Previously: Podcast 15.0A, 15.0B, 15.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL. Defensive Interior. Edge. Linebacker. Cornerback. 

Depth Chart

Safety	Yr.	Also Safety	Yr.
Makari Paige	Jr.*	Rod Moore	Jr.
Quinten Johnson	Jr.*	Keon Sabb	Fr.*
Zeke Berry	Fr.*	Caden Kolesar	Sr.*

Michigan lost RJ Moten in the offseason on a post-spring transfer to Florida that was entirely performance/playing-time related but otherwise rolls over the same depth chart from last season. Moten began 2022 as the #2 safety and logged considerable regular season snaps but by the end of last season was virtually unplayable at safety, so there is complete continuity from the Fiesta Bowl division of snaps. Caden Kolesar is back healthy after playing in just five games and the blue chip true freshmen safeties from last year are no longer true freshmen (but are still blue chip). 

 

SAFETY: Pax Safetifica

RATING: 4.5 

[Patrick Barron]

Last August in the final season preview podcast, your author was asked to name his "dude" for the defense, the player you are irrationally excited about. I chose ROD MOORE, predicting a terrific season for him that would see Moore seamlessly help replace the departed Brad Hawkins and rise to be one of the best defensive players on the team. At the time it seemed a bit bold and the other panelists on said podcast were audibly startled. My logic was two-fold: Moore was getting immense fall camp hype describing the rising sophomore like a 5th year veteran and Moore had, as a 3* true freshman, started at safety and done perfectly fine against an Ohio State receiving group that has a legitimate claim to being the best of all time. That doesn't happen often and typically indicates a player destined for super-stardom. 

In a victory for my takes, my willingness to put the thumb on the scale for Rod Moore was right on the money: 

Game	Plus	Minus	Tot	Notes
Colorado St.	6	0	6	Pick was a gimme, made his presence felt in run game
Hawaii	3	0	3	True sophomore plays like a senior. Also tracking star
UConn	4.5	0.5	4	Not tested in coverage, shoots into running game
Maryland	5	-6	-1	Soph Gm 4 is a weird time to have your first freshman game
Iowa	5.5	4	1.5	Missed a funnel, missed some tackles, still a rocket
Indiana	4	4	0	Got the hang of screen-hunting eventually
PSU	1	6.5	-5.5	A second late on 3rd and longs, -3 for the Clifford run
MSU	11	0	11	OH DERE YOU ARE PETER PAN
Rutgers	0	1	-1	Was he blitzing? Otherwise not used
Nebraska	3.5	0	3.5	Star watch is back on
Illinois	5.5	5	0.5	They got him with that screen
OSU	10	5	5	Ha ha they didn't want you
Purdue	7.5	2	5.5	Very very close to the star.
TCU	5.5	2.5	3	Impact safety
TOTAL	71	36.5	34.5	You get a star, good sir

The chronology of Moore's season was a terrific start pushing him on the brink of star status, an October lull that may have been injury-related, followed by an end-of-season rampage beginning with a historic performance against MSU. He never did get a star on the diagram, but after his showing against TCU, he will begin the 2023 season with one. Well earned. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: some clips]

Moore got his 2022 season going with an easy INT against Colorado State that wasn't impressive enough to get clipped in the UFR but we ought to start this section with it: 

Moore's greatest attribute is his eyes, his ability to linger deep on a play, tiptoe around while he reads the QB's eyes, then activates and zooms to strike. He was marvelous at this when Michigan used him as the safety bracketing Marvin Harrison Jr. in The Game: 

Seth wrote about this post-OSU: 

The other guy who had one of his best games was Rod Moore. One of the things I liked about his film out of high school was he had the greatest potential for generating interceptions of any Michigan safety recruits in a long time. We got to see what the Ohio coaches were talking about as Moore jumped routes twice

The "potential for generating interceptions" that Seth is talking about there was on supreme display in Moore' virtuosic performance against Michigan State. This play got NFL draft scouts talking: 

This is all Rod Moore. He hangs back and baits the QB into throwing it, knowing that he's got a play on the ball if Thorne pulls the trigger. Thorne falls into the trap, Moore activates and jumps the route. Those eyes are pure deceptive magic and helped him collect two of his four interceptions in 2022. His other two were an example of the nice hands that he has, especially in comparison to the departed RJ Moten. He scooped one up off the turf against Indiana, and did the same on the tip drill INT against TCU in the Fiesta Bowl: 

INTs aren't Moore's only asset in pass defense. He's plenty capable of matching up in the slot and swatting away a pass all the same: 

Moore has also proven himself to be a superb tackler in the secondary, an excellent cleanup aisle guy. I still think about this tackle against Ohio State often: 

NFL scouts have also noticed his tackling prowess: 

Rod Moore plays completely without fear against the run. Really, really good open field tackler.

— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) November 20, 2021

Moore is a stout run defender for the same reason he's strong against the pass: the eyes, the acceleration, sure-handed tackling, and great routes to make a play. The wait, wait, wait, ZOOM is a trademark of Moore's: 

Moore can dance right through the line and into the backfield for a stop: 

Or he can power straight through a TE for a stop: 

So I've shown you all the good stuff. What didn't we like about Rod Moore? After the blazing start to the season, Moore had some ups-and-downs, which Seth believed was injury-related. Moore faced Maryland and Indiana and had some issues with the frippery that those offenses throw at you. He got caught staring at a RB and missed his man, leading to a TD against the Terps. He got hit with negatives in UFRs for showing up a split-second late in coverage and then his worst play of the year came against PSU: 

That play is an example of how Moore's aggressive reads that fuel his run defense prowess can get him in trouble when deception happens. On that play it was Clifford pulling the ball, against Illinois it was a fake screen that got him. He may always be vulnerable to those sorts of plays, but I do think that as Moore continues to age, he will only get better at cleaning some of that up. After all, Rod Moore was only a true sophomore last season and is now aging into his upperclassman years. 

I wouldn't be terribly optimistic about the possibility of getting Rod Moore back for his senior year though. He publicly mentioned the possibility of 2023 being his final season in an interview detailing his number change (he's #9 this year) and as you can guess, draft scouts are quite a fan. Moore ranks 4th on PFF's safety big board for the 2024 NFL Draft and Dane Brugler from The Athletic concurs, with a #4 ranking among safeties. You can expect Moore to be arguably the best safety of the Harbaugh era this season (if we're classifying Peppers as a VIPER and Dax Hill as a nickel, I think Moore takes the crown), snag 1st team All-B1G next to Tyler Nubin of Minnesota, and then head off to a 2nd-3rd round selection in the 2024 NFL Draft. Thanks, Ohio State coaches!!

[Patrick Barron]

The starter next to Rod Moore will be fourth-year safety MAKARI PAIGE. A 4* nestled inside the top 250 back in 2020, Paige was a product of West Bloomfield, then coached by Ron Bellamy. West Bloomfield ran a similar defense to Michigan under Don Brown, which set Paige up well to join the fray in a hurry, ahead of classmates like RJ Moten and Jordan Morant. Michigan needed him in the first game of the (fake) 2020 season when Dax Hill was unable to perform against Minnesota and Paige got COOKED: 

Paige had a rough go. Bateman took a slant from eight yards to a chunk play by cutting back outside Paige, who could not tackle on the catch. Ibrahim was able to hop outside him for a 20-yard chunk of his own. Paige looked like a true freshman thrown in before he's ready, which he was.

We didn't see Paige much in 2020 after that (for good reason) and he was almost entirely absent from the 2021 season. Michigan had hired Mike Macdonald to install a totally new defense, which reversed the dynamic from 2020 when Paige was ahead of his classmates. Moten jumped ahead and grabbed the third safety role created when Dax Hill became full-time nickel and Paige played just 68 defensive snaps in 2021, nearly half of which came in blowouts against WMU and NIU. 

Going into last season, we were hearing good things about Makari Paige. There were reports that he was running with the ones in 2022 fall football bits and both Harbaugh and Clinkscale were showering him with praise. Brian thought Paige was only going to get on the field if Rod Moore was playing the nickel role: 

Even if optimism is warranted for Paige I'm not getting on the "maybe he can play corner" train. Paige looks like a deep safety and only a deep safety, a guy with straight line speed and plenty of height but without the kind of agility or tackling ability that would make you want to put him in the slot. His role will be to set up next to Moten when Moore gets rolled down into the box.

That's not exactly what happened. Rod Moore seldom played a lick of nickel but Paige got on the field anyway. Early in the year he was splitting snaps nearly evenly with RJ Moten but by mid-season he had clearly become 1A. After Moten's appalling late season self-immolation, Paige was the undisputed #2 safety and there was no tandem any longer. Chart: 

Game	Plus	Minus	Tot	Notes
Colorado St.	3	1	2	Reminded me of a young Jarrod Wilson one time
Hawaii	4	1	3	Eye-opening day. Doesn't look out of place with starters
UConn	4	0	4	Solid part of the rotation now
Maryland	4	1	3	Responsible with a side of violence
Iowa	3	2	1	Might have moved ahead of Moten
Indiana	2	4	-2	Tackling issue, rather he be the 1-high than the rolldown
PSU	0	-1.5	-1.5	Boring coverage, goal line needs more aggression
MSU	6	6	0	Not boring enough, also not appreciated enough
Rutgers				DNP
Nebraska				DNP
Illinois	0.5	1	-0.5	Mostly boring return (10 snaps)
OSU	5	1	4	Boring until he was needed to save us
Purdue	4.5	4	0.5	Think the big bust was on him, good tackling was too
TCU	8	3.5	4.5	Couple of missed tackles, otherwise very good
TOTAL	43.5	26	17.5	One of the breakout players of 2022

Paige was generally less noisy than Moore, as shown by the chart. He missed (essentially) three of the fourteen games, two with injury and one with You Just Got Healthy And We Can't Risk Re-Injury A Week Before Ohio State, which also mutes his total numbers. Still, for a player that this preview was skeptical would have any real role in August 2022, Paige's emergence as a quality starting safety was a revelation. No one should be surprised given his recruiting profile, but it was unexpected nonetheless. 

From the first moment Paige appeared against Colorado State, Seth liked his coverage on screens and saw massive improvement from 2020: 

Paige left nobody open and looked quick and confident in much the way that a true freshman in Game 1 of Year Covid would not

In week two, Paige flashed with a PBU against Hawaii: 

He rose up and made a play against Maryland when Michigan needed a safety to and showed his run-stopping ability in the box with a stick that looked like an LB against Iowa: 

After the Indiana game, halfway through the regular season, Seth was declaring Paige a starter (but also noting his play being below Moore's: 

I thought Paige, who has officially supplanted Moten as the other starting safety, wasn't in Moore's class when it came to that, but still quite sufficient when it came to speed, and then his size became a greater asset against the screen blockers. Paige also isn't in Moore's class as a tackler; he missed two in this game for 6 yards apiece

The season continued to roll along, Paige had his injury but then returned, and continued to be a rangy, boring safety. If he popped up in a UFR, it was for rock solid run stops like this: 

Paige doesn't have as many clippable plays as Moore and only had one INT to Moore's four, but that one, while not an incredible play, was pretty damn cool: 

If Paige has a weakness besides his lack of flash, it's his tackling relative to Moore. Paige isn't a poor tackler by any means, but as the chart shows, he was liable for roughly one missed tackle per week. That's fine so long as it's not a big one, but it does dock him a bit in draft ratings. Brugler had Paige on the list of draftable senior safeties, but he wasn't terribly high up and is likely more of a late-round draft candidate. There is a chance that Paige could rise with a strong season, but likely not enough to get in the same tier as Moore. A reasonable expectation for Paige is ~3rd team All-B1G and then an interesting decision to make for 2024 (Paige has a fifth year because of the COVID-shirt) as the One More Year Fund bangs on his door with the fervor of a Jehovah's Witness. 

In all likelihood, Michigan will boast the B1G's best safety tandem this season with Moore and Paige as the starters, a high not touched since Delano Hill/Dymonte Thomas of 2016. Seth summed it up as much after the TCU game: 

Moore and Paige are the Pax Safetifica. They're just juniors and already they feel like a pair of faster Brad Hawkinsii. Notable the one big bust in the secondary happened when not one of these guys was at safety. Also notable that it was a complex coverage

Hard to complain about that. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

BACKUPS

The reason for a team with the best starting safety tandem in the B1G to not get a 5 in the position group rating is the depth is a tad sketchy. Probably not bad, but too many unknown quantities to get a 5, especially when both starters are beginning the year banged up. The two and three-deep at this position can be divided into two camps, a pair of safeties older than the starters who have never developed into starter-caliber players for differing reasons and a pair of redshirt freshmen who were immensely talented coming out of HS but have combined for 20 defensive snaps in their NCAA careers. 

Let's start with the younger guys, because the sense is that they are higher on the depth chart and may be in line to start on Saturday. That, if true, is good news and suggests they are right on the track we'd want them to be on. Not everyone can be Rod Moore as a true freshman. We'll start with KEON SABB, who played more than Berry last season. Which is still almost nothing, so we're mostly going off the [recruiting profile] here. HS tape: 

Sabb was a top 100 recruit in the 2022 class who Michigan pried out of Clemson's grasp when DC Brent Venables was hired by Oklahoma late in the cycle. Sabb was a little late to settle on football as his sport in HS so that rawness + his intriguing frame made him seem a step away from being usable. Michigan seemed to be debating where to use Sabb on defense last fall camp, which was the focus of his write-up in last year's safety preview.

This season it sounds like Sabb is going to be a safety and not anything overlapping with linebacker/HSP. The camp buzz this year has been positive, with word coming in that both Sabb and the next player I will talk about standing out ($), while a separate publication noted ($) that the two were battling for the third safety job and that it was quite even. 

Sabb's only moment from last season in his extremely limited snaps was not a good one. He was a primary culprit for Hawaii's lone touchdown against the Wolverines in garbage time, taking a terrible angle and then stopping for some reason, before running again: 

That was not pretty and the way it unfolded made Sabb look comically slow, but I'm not taking that incident to mean anything major. His spring game contained a grab bag of good and bad and is probably a year away from starting caliber, but with a year under his belt (+ another six months since spring) and a grasp of the position/playbook, a talented blue chipper like Sabb be a usable safety in a reserve role... emphasis on "should".  

A lot of what was said about Sabb can apply to ZEKE BERRY [recruiting profile]. The two are forever linked, as both were late-cycle recruiting wins after Michigan beat OSU in 2021, both playing safety and both being high 4* types. Berry stood out as a recruit for his sizzling tape including a Thundersack that looked very Dax-On-Mertz-like. He did not enroll early, which put him behind Sabb for last season and he got next to no snaps during the season. However, in the very few that he played, he did get one clippable moment: 

Seth captioned it with "I see you Zeke Berry. Perhaps not this year, but we shall see each other again". Harbaugh compared Berry to Rod Moore last summer and if you've read this far, you should be pretty excited about that possibility. 

There's no intel on Berry from camp that I didn't already mention in the Sabb section. If one pops up in the insider scoops, the other one is only a couple words behind. Berry has been working out at the nickel spot at times a la Dax but word out of this camp is he's at safety battling with Sabb. This site came away from the spring game more enthused about Berry than Sabb, but in actuality, they are probably very similar in level of play. When you have two second-year blue chip safeties, at least one should be good enough to be a useful 3rd option. Since it seems possible that Moore and Paige both sit out the opener against ECU, we may get a heavy dose of Sabb and Berry right from the get-go. Here we go. 

[Patrick Barron]

If, for some reason, neither emerges, then we're probably back to the well of fifth-year options. Last year the most used of those veterans was QUINTEN JOHNSON. The DC kid was marketed as a fast safety coming out of HS in 2019 and then wasn't seen in 2019 or 2020. He popped back up on special teams in 2021 for purely unfortunate reasons before finally getting defensive snaps in 2022. Johnson had at least one charting play in seven of fourteen games as the #4 safety on the depth chart behind Moore, Paige, and Moten, but his score was not pretty: +5/-9. The mental error that bungled the PSU fake punt in 2021 has unfortunately more or less been illustrative of who QJ has been when in the game on defense. He was responsible for one of the biggest busts in pass defense against TCU, when Michigan ran a corner blitz but Johnson, the safety, didn't cover for the corner: 

There was also a horrible missed tackle on Rutgers' long catch-and-run. Maybe there's a way for him to put it altogether mentally, but Johnson is now a fifth-year player. If it hasn't happened to this point, odds are it's not going to. If Berry and Sabb are on track to be good starting safeties for Michigan in 2024 and beyond, they need to be ahead of Johnson on this year's depth chart. 

The last name who could theoretically see the field this year is CADEN KOLESAR. Son of Michigan royalty, Kolesar also entered the program in 2019 and has mostly been a special teams ace, filling in on defense here-and-there when needed. His INT late in the 2021 B1G Championship Game is still his highlight to date: 

Kolesar entered last season ahead of Johnson on the depth chart, but played only five games due to injury. He did very little in those five games, so Brian's analysis from last year still applies: 

We don't have any actually data here but Kolesar will probably be fine in a Jordan Kovacs way if forced into serious duty. He's been around the block, he's a valuable special teamer, he's a program legacy. He's not the biggest or fastest guy but can be counted on to be in the right spot and that's like 83% of playing safety at the college level. This space is relatively sanguine about his spot on the depth chart.

I would also like Berry and Sabb to be above Kolesar and if they are, it will be because of their superior athleticism and natural talent. No one is going to know more about Michigan than Caden Kolesar. 

Finally, at the bottom of the depth chart are players you will likely only see for a maximum of four games. BRANDYN HILLMAN [recruiting profile] was a very late flip from Notre Dame with an intriguing athletic profile but is not close to making an impact. It seems like they're going to start D'JUAN "DJ" WALLER JR. [recruiting profile] at corner but his 6'4" body suggests an eventual move to safety is a possibility.