Previously: The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver.

THE POTATOMAN COMETH

RATING: 5

Depth Chart

Flex	Yr.	Inline	Yr.
Colston Loveland	So.	AJ Barner	Jr.*
Matt Hibner	So.*	Max Bredeson	So.*
Marlin Klein	Fr.*	Trente Jones	Sr.*

[Barron]

Last year's preview had a brief aside about COLSTON LOVELAND [recruiting profile]. It made a very bad prediction about playing time:

…true freshmen COLSTON LOVELAND and MARLIN KLEIN have a 0% chance of seeing meaningful snaps without a zombie apocalypse.

Uhhh no. Bad prediction. At least this from the post-Illinois UFR was better:

I think he's getting a crucial chunk pass off PA in The Game.

Yessir!

That preview did single Loveland out as the freshman tight end who was supposedly the Next One, per insider chatter. By the time the Big Ten Championship game rolled around, he was the Current One:

And lo, here we are. I'm not sure I can recall a guy going into his true sophomore season who 1) hasn't really played a lot and 2) has the world convinced he's going to be an All-American like Loveland. Here's BTN analyst Rick Pizzo after taking in a Michigan practice:

"You have a tight end in Colston Loveland that I think may be the breakout star in the Big Ten this year. Mark this down: he is going to be an NFL All-Pro at tight end."

Well then.

[After THE JUMP: why]

Usually that requires the Woodson freshman season where you're supplanting starters halfway through your freshman year—see Johnson, Will. Loveland didn't quite do that. He got thrust into greatness because Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker got injured. But when he was in, I mean, dang:

TE #18 inline to top

Michigan is down 17-10 in the fourth quarter against Illinois and this play is a go-win route for a true freshman tight end against Sydney Brown, an Illinois safety who went in the third round of the most recent NFL draft. And he wins.

Hands? Check.

Late in the season it felt like he was developing into McCarthy's safety blanket; there were a couple of instances where he locked onto Loveland in situations where he was kind of open and others were blindingly so. Ideally you want your QB to find the open guy, but if he's going to force it Loveland seems like an exceptional option. And you won't have to force it all that often:

…he feels like an explosive downfield threat in a way that Schoonmaker is not:

This director is a horrible very bad person and should feel bad about not providing a replay of this play that showed exactly how Loveland went from this:

To this:

Suffice it to say that I don't think Schoonmaker is getting four yards of separation on an out and up; neither All. The list of recent vintage Michigan TEs who could do this is probably Devin Funchess, end of story, and Loveland is already miles better as a blocker than Funchess.

He's going to be open most of the time.

And when he's not, eh, it's probably fine. For years I've been saying things like "throw it to Nico Collins," "for the love of God throw it to Nico," and "I am begging you, Shea Patterson, to throw it to Nico," and it never happened. Michigan has been more arm-punt averse than any team in the country. Given the personnel post-Nico maybe that made some sense, but it felt like there was something philosophical in there. For Michigan to chuck Loveland a back-shoulder fade against double coverage—and for that to look like an easy thing for Loveland to catch—may signal a shift in philosophy, at least as it applies to him. Chatter around the team suggests that he's been put in plenty of situations like the Purdue TD and excelled:

On Colston Loveland, who had another good day of practice:

He’s had a great camp. He has had these contested catches all camp long that have been really impressive.

Bredeson captures the best of both worlds:

On what distinguishes Colston Loveland:

The guy catches anything. You put it near him and he's gonna come down with it. He can get open. He sneaks around defenders. Like he's running a route and all sudden he's behind them. Like, ‘How did you get there?’ And like I said, you put it anywhere around him, he’s gonna come down with it.

… You see 6-6 just randomly get behind a defender. Really good with his hands getting defenders off of him, but he's just a special route runner.

Loveland should at least be a co-#1 WR with Wilson and Johnson.

Loveland's blocking was… indifferent. He wasn't Funchess but neither was he freshman Erick All. He is, appropriately, in the #buttzone. Our record of his blocking:

Opponent	+	-	TOT	Notes
Hawaii	1	0	1	Not in total.
Uconn				DNC
Maryland	1	0	1	Panoply of riches.
Iowa	0.5	1	-0.5	No redshirt.
Indiana	1	1	0	They must like him.
Penn State	1.5	2	-0.5	Whiff on speed option was painful.
MSU	4.5	1	3.5	Get some!
Rutgers	1.5	5	-3.5	Reality check for true freshman.
Nebraska	13	3	10	uhhhhhhh
Illinois	5.5	4	1.5	One bad linebacker airball, otherwise shockingly competent.
OSU	3	4	-1	I mean… yeah.
	32.5	21	11.5	basically even save for Nebraska

Outside of a whooping against Nebraska that three middle-schoolers in a trenchcoat could have achieved, this is approximately a 1:1 ratio of good to bad events. PFF had him in the heart of mediocre-at-best territory as a 53, and you won't find a whole lot of disagreement around these parts. For a true freshman converted wide receiver out of Idaho this is probably the best-case scenario. He did not get filleted by anyone who looked at him cross-eyed. Hooray.

Upside here is… I mean… who cares? I do not care. All Loveland has to do is be able to vaguely interfere with linebackers and DEs to be an impossible person to deal with. Look, here's Loveland climbing to the second level and giving a little ground and whatever, it's fine:

TE #18 to bottom of line

And here he is as the insert iso guy:

wing TE #18 to top

I mean, it's fine. It's a little ginger and upright and isn't going to remind anyone of Khalid Hill, but Loveland is the sort of guy where if he gets in the way enough, it's enough. This block is Not Good but I think it's a glimpse of the future for a Michigan team that loved shooting Ronnie Bell into the box to add an extra blocker:

TE #18 motioning from top

You can split him out wide and opponents have to respect that, and then you can add him to the box and he's a 6'6" Bell. His status as a hybrid receiver also means he's pretty good in space when he has to deal with DBs, as this more-or-less arc read without the read against Illinois indicates:

wing TE #18 to top pulling to bottom

On some blocks just getting to the spot is enough, and Loveland gets to the spot.

He does have upside here. He occasionally did more than just get in the way. The long Corum screen that coulda-shoulda been a touchdown was facilitated by a Loveland two-for-one:

TE #18 inline to top

Welcome to your ass on the ground, Illinois linebacker. And he occasionally looked All-ish as an undersized freshman TE that got after it:

TE #18 inline to top

That's a 230-pound linebacker getting the business, but because Loveland is, you know, Loveland, matchups against anyone bigger are going to be suicidal for defenses. He should see a steady diet of safeties and nickels. He's got upside here beyond "is Jake Butt"; while I fundamentally do not care if he explores that, it is within the realm of possibility.

For what it's worth, he's added eight pounds to get to 245 and will probably take a step forward this year as a blocker. This site will violate its "all weight gain or loss is good" heuristic in the specific case of Loveland: if he puts on more than five pounds over the rest of his Michigan career it is a sin.

[Fuller]

If Loveland is the sexy flexy tight end, Indiana transfer AJ BARNER [recruiting profile] is your inline blocky-catchy guy. Probably. As mentioned during the Jack Tuttle discussion, Indiana's offense has been so warped by their worthless OL and subsequent parade of QB injuries that it's hard to project anyone coming out of that offense. Michael Penix was great, and then he was horrible, and now he's at Washington and could make NYC for the Heisman ceremony.

It's a bit much to expect that level of renaissance out of Barner but just glancing at his stats (28 catches, 7 yards a catch) suggests he's basically a dump-down option and nothing else. This is not necessarily true. Barner flashed some receiving skills a year ago despite the limited nature of the Indiana offense:

AJ Barner snags it and @IndianaFootball takes one back! pic.twitter.com/Xr1SSuLZni

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 12, 2022

This is not a guy who you can't chuck a ball to downfield:

Here's a quick look at the latest edition to the TE room: AJ Barner. @_ajbarner_ x @UMichFootball pic.twitter.com/DYW0hoekAJ

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) December 21, 2022

That is an impressive number of tough catches given the shortage of targets Barner fielded in Indiana's Walt Bell all-wide-receiver-screens-all-the-time offense. And despite our pigeonholing Barner as the inline guy, he spent a lot of time in the slot for Indiana a year ago; he checks in at 251 on the roster and should be able to get down a seam, where his 6'6" frame makes him an appealing target. He's the inline guy relative to Loveland, who will frequently line up split wide. Barner won't as much, largely because Loveland exists.

PFF's grading for Barner is thoroughly meh, with a 54 receiving grade and a 60 run block grade; Brugler ranked him his #18 senior TE for the upcoming draft (by eligibility he's a redshirt junior since 2020 doesn't count, FWIW). That's not going to blow your hair back, but Barner is an established, average-ish Big Ten tight end with some upside left; he should be relatively plug-and-play at a spot where Michigan above all other schools needs two starter-quality guys.

Even if we're taking the PFF grades at face value it's likely that Barner takes a significant step forward this year. Jim Harbaugh's proven that he can take basically any six-foot-six guy with some athleticism and fling them into the NFL, and one dollar says that Barner's blocking looks a lot better when he's next to a Michigan tackle instead of a West Texas A&M transfer. Doubles will be easier; chaos will be infrequent.

Barner's receiving upside is limited by all the dudes around him. He could be reminiscent of Schoonmaker minus some athleticism. While he's not likely to check in with a 4.6 at the NFL combine, neither will he be Joel Honigford. And since Michigan already has a guy to zip down the field against a linebacker, Barner can be an occasional chain-mover.

Barner's existence is important for one further reason: Donovan Edwards. Michigan can deploy 2 TE sets with Loveland, Barner, and Edwards, which then puts the defense in a terrible personnel bind. Do you put a nickel out there and hope he can hold up against the Michigan ground game, or do you go heavy and eat a barrel of knives when Michigan motions into an empty set?

FULLBACK: EXTANT

Deeply unrepresentative picture is go [Barron]

Walk-on MAX BREDESON emerged to be a frequent contributor a year ago, and is now being talked up as a fullback/H-back type. It is this site's opinion that Michigan should always have a playable fullback—ideally a dump truck in a helmet—and this news was met with raucous celebrations at MGoBlog headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yes, even though he wasn't listed an inch shorter this year due to fullback spine compression.

Last year Bredeson was passable in that H-back role. He made a series of effective lead blocks—this one is against future Wolverine Ernest Haussman:

wing TE #82 to bottom

This one is a great ID and thump…

offset FB #82

…and this one is a good example of Bredeson IDing his block and stoning him:

offset FB #82

Those latter two utilize Bredeson as an honest-to-God fullback.

Bredeson was a redshirt freshman, so there were naturally low points. Those were mostly targeting issues and some unfortunate lunging. Bredeson was the guy who first whiffed on that McCarthy run against PSU where there were two guys for the safety:

If he doesn't put his head down he's probably able to do enough to turn that into a touchdown. The good stuff and the bad stuff combined for a 63 run blocking grade on PFF, which is basically average. That's encouraging for a redshirt freshman still getting his feet wet and adapting to a new role. Our grading was a little harsher because he had some problems against Penn State and Ohio State; we had him at +3 for the season, a fair bit below our desired 2:1 positive to negative ratio. Again: redshirt freshman.

As a receiver, Bredeson had one catch longer than ten yards but it was a doozy:

His other five targets were all dumpoff or flat sort of things. With the depth chart clearing in front of him somewhat Bredeson should get a handful more targets this year than last, but he's going to be an occasional option at best.

Bredeson is going to be a fullback, give or take. He swapped numbers to 44, QED. Also he's explicitly stated that's going to be his role:

“I just love being in the backfield blocking. It kind of feels like home back there. It’s always been my skill-set, being in the backfield blocking, so that falls in the fullback category pretty well.”

In that Alejandro Zuniga article linked above Bredeson also singles out the Penn State play embedded above as his season highlight. This is the correct attitude for a fullback. 50 yard reception? Nah. Stoning a guy blitzing from linebacker depth en route to a first down? Yeah, that's the stuff. Also:

On getting a carry as a fullback:

I had one last year. I had one against Rutgers. I don't know — I just love blocking. You block for the ball, and maybe you get one.

Bredeson should be significantly better this year than last; he's up eight pounds to 240 and knows exactly what his role is now. That probably won't mean a whole lot for him in terms of stats or even snaps (he had ~250 last year), but he could be a sneaky factor in Michigan's offensive progress. Having a dedicated fullback opens up various pages of the Harbaugh playbook, further stressing opposition defenses trying to fill gaps against every run play under the sun.

BACKUPS

The most prominent TE beyond the three already mentioned is likely to be be SIXTH OFFENSIVE LINEMAN DU JOUR. 6OLDJ could be damn near anyone since Michigan has nine OL who have started a college game; the most likely candidates are whichever "starting" tackles aren't actually starting.

[Fuller]

As far as players who might venture more than five yards downfield go, redshirt junior MATT HIBNER [recruiting profile] is the only guy who's seen the field so far. Our only clips for him last year are a missed assignment on a short run and a better version of the same run where he pulls through a gap and hits a safety.

wing TE #88 to top

Hibner's added ten pounds, per the latest phonebooks, to get to 254 and with the logjam clearing in front of him this should be the season where he dips his toes into playing time and flashes some things. He started to do so in the spring game, catching a couple balls of interest. The first was just a hitch, but Hibner lined up outside a la Colston Loveland. The second was a 50-yard catch and run that should have been a touchdown but for the turf monster:

Please do not try to understand what 41 is doing on this play.

At this point dipping into recruiting profiles to see what we think about a Michigan tight end is almost beside the point. He was selected by Harbaugh to be a tight end, so he is an unusually athletic large man with some weird habits who fervently believes one and only one conspiracy theory. Let's see:

“…the combination of quitting basketball, eating 7,000 calories a day, religiously working out … we could see the change happen right in front of our eyes. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him. His weight room numbers went through the roof. We fed the machine at the perfect time.”

Yep. That's our guy. Hibner shot up on 247's rankings over the course of a breakout senior year that saw him catch 42 passes for 940(!) yards and probably would have been our sleeper of the year if he wasn't in the same class as Kris Jenkins; he'll probably catch ten balls and look pretty good doing it.

Klein (#17, right) is inappropriately named [Barron]

The rest of the TE roster will see spot duty late, in all likelihood. Redshirt freshman MARLIN KLEIN [recruiting profile] is another one of those European dudes who are super-athletic but not shaped right for soccer or basketball; these days there's a folks who go around collecting these waifs and touring the United States in case anyone is interested in giving them a scholarship. Klein's described as a "physical freak" inside the program and certainly looked the part of a long, rangy flex tight end during the spring game. He was only targeted twice and didn't have a reception but he came close to stabbing a ball that McCarthy airmailed.

If nothing else, the guy has a catch radius.

Klein's blocking was indifferent, but you can get away with indifferent if you're a real flex. Grant Newsome:

Marlin Klein had a heck of a spring. A guy who is immensely talented as well and is going to have to play some football for us this year.

He's got a shot.

True freshmen DEAKON TONIELLI [recruiting profile] and ZACK MARSHALL [recruiting profile] are probably headed for redshirts, but I mean Colston Loveland never say never. Tonielli in particular showed up on the fall phonebooks at 251 instead of the extremely outdated 215 247 had him at. He's got an outside shot. Marshall is 20 pounds short of that and is a major longshot.

Finally, there's a Walk-On Of Note. Per Rivals's Josh Henschke, one JOSH BEETHAM has been a presence during fall camp. Beetham is a senior who's been around a while and is listed at 240 on the roster; he spent his freshman year as an Illinois PWO before transferring. He put up a 4.4 40 at an Opening regional when he was about 30 pounds lighter than he is now, so there might be some athletic upside there.

Usually you need to hear a walk-on's name in year one or two for them to project to a real role on the field, so prospects for Beetham being an honorary Glasgow are low. He could be this year's Carter Selzer: a guy Michigan rotates in for some real snaps because they might need him if there's an injury.