For things to improve this season, Michigan will need improved play from nearly every position. Yesterday, I looked at the best candidates for a breakout season at linebacker, safety, and cornerback. Today: defensive line, wide receiver, and offensive line. 

Defensive Line

This is the spot where Michigan most desperately needs a boost. As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the Wolverines have struggled in the interior for a while now. Truthfully, I think most of the improvement here will be pretty marginal, but there are still candidates with the potential to prove me wrong. 

Top Candidate: Mazi Smith

Smith seems to be this year’s anointed Guy the Coaches Say Things About When Asked Who Has Been Practicing Well, and as such, he’ll also be the Guy Who Gets Breakout Season Articles Written about Him. I tend to be cynical about both what coaches say in preseason press conferences and the hype articles that come out afterward (see: literally the entire lede to yesterday's story), but there is reason to believe there’s at least something to the speculation here. 

For one thing, he’s bigger now — up to 326 lbs after being listed at 305 last year — and in a better position to leverage that size in Mike Macdonald’s defense. Of course, that growth is part of a larger transition on the defensive side of the ball, where they’re supposedly focusing less on speed and more on size. How that change affects the team’s performance is uncertain, especially if the current players were recruited partially for their speed, but on the interior D-line, I’d say it’s definitely a positive shift. With all the added weight, Smith could become a real force at nose tackle, especially in 3-4 type packages. 

What it looks like/what it means if he breaks out: Willie Henry (yes, I’m stealing this comp from the recruiting profile). Like Henry, a breakout Smith would put up solid tackling numbers — Henry had 34 in his senior year — but his impact would be felt more in the way he just blows up the line of scrimmage. He doesn’t need to make tackles, he just needs to put himself and the lineman blocking him into the running back’s face enough for his teammates to clean it up. Effectively, there would be fewer gaping holes in the middle, and opponents would have a lot more trouble running it between the tackles. 

Trending: Roughly on track, if not slightly below expectations from when he arrived in Ann Arbor. He didn’t get many snaps in 2020 — totalling just three tackles in five games as a result — but wasn’t expected to emerge as a starter until 2021 anyway. Still, he was pegged as a borderline 5-star as a recruit, and those numbers aren’t matching that necessary level of production. A regime change on defense could correct that. 

What if he doesn’t: Put simply, he gets fewer snaps. With Jeter, Christopher Hinton, and transfer Jordan Whittley all battling for time on the interior, there’s not much margin for error for Smith personally. From a team perspective, Smith not succeeding wouldn’t bode well for the run defense, since his size and the coaches’ blessing would seem to make him the most likely candidate to break out. Still … 

Other candidates: Christopher Hinton. He’s not quite as big as Smith, and he hasn’t drawn as much attention from the Hype Machine™ thus far in the offseason, but I’d almost put him on par with Smith in terms of likelihood of breaking out. He was the fourth-best DT in the country out of high school, with scouts raving about his “advanced hands” and “[outstanding] technique at the point of attack.” Like Smith, he’s spent the last two years as a rotation piece, but with the departure of Carlo Kemp, the interior D-line is wide open for the taking. For the defense to improve in 2021, it’ll need one of these two to pop.

[After THE JUMP: Pick a Speed in Space]

Wide Receiver

The receiver room is weirdly strong, considering Michigan’s passing offense was average at best last season and that the Wolverines lost their No. 3 receiver with the transfer of Giles Jackson. Ronnie Bell will continue to do Ronnie Bell things, and Cornelius Johnson should continue to grow into a major downfield threat. Beyond those two, there’s also Daylen Baldwin
transferring in from Jackson State with a build similar to Cornelius Johnson’s, plus a wealth of young, speedy receivers that should rotate in and out. Of that group, I think the most likely to really break out is … 

Roman Wilson

During availabilities this past week, both Ronnie Bell and Brad Hawkins named Roman Wilson as the fastest receiver in a room full of fast receivers. That’s not a surprise, considering he was one of the fastest players in the country out of high school, and that speed already showed itself in flashes in 2020. One example: 

Put simply, he’s got speed to burn, and if the offense draws up plays where he can use it, he’ll beat defensive backs and get big yards. 

What it looks like/what it means if he breaks out: His recruiting comp was Steve Breaston, and, yeah, that makes sense. Fast and explosive, but a bit undersized if he plays outside. That battle for McNamara’s third target is gonna be tough as hell. I think it ends up being a tight end, but Wilson really has a good shot to contend for it. To do so, he’ll need to run clean routes that get separation from DBs, avoid drops, and fight for yards after catch. The best way to set him up for success is probably with crossing routes galore and an occasional double move to burn defenses over the top. 

Trending: On pace. The expectation was that he’d see some of the field in 2020, but still sit behind Bell, Johnson, and Jackson, and that’s exactly what happened. If he stays on the projected pace and the quarterbacks can hit him, the sky’s the limit. 

What if he doesn’t: With the skillset he has, the only ways I can see him missing in 2020 are drops or poor QB play. If it’s drops, then Mike Sainristil or A.J. Henning probably steps into the “speedy guy who runs crossing routes but isn’t Ronnie Bell” role, but if it’s QB play, there’s not much anyone can do to make up for that.

Other candidates: Tons. I’m not sure if it’s considered a breakout season if he already tore it up in FCS, but Daylen Baldwin could become a Cornelius Johnson clone and take that No. 3 receiver spot. A.J. Henning is the same age as Wilson and has a similar skillset, though with slightly less top-end speed. I wouldn’t be completely shocked if Cristian Dixon and Andrel Anthony surprise people with some big plays, though Anthony especially needs to get physically stronger before he earns significant playing time. 

Offensive Line

A combination of youth and injuries turned last year’s offensive line into the worst of the Harbaugh era. It’ll take serious improvement from more than one player to bring the Wolverines to where they need to be in the trenches. Still, having a guy that can anchor the unit can make a big difference in the run game, and with Jalen Mayfield onto the NFL, Michigan will need someone else to play that role. 

Top Candidate: Zak Zinter

This one was a fairly obvious choice. He’s Mazi Smith’s counterpart on the opposite side of the ball as the Guy the Coaches Say Things About When Asked Who Has Been Practicing Well, with Josh Gattis going as far as to say that he might be the best player on the offense this season. While I think that’s a biiiiiiiit of an exaggeration, when thrown into the fire last season, Zinter responded about as well as you could hope for from a freshman offensive lineman. The UFRs showed promise for the future, but also some concerns in reading plays (more on that later). Per Sherrone Moore, Zinter and Andrew Vastardis are both taking reps at center, though I’d guess that Zinter gets the start there with all the “best player on the offense” hype. 

What it looks like/what it means if he breaks out: It’s hard to project a sophomore offensive lineman who is suddenly and inexplicably being hailed as the best player on the offense, but if Gattis really does mean what he says, Zinter should be mauling guys in the run game and playing smart on pass plays. It also would help if he does this on occasion: 

It’s a good sign when a freshman knows to play to the whistle and can also single handedly out-push half the Wisconsin defense. 

Trending: We only have a few games to reference, but he’s trending well above expectations thus far. Brian projected Zinter as an interior OL “exclusively so his first opportunity will likely be a couple years off.” Instead, he appeared in the first game of the season after Andrew Stueber got hurt, and he actually performed pretty well. To have an offensive lineman who can be anything better than average in his sophomore season is pretty special. 

What if he doesn’t: Being a young player, Zinter made some freshman mistakes last season. To grow in 2021, he can’t miss blitzing linebackers on goal-line plays: 

Or fail badly to pick up stunts (though the pick here isn’t really his fault): 

Or get blown off the ball on third and short: 

Look, it’d be totally understandable for Zinter to make some of those mistakes again. He’s a sophomore. Regardless, Michigan needs him to be consistent. If he keeps making those errors, that’s one more obstacle for a rebuilding offensive line to overcome this season. 

Other candidates: Trevor Keegan. Pretty much everyone else has taken enough snaps where it’s hard to describe them as “breakout” candidates. Like Zinter, Keegan was forced to play a little bit last year before he was really ready, and showed both promise and youth in those appearances. The talk seems to be that he’ll play on the interior. We’ll see where another year of development gets him. 

The Rest

Not much to say about tight end, since Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker both return and will likely get the vast majority of reps there. Matthew Hibner will likely rotate in on occasion, but it’s hard to see him getting enough snaps to really break out. Not much to say about quarterback, either; whoever starts is the only candidate barring injuries, and I am adamantly refusing to write a speculative piece on who the starter will be (McNamara). 

Running back is a little weird. Obviously, there’s Donovan Edwards, and he’ll probably do pretty well when he plays. But I still think he’s the No. 3 back, or a 2a/2b with Blake Corum. Corum played well in the snaps he got last season, and I would expect a similar level of production in 2021, just with more reps. Since we already know he’s good, I don’t think continuing that would constitute a breakout season. Tavierre Dunlap might occasionally get the ball and make us go “huh, he might be good in the future,” but not to the point where he’s a key feature of the offense. Hassan Haskins will continue to run over defensive backs for fun. 

But even without big breakout candidates, growth at those positions will be just as crucial to Michigan’s success this season. McNamara needs to be better than Milton was, the tight ends need to catch balls, and the running backs all need to continue to develop, even if their room is fairly deep. As I’ve said many times before, 2021 is not a championship season for the Wolverines, but if they get consistent growth across the board — and a few surprise breakout seasons from the roster — that can be a positive step for the program’s future.