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

Kicker	Yr	Punter	Yr	Kickoffs	Yr	Punt Return	Yr	Kick Return	Yr
James Turner	Sr.*	Tommy Doman	So.*	Tommy Doman	So.*	Donovan Edwards	Jr.	ALEX ORJI	Fr.*
Adam Samaha	Fr.	Hudson Hollenbeck	Fr.*	James Turner	Sr.*	Kalel Mullings	Jr.*	Eamonn Dennis	So.*

Well, the Pax Specialistica has ended. Michigan sent Jake Moody and Brad Robbins to the NFL, ending three years of joy and security, give or take. Robbins did have a rough spell at the end of last year when he was clearly "going through something," as Harbaugh would say, and Moody had one wobbly stretch a couple years back.

Things should be fine, as Michigan has a touted punter waiting in the wings and hit the portal for an established college kicker to give their freshman some time to come online. I do not think kickers should be able to transfer at all, because it is deeply funny when a power program cannot kick 30-yarders, but if they're eligible you might as well get one.

KICKING: LOCAL BOY GROWS MUSTACHE

RATING: 4

The transfer Michigan brought in is JAMES TURNER [recruiting profile], who's coming off a three-year run at Louisville. Years 1 and 3 were solid-to-excellent; he was 13/15 as a freshman and 20/22 as a junior, albeit on mostly short stuff. Half of his attempts were under 30 yards last year—now that's a team with redzone struggles—so that 20/22 only saw UL place 35th in field goal efficiency.

You are probably wondering about year two. Well. It wasn't good. It wasn't horrible; it wasn't good. Turner went 14/22. He was 0/3 from 50+ that year, so that's a bit of a mitigating factor, but 6/10 from 40-49 is not ideal. Turner dropped to 97th in FGE that year.

Michigan will be losing considerable ability to bomb it in from deep.Turner's only career make from 50+ came in 2020; he's 1/6 from range in his career and did not attempt one last year.

He's almost automatic inside 40—one career miss—and is 14/19 from 40-49. Seth goes into absurd detail about his travails and bounce back in that profile if you want to add another 3k words to your War And Preview week. The upshot is that if Turner doesn't go #collegekickers on us he won't be Moody but he'll still be one of the better Michigan kickers in recent history:

Also in things this blog finds extremely important, he has a prospecting mustache.

Buy this man a sarsaparilla. (Offer does not apply to Harbaugh, Jim.)

[After THE JUMP: he's the Doman for his time and place]

Other options are freshmen. Redshirt freshman TOMMY DOMAN is going to be the punter but was also a highly viable placekicker as a recruit and could be a do-it-all option. More about him in the next section. 

Michigan also brought in local kid ADAM SAMAHA [recruiting profile] in the most recent recruiting class. Seth could find very little on him, because kicker, but Brandon Kornblue ranked him #1 and he's got a heck of a track record at that spot. He'll redshirt and either get the job next year or get Crippen'd. My advice is to get that lip adorned. These are rookie follicles, you gotta pump up those follicles.

PUNTING: ONE OF THEM GOOD DOINKS

RATING: 4.5

CHAIR-WIELDER TO PLAY IMPORTANT ROLE ON TEAM THIS IS NOT A DRILL [Barron]

Brad Robbins is off to the NFL and redshirt freshman TOMMY DOMAN [recruiting profile] steps into the breach. Punters are usually more projectable than kickers because they don't have to put it through the yellow things, and all indications are that Doman has a cannon. First off, he's 6'4" so those levers are long, and all three kicker evaluation sites had him at the very top of their rankings. He was the #1 combo guy to Kornblue, the #2 punter to Kohl's, and the #1 punter to Chris Sailer. He made the Army Bowl, the first Michigan punter to do so since Zoltan Mesko.

His senior stats—particularly the kickoffs—also help confirm that you do not want to be kicked by this man:

Senior Year Stats:
FG: 6/7 (53,49,47,37,32,22)
PATs: 13/13
Punt: 44.8 yd avg on 17 punts, 10 inside the 20
KO: 18/24 TB(4 through FG posts,3 onside kick calls)https://t.co/B9O7h3m3t9

— Tommy Doman Jr (@tdoman19) November 16, 2020

Doman also blasted a kickoff eight yards out of the endzone in the spring game as a true freshman. On top of that Harbaugh's running around saying stuff like this when he just put a guy in the league:

Jim Harbaugh calls Tommy Doman "a special talent" at punter. "We haven't seen a leg like this since I've been here."

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) July 27, 2023

The time to make kicks that doink the goalposts worth a point is right now, America:

Orchard Lake Saint Mary's 2021 K/P Thomas Doman Jr. (Michigan commit) kicked 5 "no doubt" touchbacks last night.

2 of the kickoffs hit the field goal posts

UM is getting a great one!

@tdoman36 @OLSMUpdates @OLSMFootball pic.twitter.com/faD7pscb06

— The D Zone (@TheD_Zone) September 18, 2020

One of those is halfway up the goalpost. What if Quinn Nordin, but punter?

It is possible that Doman cracks under the pressure right out of the gate. Robbins came in with a similar amount of hype but struggled at the beginning of his Michigan career, eventually ceding the job to Will Hart, before recovering and establishing himself as a pro. That's about all standing between Michigan and another pro. He's also the official punter of a local car dealership, so he's got that going for him.

FWIW, from a team performance perspective it won't be hard to improve on last year. Robbins struggling through injury dragged Michigan's punt efficiency down to 80th. ("Why wasn't Doman punting, then?" you might ask before remembering a certain event and walking into the sea.)  I would also expect Doman to handle kickoffs. See: doinks.

Michigan also brought in Mississippi State transfer HUDSON HOLLENBECK, who redshirted in 2022 before deciding Starkville was not for him. Hollenbeck is another combo kicker; he was more highly rated as a punter. Apparently not even we are insane enough to write up a backup punter, but don't sleep on him.

He's working on it.

RETURN UNITS: DO IT TO IT

RATING: 4?

you'd look so cool [Barron]

It's unfortunate that kickoff returns have been legislated into near irrelevancy, because I badly want this to be something that impacts Michigan's season:

"A secret plan for Alex Orji: He’s got a chance to be one of the greatest kick returners of all time."

He does not, because 80% of the time he will be watching the ball fly into the endzone. Harbaugh followed that up with an assertion that Michigan would have to improve their blocking before he'd assent to deploying Orji, presumably because the risk of injury isn't worth it if he's just going to get chopped down at the 20 by three guys.

But Orji fits our three-pronged criteria for a returner:

1. He seems like he'd be good at it.
2. He's a guy you want to get touches to encourage him to stay on campus.
3. He is not a crucial player.

Two of the other three players Harbaugh mentioned were competing to return kicks—KALEL MULLINGS and EAMONN DENNIS—also fit our criteria. ROMAN WILSON, the fourth, no longer does. He fails #3. Mullings seems to think it's Orji's job to lose, FWIW:

“With Orj, it’s not even just kick return — it’s really whenever he has the ball. He’s made so many plays where it’s just like, ‘Wow!’ You’re just stunned watching it,” running back Kalel Mullings said on Monday.

“Excited to see what he can do in that role. With kick return, there’s so much open space. A big guy like him, being able to just have that freedom in that role, it’s exciting. And you guys are all going to see, because every day in practice, it’s insane. It’s something crazy every play.”

Unfortunately, this almost certainly doesn't matter enough to write about it much. The #1 P5 kick returner by attempts, TCU's Derius Davis, had fewer than two per game and Michigan doesn't play many delirious shootouts unless TCU is involved. Michigan did not return a kickoff against Ohio State and didn't have a single return that crossed the 35 a year ago. Maybe Orji changes that; maybe Michigan's limited special teams time is better spent on anything else.

don't mind me I'm just Jake Thaw [Barron]

Michigan also has to find a new punt returner since AJ Henning walked into a bit of a hornet's nest at Northwestern. Punt returns do matter a great deal because punts bounce and muffs are potentially deadly instead of annoyances like they are on kickoffs*. Finding a dude there would be helpful. Harbaugh mentioned MULLINGS as an option there, again, plus walk-on JAKE THAW, MIKE SAINRISTIL (no, absolutely not, stop it), and DONOVAN EDWARDS. I imagine Thaw is in the running like Caden Kolesar used to be: he does a good job of flagging punts down and doesn't do anything ludicrous.

This space wants Edwards to win the job because he is Donovan Edwards and the injury risk seems worth it because you are getting Donovan Edwards touches; I doubt returning a punt is much more dangerous than taking a handoff, if it is at all. Then if Donovan Edwards catches a punt he is holding the ball and can then run with it.

This is the reason I would like Donovan Edwards to return punts.

Two more reasons: to prefer Edwards over Sainristil: if you do lose Edwards you still have Corum. There is no replacing Sainristil on this roster. And there must be some overlap between Edwards's receiving chops and punt return skills. Not that Sainristil doesn't have those as well, but I'm a little dubious about putting your running back who's mostly been a linebacker back there.

On the other hand, Mullings would be the best comedy option option for comedy—especially if Orji is returning kicks. What thing could be more Harbaugh than running out a pair of 240-pound tanks at the return spots?

*[Almost all kickoffs.

RIP Maryland dude.]

COVERAGE AND MISCELLANEOUS

RATING: 5.

WHERE IS YOUR PUNT GOD NOW [Patrick Barron]

We're just going to leave this at 5 unless there ends up being a compelling reason to change it. Michigan finished second in special teams FEI because every unit finished in the top 26 except punt efficiency, which was due in large part to Robbins's injury. Michigan's FEIST rankings over the past five non-COVID years: 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 9th, 17th. Yowza.

Major Events last year were somewhat disappointing but did not qualify as a sea change, as the rate of special teams hijinks that were, you know, planned ended up being pretty low. Michigan exchanged blocked field goals against Indiana, blocked a UConn punt…

…and got a punt of their own blocked for the first time in forever against Rutgers:

BLOCKED PUNT TOUCHDOWN @RFootball TIES IT UP ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/YgdHx2XHjZ

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 6, 2022

Other than the fake punt Ohio State did not run that was about it for non-return events.

The Rutgers may have been the impetus for Michigan finally moving to shield punting a year ago after years and years of being an NFL-style outlier, but my theory was that Michigan avoided shield punting for so long because they were so good at blocking shield punts. Shield punting is a major improvement on NFL punting when it comes to return yards, so Michigan's got that going for them, but the switch removes the MICHAEL BARRETT special teams sneak attack. If you need a reminder:

Barrett possibly saved a win for Michigan by showing off his throwing prowess in executing a fake punt pass to Dax Hill against Army in week two. Later in the year he pulled off another fake punt by taking the snap as the upback and plunging up the middle. ... Barrett was named the defensive and special teams player of the week after that game [Minnesota 2020], the latter because of a long kick return he had, taking the ball on a bounce and hoofing it a long way. ... His only notable appearance during this time was on special teams, again pulling off a fake punt on an upback direct snap against Washington.

There was also the Music City Miracle reprise, although Barrett can still do this, I suppose.

It has just occurred to me Alex Orji can do this. Jeepers.

Michigan should maintain their place near the top of the college football hierarchy but it would be nice to get back up to 4-5 blocked punts. One other thing to watch for is what happens if and when Doman isn't as much of a fair catch metronome as Robbins was. Michigan's punt coverage has barely been tested in years.