Michigan Museday If the Dudes Get Dinged: Linebackerites Comment Count

Seth

IMG_6292

Upchurch|MGoBlog

Previously: Offense, Defensive Line

This goes out to all those young linebackers out there who have given me your letters of intent:

♪ There was Bell, and a Hill, but I never saw them playing

No I never saw depth at all, 'till there was you.

There were safeties who gained weight, and a JUCO straight from Butler

But they were no Obianna Ezeh, 'till there was you.

Oh there were walk-ons, and converted fullbacks, they tell me,

And sweet freshman "Spinners," and Roh at "Quick"…

There was Ken-ny Demens, and a plush-toy Castor face-wash,

But no other linebackers at all, 'till there was you.


Till there was you! ♫

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

Linebacker depth: EXTANT!

This is Part III of the thing where I go over the depth chart and predict what will happen if the starter at any given position is hurt for an extended period of time in 2012: Who goes in?, What's the dropoff?, How do things shuffle?

And this time, there's goods here. There's depth in the SAMs and the WILLs and the MIKEs and the macks and the rovers. Whatayatalk whatayatalk: Where'd-we-get-it? With a Greg who knows the territory! With the jacks from the buckeyes, and the bucks from the mitten, and ROLBs from the overlooked, redshirted, 3-star, buck- and spart-passed over huckleberry bin. Whatayatalk, whatayatalk. Ya can talk, ya can talk, ya can bicker ya can talk, ya can bicker, bicker, bicker, ya can talk all ya want, but it's different than it was!

saturn-puntingzoltanQuickly again. Photos are all by Upchurch unless otherwise noted. Ratings are given in Saturn-punting Zoltans. Think of them like stars except more heavenly. Five is an all-conference-type player (Denard to Kovacs); four is a guy you'd call "solid" (RVB to Demens); three is an average B1G player (Morgan to Hawthorne); two is a guy with a big hole in his game (freshman Kovacs); one is trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Poole.

SAM (Strongside Linebacker):

IMG_5182-croppedCGordon6087655821_7877ddac48_o

Starter: Jake Ryan 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o

Backups: Cameron Gordon 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, Royce Jenkins-Stone ???, various WDEs

In case of emergency: Jake was a revelation last year as a redshirt freshman who as the season progressed kept giving the coaches less and less excuse to yank him. The nature of his position, which rotates often, and the nature of his cavalier game make it hard to quantify the effective difference of an injury here. By design he's the most replaceable guy on the defense; by the magnitude of his effect when he's in the game, there are few, if any, guys on the team who you'd less like to lose. He was far from perfect—his problems holding the edge led to some ugly things in the Northwestern-Michigan State part of the year—however there were also those times when a "running" quarterback would see this crazy freshman coming inside the edge blocker and think to himself "oh I'm so going around that idiot," only to end up flat on his back 20 yards in the backfield. Nothing was more satisfying to a fan base recovering from Passive 3-3-5 syndrome than seeing this crazed high-necked Viking bellowing something unintelligible at fast-retreating Logan Thomas.

JakeRyanSugarBowlInterview-Heiko

Heiko took this

Cam Gordon is the nominal backup, and since the freshman who played ahead of him last year (Beyer) has made the move to WDE, you would imagine the onetime receiver, onetime epitome of ethereal spring optimism at free safety, and onetime 3-3-5 spinner will have finally settled into a useful something. He spent most of last year with a back injury that gives us precious little information on what he might become. So is C.Gordon a junior stunted by position switches, bad fundamental coaching and injury who's now ready to erupt, or a guy with bad fundamentals doomed to be remembered for that one time he was badly cast in the hero role of a box office flop?

What you want are his credentials for a position that rotates like a train of traveling salesmen; what I've got for you is a barbershop quartet of coaches singing songs about him. One thing they don't say is "platoon." Despite his safety pedigree and safety frame versus Jake Ryan's oft hand-down deployment, the coaches haven't indicated Gordon is a situational backup. The SLB in this defense is supposed to be more like a WDE than the other two linebacker spots, and Cam is not that. On the other hand he seems tailor-made for the side-job of the SLB: covering the guy in the slot.

So I'm saying if Ryan goes down, Michigan probably goes with Gordon and eases off the gas a bit, leaning less on pressure and more on coverage from the position. The real drop-off won't be too severe, as there are other guys who can blitz if the SLB becomes more coverage-oriented, and there are rush options extant. The apparent drop-off will feel like when we lost Marcus Ray—the defense is still the defense but that sense that somebody's about to lose an important body organ will be appreciably depreciated. You'll see Gordon plenty either way.

In case of dire emergency: Well like I said this position rotates. Don't know what will happen with Clark, but if he's in at WDE that means Brennan Beyer can easily reprise his 2011 role over here. Mario Ojemudia could be pressed into service. And any of the freshmen linebackers could end up here. Of the four, I picked Royce Jenkins-Stone as the SAM since Bolden already seems to be the two-deep man at Mike, and Ringer was here for spring practice at Mike, and scouting reports say Ross is a coverage-y WLB-type, while RJS has been described as a raw, blitz-loving knife. That's an SLB. It'd be best if he redshirts to learn how to be the second-most aggressive guy on the defense (WDE is the first) while holding the edge.

MIKE (Middle Linebacker):

IMG_5220IMG_4747

Starter: Kenny Demens 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o

Backups: Joe Bolden 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, Who? Mike Jones 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, Kaleb Ringer 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, WLBs

In case of emergency: Responding to my size chart in last week's article, TSS started a thread about how Demens, who's listed at 248 on the spring roster (which is a copy of last fall's), has significantly Clipboard02-3more beef than the rest of the linebacking crew. The image above seems to reject the notion that he's the Carl Diggs among the Brackinses; the variability charts for the 2012 linebackers say he's huge (right, via TSS). So I checked the average listed size for a Michigan contributing linebacker since 1993, and it says he made big:

Season Demens M Avg
1st (Freshman-true) 224 225
2nd (Sophomore or RS Fr) 236 228
3rd (Junior or RS Soph) 246 232
4th (Senior or RS Junior) 248 233
5th year Senior 252 238

Most of our starters played over 240 in their 4th or 5th years. Over 230 is where it seems the contributors need to be. And when you look at the depth chart for 2012 there are exactly three dudes who seem likely to fit that description:

MLBs Wt SLBs Wt WLBs Wt
Kenny Demens 248 Jake Ryan 230 Desmond Morgan 220
Joe Bolden 230 Cam Gordon 222 Brandin Hawthorne 214
Mike Jones 224 Royce Jenkins-Stone 215 Antonio Poole 212
Kaleb Ringer 219     James Ross 209

Knock-knock … Orange … yada yada … you have Joe Bolden, the 2012 recruit I am most giggity about, and for good reason. He had the kind of performance as the starter (Demens was wearing that club you see above) in the spring game that makes even the cautious prognosticators say "I think we have something here." Then they pull out the David Harris comparisons.

There's nothing I can really add to the recruiting profile or the lofty expectations except to focus on what he brings to the table right now. That is a guy with freshman-grade Kovacsian play-diagnosis skills that must be tempered by "is a true freshman," plus a lot of range and athleticism that must be tempered by "is probably not strong enough yet to get off blocks." I don't think Demens should be worried about losing his job this year unless he's banged up, however in that eventuality Michigan has something between what Desmond Morgan was last year and a freshman Manti Te'o on hand, and should be just fine. Orange you glad!

In case of dire emergency: The phrase "Who? MIKE JONES!" had a very short meme life on the MGoBoards, and it is the considered hope of every Michigan fan that it should never become the headline of an MGoInjury Roundup or uttered without irony inside Michigan Stadium ever. Before the injury that ruined his 2009 coaches were suggesting he might displace Mouton; alas that seems to have been motivational spring hokum. More hype/hokum was Mattison saying he's an unstoppable speed rusher. We saw Jones a bit while Michigan was killing clock against Minnesota and he looked, um, safety-ish. There is a job for a safety-ish linebacker in this defense—the Will—but there are so many other slight LBs on this roster that tripping the 220-something wire puts you into the mix at middle. I would think before we see Jones start, Morgan would slide down to MLB and Hawthorne become the full-time WLB. While time is running out for Jones, he's not ignorable.

WILL (Weakside Linebacker):

IMG_4732IMG_5224

Starter: Desmond Morgan 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o.5

Backups: Brandin Hawthorne 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, Antonio Poole 4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o4128455980_9d72f36b6b_o, James Ross ???, MLBs

In case of emergency: You can argue about the stars being low for a sophomore whom I already said was at 3 stars when starting as a true freshman—that was at the end of last year and I expect Des should still be improving exponentially as this season goes on. I also predict this year you'll start seeing more Jake Ryan in him, since everyone from recruiting analysts to coaches have raved about grittiness, something we haven't had the opportunity to see much of just yet. If our next Eckstein McGritsalot loses that opportunity, the safety net is the the safety-like Brandin Hawthorne.

If you have the opportunity to give the coaches one suggestion for 2012, please join the MGoCrusade to have Hawthorne deployed as the WLB when Michigan goes to nickel. Until Morgan emerged in the second half of last year, Hawthorne had lain tenuous claim to defense's most open position. Brandon Herron, the beefy Yang to Brandin's Yin, dropped out of the race after the double-fumble touchdown rally and has graduated. Hawthorne was excellent in coverage, knifed into the backfield for a key stop against Notre Dame, and displayed Pahokeeian speed to all parts of the field … except when a blocker came near.

For you Tiger fans, Hawthorne is the Ramon Santiago of this defense. He is great at what he does, but playing him every down is going to expose his weakness against the run. So what does happen if Des goes down? It's probably Joe Bolden, but with more Hawthorne appearances.

In case of dire emergency: Trouble with capital T, rhymes with P, stands for…oh actually we don't know what we have in Antonio Poole except his name lends itself well to the Music Man theme. Really he's a redshirt freshman who was ignored by Rodriguez but picked up quickly by Hoke. His recruiting profile lists abilities of play diagnosis, tackling, and translating of the Facebook pages of CRex's in-laws. Third on the depth chart is where you'd want a redshirt freshman to be. Anyway if you see Poole that means he's better than expected, or that "dire emergency" includes the MLB depth chart too. Same goes for James Ross, who was at one point the highest rated linebacker of the 2012 uber-haul, and may yet have a long career beside Bolden (Orange!), however he's listed in the vicinity of 200 lbs. and would probably benefit from a redshirt more than Ringer, who was here for Spring ball. Since redshirting a consensus high 4-star is a luxury we haven't had around the linebacking parts in some time, I suggest we take advantage of it.

Comments

jbibiza

July 25th, 2012 at 8:24 AM ^

Didn't see that coming - a beautiful old standard blended into my favorite blog.  Priceless!

Oh, and the analysis is great as always.  Perhaps should have noted that the Spring weights were just copied from last Fall so some of the guys were/are very likely to be heavier.

jg2112

July 25th, 2012 at 8:53 AM ^

Two things:

(1) Brenna Beyer?

(2) At least three other Michigan-focused websites have known since June that Antonio Poole has a significant upper-body injury (it's either a torn pectoral or arm muscle) that will almost undoubtedly cause him to miss the 2012 season. That's something MGoBlog staff should know as well.

Seth

July 25th, 2012 at 9:13 AM ^

Thanks in re: Poole.

I saw this one: http://gbmwolverine.com/2012/07/16/michigan-football-coachs-corner-anto…

But I had no confirmaton on that. I don't know if Brian knows more--the team isn't saying he's out and with injuries it's our policy to not report until it's reported (since we have some opponents known for targeting injuries).

I had already thrown his name out there for editorial flair, and thus felt duty bound to actually provide some sort of opinion on him. I think even if he's healthy, you wouldn't see him this year unless Morgan, Bolden, Hawthorne, and maybe Jones (who was deep in the mix at WLB last year at this time) is out.

Seth

July 25th, 2012 at 9:48 AM ^

Three guesses which Music Man song I plan to put the defensive backs to. Trouble, Shipoopi, Rock Island and Till There Was You are already used, and "Iowa Stubborn" is being saved for such time that Kirk Ferentz's new coordinators who are just like the old coordinators are playing Michigan.

Genzilla

July 25th, 2012 at 10:12 AM ^

Can't remember the last time I wasn't deathly terrified of a LB getting hurt.  Obviously I'm not rooting for it, but I won't vomit if it happens this year (unless it's Ryan).

Tuebor

July 25th, 2012 at 11:11 AM ^

Can't wait!

 

While last season the defensive line got all the hype I expect the linebackers to be the focal point of our defense in 2012.

 

I think the dline will be more focused on eating up blockers so guys like demens, ryan, morgan, and associates can clean up.  Depth shouldn't be an issue like the op points out gordon is highly touted, bolden is a super recruit with 1 spring behind him, and hawthorne has shown some flashes. 

 

I think I'm more excited about this years defense than last years.  38 days!

RakeFight

July 25th, 2012 at 11:22 AM ^

The depth and talent here is pretty exciting.  And while this year it's nice to think we have talent like this backing up a thin unproven D-Line, I can't wait until future years when the D-Line is good enough to let the LBs roam free... they'll be devestating.

CRex

July 25th, 2012 at 1:30 PM ^

If Poole can fight his way through the crowds in a Seoul subway station, he'll have no problem shedding blocks to get into the backfield.  

TESOE

July 26th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^

Bring on the halcyon days of Cannavino, Sword and Girgash...O'Neal, Simpkins, Boren, Mallory, Irons, Foote.  There was time when LB meant leadership.  I can't wait for these guys to develop.