Previously: The Story. Podcast 12.4A, 12.4B, 12.4C. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL. Offensive Tackle. Defensive End. Defensive Tackle. Linebacker.

Depth Chart

Boundary Corner	Yr.	Field Corner	Yr.	Nickelback	Yr.
Vincent Gray	So.*	Gemon Green	So.*	Andre Seldon	Fr.
DJ Turner II	Fr.*	Sammy Faustin	So.*	Dax Hill	So.
Darion Green-Warren	Fr.	Jalen Perry	Fr.*	Brad Hawkins	Sr.

Well, crap. We're back.

There are kids in college who don't remember a point where cornerback was a bonafide problem for Michigan football. The last time Michigan gave more than one start to a guy who wasn't at least a fringe NFL player was 2014(!), when Raymon Taylor got passed midseason by a sophomore Jourdan Lewis. The only guys to go undrafted since, Channing Stribling and Lavert Hill, was second-team and first-team All Big Ten, respectively.

It's been a terrific run. And now it's under serious threat. After Ambry Thomas decided not to opt back in it's been scramble time. First there was a ton of talk about moving Dax Hill to corner. Reasonable! He's a five star. He can hack it. The biggest problem with that is that he is so dynamic that moving him to corner might reduce his impact.

Then Hill went back to safety and Sammy Faustin moved to corner. He might start.

Redshirt freshman Sammy Faustin has switched positions from safety to corner within “the last week" and is in the mix to start on Oct. 24 at Minnesota.

Slam that panic button.

[After THE JUMP: uhhhhhhh]

CORNERBACK: SCRAMBLE TIME

RATING: 2

Gray needs to improve, now [Bryan Fuller]

With Ambry Thomas gone, Michigan's undisputed #1 corner is VINCENT GRAY [recruiting profile]. QED:

From Brad Hawkins, it sounds like Vincent Gray is gonna shadow Rashod Bateman on Saturday, assuming the game is played.

— Theo Mackie (@theo_mackie) October 20, 2020

That's quite a rise for a guy who was headed to Mizzou until Michigan flipped him late in the process. Unlike the rest of the guys mentioned in this post, Gray got a lot of positive talk immediately…

[Gray] “has been balling” and “has shown a willingness to hit.” ... has been getting run with the twos lately over his higher-rated freshman position-mates.

…and started paying that off last year when he was the #3 corner, seeing a couple hundred snaps. His first tests came against Iowa, which went fairly well:

Vincent Gray got targeted on a couple of fades, which went okay. Both of them were underthrown. This was beneficial on one, but not the other. On the beneficial one it looks like he's beat by a step or two; the underthrow gives him a chance to recover:

He gets his head around there but ends up missing the ball as he tries to bat it. The second was a near-identical situation except the ball was even more underthrown. Gray again gets his head around—sort of—but gets hit with a flag:

If Gray makes contact with his arm does he get away with this? Kind of feels like yes. The referee closest to this doesn't throw his flag, only the back judge does.

Gray getting put in trail position isn't as good as, you know, running the route for the guy and intercepting. [ED: which Lavert Hill did in this game] Finding the ball on both is a positive.

But it did not last. You may remember this remarkable PFF stat that snuck Gray in at the end of a list of great Michigan corners:

Lowest completion % allowed by a B1G DB since 2014:

1. David Long Jr, Michigan ('18) - 29.0%
2. Channing Stribling, Michigan ('16) - 30.2%
3. David Long Jr, Michigan ('17) - 31.0%
4. Jourdan Lewis, Michigan ('16) - 31.7%
5. Vincent Gray, Michigan ('19) - 32.4% pic.twitter.com/mYM3KMTxdo

— PFF College (@PFF_College) June 22, 2020

That is hallowed company. The grading around these parts was nowhere near as optimistic. The ensuing game against Illinois did not go nearly as well. He picked up a –6, with eight negatives. This guy who is not Josh Imhatorbebe gave him the business by selling a fade Gray overplayed:

And against Notre Dame there were clear differences between Ambry Thomas and Gray's coverage on similar routes:

Okay but why does Gray get hit with minuses for Claypool completions and Thomas doesn't?

I generally throw up my hands when a very well covered receiver gets a pinpoint throw. If the offense executes perfectly, you lose. Catches against Thomas were of this variety. ND's conversion on their first drive saw Thomas in perfect position with his head around and then the throw is high, away, and just accurate enough for Claypool to stab a foot in a couple inches from the sideline:

By contrast this completion on Gray is three yards further inside and well within an area where you'd like your CB to get a play on the ball or at least be able to harass the catch. Gray doesn't really and gets fortunate that Claypool drops this unmolested:

Thomas is getting a PBU there if he plays it like he did on the one where he gives up the catch.

Ambry got hit again later in the game on a similar play where I mean… okay. You win.

CB #1 to bottom

I'm not negging a guy for that even if we tend to default to results around here.

Gray's other minus came on a play where he picked up a PI and Claypool still made the catch; he neither gets his head around or plays shoryuken on the ball.

CB #31

There are a lot of throws Thomas defends; Gray got a couple that were defensible and didn't get defensed. That why Thomas got some modest positives an Gray got negatives.

After that Gray was used more sparingly. He did have a +2 bit of coverage against Maryland:

Other than that he didn't come in for anything that got clipped after Notre Dame.

Meanwhile Gray was not Ambry Thomas against the run. One of last year's weirdest subplots was Ambry Thomas, Edge Assassin. Gray… was not an edge assassin. This popped up immediately against Middle Tennessee, when he was incredibly passive on two bubble screens:

CB #31 to top

He did get in a couple sticks when MTSU neglected to block him. Later he airballed an important tackle against Illinois, losing leverage. This an Area For Improvement.

I know this has been rather grim so far. The good news is that there's every reason to expect Gray will improve a lot. He was just a redshirt freshman a year ago. At the same point in Thomas's career people were a little worried about him. Lavert Hill was still being mentioned in press conferences as the guy who bites on all double moves and explodes. The talk from inside the program has been quality. Zordich:

"You just watch him move, physically he has—he’s a very gifted guy, and you just watch his movements and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ Now he’s putting it all together with his play. It’s pretty impressive. I mean, the sky’s the limit for that kid.”

I'd like it a lot more if the second corner spot wasn't a sack of cats and Gray had fended off some guys. I still think it's reasonable to expect the Gray from 2019 doesn't look much like the 2020 version and that he rounds into a solid Big Ten corner.

But he's not #3 anymore.

Green is a nose ahead [Patrick Barron]

Opposite Gray will be SOMEBODY WHO MAKES YOU A BIT NERVOUS. If there was a clear solution here Michigan wouldn't have swapped two different safeties into this spot. Best guess is that there's rotation here unless someone starts performing. Based on the talk the first opportunity should go to GEMON GREEN [recruiting profile].

Green, a mid-four-star, was proclaimed the "leader in the clubhouse" by Don Brown a couple weeks ago. That implies a level of certainty that all other talk about the cornerbacks refutes, but if I had to guess I'd say he's the pick. Josh Ross appeared to name the starting secondary a few days ago, including Green with the three sure things.

Green has rarely gotten on the field in meaningful time—his most notable on-field event was getting dusted by Tarik Black in the 2018 spring game—so it's back to people talking abouts stuff. Brown:

"Gemon Green has really played well. He’s a guy that’s been with us for a period of time, has always had the athletic ability. Conceptually, he’s kind of put it all together so we feel really good about him,"

There is upside here. Green takes from after his enrollment usually said things that implied he was athletic but not quite there. Last year Webb said that Gray's rise "hasn't been a matter of athletic upside"—Green has more. Lorenz this fall:

Green is among the players the Michigan staff has been hoping the light would go on for most. … Sam mentioned in our podcast last week about inconsistency being the deal-breaker for Green thus far but the consensus is that he is potentially elite from a physical standpoint.

Mike Sainristil also painted the picture of a guy who has physical talent but has had a lot of practice dorfs so far in his career:

He's just become way more confident in himself. Just lining up with confidence, walking with confidence. I just feel like he feels good in his own body.

Recruiting takes also captured this, and in a little more detail:

…needs to refine his technique as a cornerback and eliminate the mental mistakes in coverage. Because he is so athletic, he's been known to overreact and overcommit to well-run routes which gets him into trouble on double moves.

Despite this EJ Holland, then a 247 Texas analyst, continually beat the drum for Green:

Green frustrated wide receivers all day with his height, length and athleticism. A true cover corner, Green has a knack for making plays on the ball. … makes up ground in a hurry and plays the ball well.

So: ton of upside, good athleticism, probably still liable to getting torched if there's an ongoing battle with guest safeties. No spring data. Your guess is as good as mine. If all else fails Michigan might be able to stick him on the outside and dare folks to win with fades.

BACKUPS

Harbaugh mentioned four guys competing to start opposite Gray. The folks other than Green are DJ TURNER II [recruiting profile], SAMMY FAUSTIN [recruiting profile], and JALEN PERRY [recruiting profile]. Before Green was the leader, Turner and Perry were the leaders, and then Faustin got added to the mix last week. This is our concern, dude.

TURNER is this site's guess for the #3 CB. He drew some practice hype last year from Sam:

They’ve been really impressed with DJ Turner. A very technically sound youngster that picks things up quick. Based on what I’ve heard in the last week or so I think he stands a good chance of winning the fourth corner spot.

There was no fourth corner spot, but that might be in large part because Turner was beset by injury last fall. His recruitment was more encouraging than his ranking, as he is another guy Michigan recruited like he was the #1 guy on their board. Also:

Turner's recruitment was one of the weirdest of the cycle. He fielded a ton of big offers, several of which seemed committable. He posted the #20 SPARQ at the Opening, which of course has a big swath (about 80) of the top recruits in the country. He played at North Gwinnett, a power in Georgia's largest class, and IMG. And he went virtually unscouted and ended up ranked as a middling three star by the two sites that bother to explain themselves.

A crappy 40 appears to be the main reason that he wasn't more highly rated. If he can patch that up with some college S&C he could be a find. Turner has been mentioned more often than anyone other than Green over the course of the last year. The Faustin move does give some pause.

he's the one with dreads [Bryan Fuller]

Meanwhile FAUSTIN was on the fast train to nowhere city last year since the apparent spring depth chart featured two different walk-ons in front of him. He did start generating some positive takes as a safety this fall. Brown said he was "dramatically improved". He apparently spent a big chunk of his spring doing, well, this:

The is watching pt.11 with @649Slim_
Sammy Faustin is a DB at University of Michigan working on his skills in Naples, FL. Keep an eye out for him next season. This kid will be a ⭐️! #BewareOfPlaymakers #AttackTheDay #ChillDontPayTheBills @UMichFootball pic.twitter.com/3JSLjhSSGz

— TeamJacquem (@Teamjacquem) May 4, 2020

Now he's at corner. This isn't entirely out of the blue. Faustin was a high school corner who projected to safety in college because he is big—a full 6'2"—and doesn't have ideal athleticism. Webb mentioned that they were thinking about this move last year because he "has football speed and impressive length."

If this goes as well as it possibly can this switch will be like the one Jeremy Clark undertook a few years back. Clark was an athletic 6'3" safety who had too many busts to be playable there. At corner he lined up in man, attempted to take away everything but fades, and then swatted those fades away. It was good enough to get him drafted late despite missing most of his senior year with an injury.

PERRY was a consensus four-star corner out of high-level Georgia football. Recruiting analysts had wildly divergent takes on his athleticism but believed he was heady and relatively polished player. Radio silence about him seemed like a pretty bad sign. Harbaugh did just mention him as one of four guys competing for the starting slot, but there was very little about him all last year.

The Faustin move and his apparent spot on or near the two-deep is bad news for the immediate future of the other guys on the roster, all of whom are some variety of freshman. GEORGE JOHNSON III [recruiting profile] got a redshirt last year. He was a high school quarterback originally recruited to be a slot receiver. He only moved to corner for bowl practices. He'd be doing very well to be on the radar at this point.

There are also three true freshmen. Like Johnson, EAMONN DENNIS [recruiting profile] is an offensive player who got swapped to defense because Michigan has slot receivers coming out its ears. He'll need at least a year to polish. Brown claimed a 4.38 for him, which would be nice.

nice marmot

The other two guys have some shot at playing time. ANDRE SELDON [recruiting profile] has everything you want in a cornerback except for the ability to go on rides at Cedar Point. He's 5'8". Despite that glaring deficiency the sites shot him up their rankings over the course of the cycle; Seldon did every camp, took on every challenge, and eventually won over even the NFL-draft-obsessed 24/7:

…exceptional positional skills, instincts, competitive qualities and an all around feel and savvy for the game … big vertical and good make-up speed. … If height was a concern, then his battles with Julian Fleming and mountainous tight end Darnell Washington quelled those concerns. Seldon was arguably the best defensive back [at the UA game] … room for smaller cornerbacks if they have exceptional qualities outside of size and Seldon has those.

Seldon would be pretty easy to drop in at the nickel spot if a need becomes clear.

Finally, DARION GREEN-WARREN [recruiting profile] is a four-star out of California who Michigan pirated away from what was supposedly a silent USC commit. Green-Warren's scouting is odd for a consensus four star since it contains many assertions he's not the fastest guy in the world; it also asserts he's one of the most polished cornerbacks in this class:

physical at the line of scrimmage … not going to let you get into your route, and he’s going to compete on the back end. …. great feet. … going to be very good on an island if he needs to be…. very good week for him [at the AA game] in terms of being consistent and being one of those corners that had his side of the field locked down, so nothing really happened.

He's outside the two-deep currently but if things crater he might get a look.