serviceable (JT Floyd)

Cats were all the rage on the internet back then, as was abject failure in Michigan's secondary. Many players who might have helped plug the holes abandoned Michigan. We even had a banner.

But then a funny thing happened that we did not expect. In 2011 Michigan was suddenly getting impact safety play from the unlikeliest of creatures: a Hobbit.

And then there's Kovacs. That is a record-shattering performance for a member of Michigan's secondary and it is absolutely deserved. Kovacs led the team in tackles, only half-missing a couple of those. He led ballcarriers into other defenders, which is why Western had to go on long marches—they couldn't bust it past Kovacs. He annihilated Carder on two sacks, one of which produced a game-sealing fumble. While Mattison got him those runs at the QB, his execution was flawless. On the first, he had the agility to slash back inside of Herron and the technique to put his helmet directly on the ball. And he added two PBUs for good measure.

His Kovacsian limitations made him not the guy you want carrying a future NFL slot receiver down the seam—particularly in 2012 when they slapped a Legends jersey on him to honor three historic linemen and Mattison tried to get away with some Ed Reed crap. But even in 2010 Kovacs thrived as a two-high box safety who could come down and play a Viper-like role, and in 2011's patchwork secondary those edge blitzes were a feature.

Also a feature: busts in the front seven that never, ever, ever, ever led to a gain of 40 yards. Remember this was a defense playing high-risk up front because the serviceable depth chart was guys Lloyd Carr recruited and Jake Ryan. After the afore mentioned WMU game Mattison was asked if having a guy like Kovacs allowed him to do more with the defense. Answer: "Well… he allows you to call it without wincing."

This was the Kovacs you had to be a bit of a wonk to fully appreciate, but over the course of 2011 the Kovacs who was ALWAYS THERE when that guy was supposed to arrive was the main thing giving viewers a sense of peace they hadn't felt since the days of…Jamar Adams? Marcus Ray? Tripp? When an option pitch went outside the last defender on the screen, it was Kovacs who appeared, already at top speed, at the perfect angle to end it at the sideline. When a linebacker went the wrong direction on a stretch run and you braced for a long chase, Kovacs came. He was our binky.

We could go with 2011 or 2012; we chose '11 only because there was more Alex Carder annihilation, and because that's the year, at the moment everything was about to fall apart, it didn't, because Kovacs was always there.

-Seth

[After THE JUMP: The Old, the Boring, and the Cat-like]

SAFETY: Delano Hill (2016)

Delano Hill accomplished something no Michigan safety had managed since 2003: he got drafted*. And he went relatively high. Unless I misclassified someone before my time Hill was the highest-drafted Michigan safety since Keith Bostic went in the second round in 1983. 1983! A span of 33 years!

The feat was all the more remarkable because at 48 he was also the oldest draftee in the history of the NFL. Massive dad energy radiated off him.

Hill came out of the womb saying "that's a tool not a toy" [Bryan Fuller]

Hill arrived at Michigan an old-ass man but had some youthful indiscretions as a sprightly 47-year-old, alternating game-winning coverage on slots who had murdered Michigan for the entirety of regulation…

…with some horrendous coverage busts.

But Hill put it all together as a senior when he and Dymonte Thomas—who's a little lower on this list—comprised a flexible, switchable safety tandem that did Very Good Safety Things despite the arrival of a new defensive coordinator. Post-Indiana:

Michigan's defense has surged to fourth in the S&P+ metric designed to measure explosiveness*. That's a major credit to both safeties, who have rebounded from an understandably bust-laden early season to virtually shut down long opponent plays.

… With Jourdan Lewis on the outside and no third corner Michigan's totally comfortable playing, it's fallen to Thomas and Hill to check slots, and they've done so.

Their ability in this department has allowed Peppers to blitz and spy almost constantly—the slant Indiana got on him during their TD drive was the first time he'd been targeted in coverage since... UCF? I think it was literally UCF.

Hill was a spectacular open-field tackler who was capable of man coverage on slots—the proverbial man who does both. And if he muttered to the opposition about people who leave power tools in humid garages the whole time, all the better.

*[Marlin Jackson is omitted here since he was a CB during his final year in AA; we're filing 7th rounder Stevie Brown as a viper.]

-Brian

Second Team: Josh Metellus (2019)

[Bryan Fuller]

There's an easy way to tell what kind of Michigan fan you're speaking to: say "Josh Metellus" and see what they come up with. There's the guy who remembers he was a three-star—739th on the composite—and never forgave it. You are about to hear all about athletic traits, how Ohio State won Jordan Fuller, and why this is a problem. There's also the guy who remembers Metellus dropping an interception in the red zone against Ohio State when Michigan held a 14-0 lead. This guy will now explain that—duh—Michigan just needs to want to beat Ohio State more and everything will be fine.

And then there's the rare Michigan fan who speaks of Metellus in terms normally used for white walk-ons. Preternatural anticipation. Deep understanding of the game. So heady. Clever. Crafty. Film rat.

One of four—including the head coach—who migrated here from Flanagan High in 2016 (and the only one not named Devin), Metellus first got in at Viper against FSU when Jabrill Peppers couldn't go. This would presage Metellus's entire career: in a spot most Michigan fans didn't want him, doing more than fine. Better than most even. Metellus was a dude who made a lot of good plays, very few bad ones, and often got flagged in the process of pulling off a great one because when you run a guy's fade for him there's nothing he can do but run you over and pretend it's your fault.

It's picking straws between his junior (+45.5/-19.5) and senior (+51/-29) seasons. We went senior if only because the draftniks and advanced statisticians who adored Metellus's junior season didn't show enough appreciation for the more complicated stuff the wonks saw him running the next year. No matter what kind of fan you are, Metellus is easily the most underappreciated player of the decade.

-Seth

Second Team: Jarrod Wilson (2015)

Evaluating safeties is hard because most of the time they're on the screen it's because something has gone wrong. So MGoBlog went to great lengths to convince you that Jarrod Wilson was sort of a dude despite the fact that he never seemed to, you know, do anything. Wilson was more or less a three year starter; he finished his career with four TFLs. He averaged 3 PBUs per season.

Jarrod Wilson was Boring, as the 2015 season preview hammered home:

Wilson does not put the fear of God into guys coming across the middle. He neither MAKES PLAYS or MAKES PLAYS FOR THE OTHER TEAM.

Jarrod Wilson is This Is Fine if the building wasn't on fire.

This is fine.

It's hard to remember this now that Michigan's safety play has been at least okay for the better part of a decade but at the time this felt amazing. Despite never appearing on your television screen Wilson continued the safety renaissance that Kovacs started; in his three years of heavy playing time Michigan was 4th, 2nd, and 1st in fewest 30-yard scrimmage plays allowed by Big Ten teams.

How did he achieve this? I don't know. He wasn't on the screen.

-Brian

Honorable Mention:

Thomas Gordon (2012). When steady safety play was still a novel concept around these parts and Cass Tech defensive backs were looked upon with skepticism, Thomas Gordon emerged as the reassuring, boring presence next to Jordan Kovacs. Gordon started 38 games at safety in his Michigan career and rarely was on the wrong end of a big play. His redshirt junior season stands out for his production against the pass and run. He had a pick against Notre Dame and eight solo stops against a Northwestern squad that kept testing the edge, ultimately finishing with 81 tackles, four TFLs, a sack, a forced fumble, and two interceptions. Just a solid player.

-Ace

The other side of the boring coin was Dymonte Thomas (2016), whose career-long Ernest Shazor impression actually finished well above Shazor in effectiveness. An excellent athlete whose redshirt never should have been burned on special teams, Dymonte was the guy you wanted coming down on a speedy slot receiver or corralling J.T. Barrett in space.

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CORNERBACK: Jourdan Lewis (2016)

[Patrick Barron]

The thing about a press box is it’s an office. An office with a particularly nice panoramic view, but an office never the less. As such there’s an expectation that anyone given a seat in one is a professional and will act as a professional, which primarily means no cheering. Some teams have beats that are better at this than others, and I was supremely aware of how the people on those beats were spoken about by other sportswriters.

When you work for MGoBlog, though, there’s a bit of a tell in the first three letters of the site’s name. Still, I took impartiality seriously when I was in the box and tried to behave as such when I was at work. It shouldn’t have raised any concerns when Ace posted on Slack that there was a documentary crew filming the press box during the 2016 Wisconsin game and—surprise!—they sent him the footage from Jourdan Lewis’s one-handed, backhanded 4th-and-10 interception that sealed Michigan’s 14-7 win over then-no. 8 Wisconsin. No concern at all. Nope.

It was easy to pinpoint the exact moment at which Lewis snared the ball because my jaw dropped. And not just like a jaw drop that leads into a quick “wow,” but a jaw drop that lingered for an uncomfortably long period of time. Like a rigor mortis jaw drop or something. It was so, uh, pronounced that my co-workers made an emoji. If you type : schneppface : in our Slack, you get this:

That was the way Lewis’ senior season went. He had worked out whatever the issue was with the gypsy early in his career and was a bona fide star in 2016; at the very least you have to be athletic and in-phase to be close enough to making plays on a receiver to seem cursed by a gypsy, so his talent was clear from the drop. A little technical refinement turned him into the first breakout defensive player of the Harbaugh era on a roster loaded with NFL talent in 2015. Brian led the Lewis portion of his 2016 cornerback preview with this:

I'm about to write a lot about JOURDAN LEWIS, but you can skip it. The tl;dr version is "is Jourdan Lewis." He's an All-American. 

Lewis missed the first three games of that season due to injury; despite having to shake some rust off in his first game back he was on the field for more snaps than any other Michigan CB and finished with a 6.5+, 1- day on the UFR chart. From there he never looked back, which is somehow not hyperbole:

Throwing (or running [!])

At

Him

Was

Dumb

And Brian ended up being right, too. Lewis was a first-team All American to five of the six places that put out those lists and one of three finalists for the Jim Thorpe Award. His lack of flashy stats probably played a part in not winning said award, but it’s hard to pick off passes when you’re in a receiver’s pocket every snap.

-Adam

CORNERBACK: David Long (2018)

Remember that superstar we had that you don't remember? [Patrick Barron]

Jim Harbaugh's recruiting pitch to David Long was grandiose: be an ambassador for Michigan.

"Coach said I can be a "do it all" guy for Michigan," [Long] said. "What he said he meant by that was that I can be a difference maker for them on the field, and can be a difference maker for the Michigan brand and the program as a whole."

It was also weird: he climbed a tree to make Long's little sister happy. It worked, and dang if David Long didn't live up to it.

Long was the second in Michigan's line of astoundingly good corners and may have been the best. Throwing at Long was worse than spiking the ball into the turf during his two years as a starter. PFF's metrics for him were bonkers:

One of the PFF favorites headed to Los Angeles to join the Rams as Michigan CB David Long was selected with the 79th overall pick! pic.twitter.com/zBK7eOSIOF

— PFF (@PFF) April 29, 2019

18 career receptions allowed. 11 PBUs. Got dang.

Things got so bad for opposing offenses during Long's tenure next to Lavert Hill that many games would go by without either one getting challenged downfield. They'd pop up with UFR scores like +2 because they'd made a nice tackle on a screen and their coverage was a rumor the rest of the day. Even when things went to hell at the end of it they were still getting ignored.

-Brian

Second Team: Lavert Hill (2018)

We're splitting the finest of hairs in choosing between Michigan's 2018 cornerbacks. While David Long batted away most everything that was sent in his direction, LaVert Hill put up a series of ludicrous PFF fancystats:

The younger brother of Delano Hill, LaVert Hill began his high school career at Cass Tech and almost immediately drew comparisons to Jourdan Lewis because of their similar build and elite coverage skills. Other than a high school transfer to Detroit King, Vert followed Lewis's footsteps, and they were quick footsteps indeed. He played nine games as a freshman, then stepped into the starting lineup and excelled as a sophomore. He only got better as a junior even as teams learned to avoid him.

Hill played in-your-grill man coverage and also excelled at jumping routes on the rare occasion Michigan played zone. Despite being rather small, he tackled with reliability in the flat and was disciplined in keeping plays from turning the corner. When the ball came his way, you'd see why he was a dangerous two-way player in high school—he could high-point like a receiver and his lack of interceptions (only one in 2018) was more a product of few targets than poor hands.

Hill followed up his great 2018 season with a comparable 2019. The sheer absurdity of the numbers puts his junior season on our list, though any of his final three seasons would do just fine.

-Ace

Second Team: Ambry Thomas (2019)

[Bryan Fuller]

Ulcerative colitis is as scary as its description: an ulcer in the inner lining of your large intestine. It's only more terrifying when 80% of your 2017 defensive back class looks like a bust and your last Detroit Cat cornerback comes down with it in Spring practice. Also to date this MGo-supposed third Jourdan Lewis type had spent most of his time returning kicks, flashing in the McDoom role on offense, and generally sitting behind the guy who got burned crispy against Ohio State. This was our concern dude. Then the season kicked off against MTSU, Ambry was there in the lineup, and immediately fretful opposing quarterbacks were looking at him like "Ah, nice marmot."

I titled the ensuing podcast "Everybody Get Colitis" because obviously a hole in one's stomach turns one into exactly the thing we spent an offseason fretting about not having. This was not a complicated case—a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous, all covered the way you'd expect from a vintage Detroit sportscar.

Lavert Hill was actually the guy missing time, which meant opponents could choose to go after Vincent Gray, and Ambry got a bunch of Vert treatment. The exception was Illinois, where Brandon Peters was like "Hey, I played with this guy; there must have been a good reason we didn't play him against Ohio State!" and five-star wideout James Imatorbhebhe was like "Yeah I can get behind that dude."

Ambry made it through the season not only healthy but undefeated as a perimeter defender, and ultimately as unthrow-at-able as a healthy Lavert to the other side. Number 7 (and the top CB) on PFF's list of Big Ten players returning for 2020, which calls him "easily one of the top 10 press-man outside corners, you can imagine where it goes from here.

-Seth

Honorable Mention:

Michigan's scholarship offer surprised even Channing Stribling, who at the time held offers from Charlotte and some SWAC schools, after he stood out at M's camp. At 6'2" and seemingly made entirely of limbs, Stribling fit the long cornerback archetype Michigan coveted at the time—the question was whether they reached to find length instead of an actual cornerback. After some early-career hiccups in which Stribling was in position to make plays only for receivers to make remarkable catches, he became a near-lockdown presence in coverage on the stingy 2016 defense. Only his run support holds him back from serious second-team contention.

-Ace

The only reason Jeremy Clark didn't make our teams was he did his damage in two half-seasons instead of one. Recruited as a grayshirt by Hoke's staff, Clark was bumped up to scholarship before Signing Day after blowing up and springing up as a senior. Never a good fit for safety, Harbaugh's staff converted Clark to a Richard Sherman (minus the Harbaugh beef)-esque cornerback in fall camp of 2015. The experiment was ready by mid-season, and closing on dominant by the end of it. The following year Clark covered over the loss of Jourdan Lewis for the first three games then split time with Stribling until an injury just past the medshirt cutoff ended his Michigan career.

-Seth

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How things stand:

Skill Players	1st Team	2nd Team	Hon Mention
Quarterback	Denard Robinson 2012	Devin Gardner 2013	Rudock '15
RB (Flash)	Fitz Toussaint 2011	Karan Higdon 2017	V.Smith '11, Evans '16
RB (Thunder)	De'veon Smith 2016		-
Slot Receiver	Jeremy Gallon 2013	Roy Roundtree 2010	R.Bell '19
Wide Receiver	Jehu Chesson 2015	Nico Collins 2019	DPJ '18
Wide Receiver	Amara Darboh 2016	Junior Hemingway 2011	Funchess '13

Blockers/OL	1st Team	2nd Team	Hon Mention
Fullback	Khalid Hill 2016	BEN MASON 2018	Poggi '17, Houma '15,
Tight End	Jake Butt 2015	Zach Gentry 2018	McKeon '17, Koger '11
Off Tackle	Taylor Lewan 2013	Mike Schofield 2013	Runyan Jr. '18
Off Tackle	Mason Cole 2017	Erik Magnuson 2016	-
Center	David Molk 2011	Cesar Ruiz 2018	-
Guard	Michael Onwenu 2019	Ben Bredeson 2018	-
Guard	Patrick Omameh 2010	Graham Glasgow 2015	-

Def Line	1st Team	2nd Team	Hon Mention
Tackle/3-Tech	Maurice Hurst Jr. 2017	Willie Henry 2015	Ryan Van Bergen '10
Nose	Mike Martin 2011	Ryan Glasgow 2016	-
SDE/5-Tech	Chris Wormley 2016	Ryan Van Bergen 2011	Gary '17, Hutchinson '19
Weakside End	Chase Winovich 2018	F.Clark 2013 & Taco 2016	Roh '12, Kwity '19

Linebackers	1st Team	2nd Team	Hon Mention
Mike/ILB	Devin Bush 2017	Cam McGrone 2019	Demens '15, Morgan '15
Will/ILB	Ben Gedeon 2016	Jordan Glasgow 2019	McCray '17
Sam/Edge	Jake MF Ryan 2012	Josh Uche 2019	Furbush '17
Viper/Spur	Jabrill Peppers 2016	Khaleke Hudson 2017	T.Gordon '10

Secondary	1st Team	2nd Team	Hon Mention
Safety	Jordan Kovacs 2011	Josh Metellus 2019	T.Gordon '12
Safety	Delano Hill 2016	Jarrod Wilson 2015	Dymonte '16
Cornerback	Jourdan Lewis 2016	Lavert Hill 2018	J.Clark '15-'16
Cornerback	David Long 2018	Ambry Thomas 2019	Stribling '16