Will Cameron Gordon bring balance to the force? Will Vlad the Impaler ever transition from psych to sang? Is Marvin the Marvelous Marvel just an empty OMG shirtless? Do 40-times matter at all? Will Misopogon exhaust his annual allotment of rhetorical questions before this deck is even finished? I dunno, but I was seriously freaking about about free safety, man, so I dipped into UFRs of yore and found….hope?

Question for you Cam: What has two thumbs, and is responsible for stopping the big play?

If you have followed Michigan this last decade, you are now well aware of what bad free safety play looks like.*

Tthere are things that concern me very much about 2010. Chief among these, and that which I would like to now give the full Misopogonal logorrhea treatment in an attempt to allay those fears in my own head (and SLEEP dammit), is the position of Free Safety.

Or Deep Safety.

Or Deathbacking D-Back of Defensive Doom.

You know what I'm talking about: the middle safety who is supposed to play Cover 1, or center Cover 3, or clean up anything that runs by Obi Ezeh and whichever lineman Obi has affixed himself to for the duration of that play.

The position which, at least in our current defensive terminology, I believe is officially called the…

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* Good news is none of those links are RickRolls. Bad news is they are all much, much worse.

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Heroes Alumnus/Emeritus:

To really grasp what kind of play to expect this season from the quarterback of the defense, and what kind of player tends to succeed in that position I felt it necessary to go over the kind of deep safety play that Michigan has had since, oh, 2005.

…[Misopogon spends two full evenings in old UFRs]

Omigod guys, there's some seriously bad safety play in there. But I learned some things today… Fortify your stomach, then click to continue.

Google Spreadsheet lives here.

What we've seen is some very different types of safety play from various talents. I figure if we go back over their recruiting hype, and their respective experience before starting, that will give us a good baseline of expected play for current potential starters. Since this is a position-specific accounting, each player's performance at most other positions isn't charted, though I will include box safety performance.

Notes:

1. The words "Free" and "Strong" were often misnomers in the Michigan defenses of this time, especially when Michigan went to a 3-3-5. What we are concerned with is which safety is "deep," and which safety is "box." Just to make everything easy for the EA Sports-addled brain, for our purposes I will use "free safety" to refer to the deep man, and "strong safety" to refer to the box man, even if that is technically incorrect.
2. The Horror was UFR'ed but not charted, and after it was already Stevie Brown –9 after only a quarter I realized it wasn't worth charting anyway. After that game, Brown was yoinked for Brandent Englemon.
3. Delaware State isn't counted either. NIU and Indiana were not charted in '05. A few Ohio State and Bowl games didn't get UFR'ed.
4. I didn't track Harrison after he moved permanently to strong safety as a senior.
5. I hesitate to include 2005 at all, since Brian was very stingy with negs his first year (e.g. nobody at all got dinged for a 32-yard completion on 3rd and 15 when Michigan rushed three v. MSU) – in 2009 that would not happen). Take 2005 numbers with a raised eyebrow, a grain of salt, and a spoon full of sugar.
6. Quotes in Game Notes are all from Brian's UFRs.

Willis Barringer (Class of '02):

Vitals: 6'0 – 195 lbs. – 4.4 (40-yd. dash) – Toledo, OH

Hype: 3-star CB, Rival's 29th, Scout's 48th, FAKE FAKE-ITY FAKE FAKE FAKE 40 time.

Offers: ND, Wisc., GT, Wake and Purdue.

Projection: Your typical late-career upper Big Ten DB

AS DEEP SAFETY:

2005 was a hodgepodge of play, but when Barringer was in and healthy, he generally made about 1 or 2 mistakes per game, along with 0 or 1 great plays. Willis (Willis!) had some positional issues, but mostly he was hampered later in his career by being hurt. He was supplanted by the talented Mundy in 2006. Willis Barringer as a redshirt freshman, when spelling Marlin in '03, looked okay at first but got burned deep several times by playing too close to the line. That line, of course, was so good that few teams even bothered going long against Michigan more than a few times per game.

We could use one of those right now.

You know what else we could use right now?

Brandent Englemon (Class of '03):

Vitals: 6'0 – 180 lbs. - 4.5 forty – Covington, KY

Hype: QB at small school: 2-star ATH (NR) to Rivals, 2-star S (NR) to Scout. Not FAKE 4.0 GPA. Governor's Scholar, tutors kids, does charity work, saves old ladies using ACT scores.

Offers: NWern, Ky., Wake, Miami (NTM), Louisville, Marshall

Projection: 4x Academic All Big Ten, while fans pray he doesn't Anton Campbell a cool number onto the bench for 4 years.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

AS BOX SAFETY:

Brandent Englemon, late in his career, became the most consistent player in UFR history, almost always putting in a blameless 1/0/1. Brandent emerged his redshirt sophomore season to the delight of UFRers everywhere, making all that happiness as a sure-tackling, mistake-free box safety until he met Angry Michigan Safety Hating God.

In 2006, Jamar Adams was given the box job (where he excelled) and the responsible-but-not-fast Englemon platooned with flashy recruit Ryan Mundy, with Englemon either handling short-field duties and obvious runs, or sitting back reading a book while the mosters up front made opposing linemen our turnstiles. Englemon liked books – he and Lloyd Carr would often be on the same page, even! When tasked with covering deep safety in long yardage situations, however, Englemon was not as useful. By '07, he and Adams had flipped again, with Jamar covering the deep spot and Brandent free to make the odd tackle that escaped David Harris and co. or – and this was his specialty – spy screens. Probably your prototypical box safety ("spur"/"spinner" being one or "bandit" another).

Ryan Mundy (Class of '03):

Vitals: 6'2 – 200 – 4.4 forty – Pittsburgh, PA

Hype: High 4-star. Rival's 6th-best safety, just cracked Top 100 overall. (Scout has an even FAKER 4.35).

Offers: PSU, Va., NC State, Pitt

Projection: Michigan fans were stoked, thinking we had landed one of the top DBs in the country after (finally!?!) years of post-'97 Marcus Ray mediocrity.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

Mundy, who is responsible for the erratic pieces of 2005, as well as most of 2006, was remembered as a Mouton-type character: full of talent, but ready to shoot himself in the foot. Ultimately, I think the grades are soft on him, since Brian made the defensive UFRs in 2006 out of candy LaMarr Woodley valentine hearts. Why Mundy was a headache for Lloyd and his staff, then a star at WVU and then a guy who could play for his hometown Steelers, the typical Michigan fan response is "Idunno it's a mystery" and the non-Michigan fan response is "lolz SCuM sux!" The homer response is "Well, the staff that fixed Mundy is now at Michigan," and "eeee Barwis."

Charles Stewart (Class of '04)

Vitals: 6'1 – 188 lbs. – 4.47 forty – Farmington Hills, MI

Hype: High 3-star. Rival's 17th-best CB, Scout's 22nd.

Offers: Wisc., MSU, Ind., Louisville, Ky.

Projection: Your typical MSU defensive back, even comes from Farmington Hills Harrison (Stanton, et al.). Ride bench unless M needs an emergency MSU defensive back.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

Stewart spent his youth on special teams and playing some sparing cornerback, moving to safety only after his redshirt soph campaign. At CB, he was decidedly not good: not good at coverage, not good at PBUs, not good at tackling. He was thrust into playing a platoon with Steve Brown in 2008 as a 5th year senior, getting more playing time when Brown was in one of his particularly self-destructive moods. Stewart was not much of an upgrade from Brown, and wracked up huge negatives in limited playing time. Against Illinois, Stewart's propensity for getting distracted by shiny things turned Juice Williams into Super-Ninja-Fake-Guy. In his last game as a Wolverine (Ohio State), Stewart had a sideline fight with a Guy Who Looks Like Morpheus. Exeunt.

Jamar Adams (Class of '04)

Vitals: 6'2 – 198 lbs. – 4.49 forty – Charlotte, NC

Hype: High 3-star, Scout's 21st safety, Rival's 18th.

Offers: UCLA, UNC, SC, FSU

Hype: Tall and rangy, Jamar was under the radar for M fans until coming in for Lloyd/English spring hype.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

AS BOX SAFETY:

Even with the more hyped players above him, Jamar was finding his way onto the field early, but as the strong (box) safety, where he was non-distinguishing and non-self-destructive (except for freshman-y things like overrunning a screen here and there). After Steve Brown set a new baseline for bad Free Safety play during the 1st quarter of the Horror, Brandent Englemon took over Jamar's strong role and Adams became the deep safety. He proceeded to not suck.

Jamar provides, if not what perfect free safety play should look like, a good idea of what adequate free safety play should look like. He earned plusses from PBUs and tackling, and as a senior made few mistakes. But it was a very rocky start.

Brandon Harrison (Class of '05)

Vitals: 5'9 – 190 – 4.3 forty – Dayton, OH

Hype: 4-star CB, 16th to Rivals, 17th to Scout

Offers: Early Notre Dame commit until Ty left, Iowa

Projection: Actually 5'8.5. Electronically timed 4.25 forty was his raison d'etre. Mighty Mite who will buzz buzz buzz around everywhere because he is Mighty Mite!

AT DEEP SAFETY:

AT BOX SAFETY:

Harrison's recruiting profile said he very short but very very fast; as it turned out he was very short and very not fast, his 4.25 40-yard dash the biggest FAKE in the history of FAKE.

I didn't show Harrison's later career at box safety and nickelback because we're focusing on the deep safety position, and he didn't play deep safety again after his freshman year. Harrison's redshirt was burned early during SAFETY ARMAGEDDON and he played well in run support, but not great against the pass when left as the deep man. The emergence of Englemon and Adams at safety made Harrison primarily a nickelback for the meat of his career, until becoming the box safety in RR's first year. This nickelback spot was actually pretty similar to the linebacker-ish (spinner to GERG, spur to Casteel) box safety role that Steve Brown played last year during 3-3-5 days. For that role, Harrison was undersized at taking on blockers, but mostly didn't have to, as Michigan had a good enough front 7 to play him in zone. In space he was a responsible tackler, but never anything special.

Steve Brown (Class of '06)

Vitals: 6'0 – 197 – 4.39 forty – Columbus, IN

Hype: High 4-star, Scout's 10th best safety, Rival's 7th, didn't crack Top 150. Lemming's 99th overall. Rivals had him as a corner until later. Injuries depressed rankings.

Offers: ND, Nebraska, Illinois, Purdue, OSU offer was always coming but never materialized.

Projection: Your typical 4-star, U-M/OSU level safety which had been anything but typical for Michigan in recent years.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

Brown's MGoBlog YMRMFSPA was a foreshadowing "Abstain so as to avoid tainting Brown with memories of safeties past." This gave way to spring hype when true sophomore (burned redshirt on '06 special teams, natch!) Brown won the starting Free Safety position over Brandon Harrison. In his first game, Steve put in the single worst performance by a Michigan player since some guy in 1885 who got buried in mud and spent the rest of the game pleasing himself. After three plays, against an FCS team, Brown was –5 and had given up a 68-yard touchdown. The next time App State did anything other than Zone Read Handoff, Brown got out of position on a slant and gave up another TD, leaving the game 5 minutes into the 2nd quarter with a 0/9/-9.

At one point in a 2008 UFR, Brian rhetorically asked if Steve Brown was the new Ryan Mundy. According to the Chart? Chart! above, Steve Brown was mucho more erratic than Mundy. Mundy's UFRs would say things like "0/1/-1 Didn't Cover Anybody;" Brown's would end with variations on "0.5/0/0.5 Not his fault" and "2/5/-3 Holy Hell Man!" Occasionally he would do something great like pick off Ohio State's opening drive. Then he would do something like trip over his dick and earn more scorn from InterWeb-types.

Brown ultimately found redemption by playing the "likes his meat raw" linebacker/safety hybrid position. Had his redshirt not been burned, he would be the third (and best) 5th year senior linebacker on this year's team. As a safety, he was emblematic of the disaster zone that position has been in Ann Arbor.

Michael Williams (Class of '07)

Vitals: 5'10 – 181 – 4.7 (NOT FAKE) forty – Ventura, CA

Hype: 4-star safety, 5th best to Scout, 15th to Rivals, 10th to ESPN (#94 overall). Height and lack of speed earned a YMRMFSPA Brandon Harrison.

Offers: ND, Zona, ASU

Projection: Another typical 4-star, and we were happy. Strangely, lack of FAKE forty time and size raised no red flags.

AS DEEP SAFETY:

AS BOX SAFETY:

Delicately phrased statement indeed. Coming out of high school, Williams was expected to play Ron English's "nickleback" official position, which is what Harrison was playing and apparently is like the "bandit" box safety position that Kovacs played well '09, except instead of lots of intelligence apparently it needs highly overrated short/slow guys.

At the time I couldn't justify his recruiting rankings beside his hype, but I wasn't going to argue with pros who tell me we have a Top 10 safety guy coming in, and figured he was just a really heady player. He isn't. Rather than call him a bust, I would say that he was overrated coming out of high school (Pac Ten playas UCLA and Oregon looked at him but didn't offer before he took the blue pill). At box safety, was just really bad. As deep safety was horrific. His best hope is to go the Stevie Brown route and beat out Thomas Gordon at the meat-raw ("spur") box safety position, but Brown was much better at this point of his career than Williams.

Troy Woolfolk (Class of '07):

Vitals: 5'10 – 170 – 4.5 forty – Sugarland, TX

Hype: Low 3-star CB, 44th to Rivals, 3-star CB, 44th to Scout.

Offers: Nebraska, Houston. Committed before Big Three in-state (TX) offered.

Projection: Special teams appearances that give Game Day Program publishers excuse to do a story on Butch at least once

AS DEEP SAFETY:

Butch's son was the true 3-star gem, a legacy recruit listed at 5'10, 170 by Scout (he's now 6'1 at least) who hit a late growth spurt, then added that to his stride and became, by 2008, the fastest player on the team.

His redshirt burned on special teams in 2007, Troy made his own name for himself as a sophomore, earning playing time behind Morgan Trent in 2008. With lots of safeties injured, Troy, who had already secured the starting CB spot opposite Donovan Warren, filled in at free safety, where Woolfolk was a rangy deep guard who basically kept balls from being thrown center-deep and whiffed a tackle or two per game. An even more dire need for him at corner saw Troy return to that position, where he had greater success. If cornerback wasn't even more dire than safety, Troy would likely be the Hero this year. As it is, he will start 2010 (at corner) as the team's lone proven and trustworthy deep defensive back; if Troy gets hurt this year, the universe will probably end.

Jordan Kovacs (Walk-On, Class of '08)

Vitals: 6'0 – 200 – bipedal primate of exceptional intelligence – Curtice, OH

Hype: First-team All-Toledo City League at WR.

Claim to Fame: By the end of Fall Practice, 2009, his position coach knew his name.

Projection: Palmer Field between History 220 and Comm 102

AT DEEP SAFETY:

AT BOX SAFETY:

Ladies and gentlemen, your top returning tackler for 2010. That Kovacs was a student body walk-on is well-tread territory. Also well-tread territory was that his speed is not anywhere close to being good enough to play deep safety, as Kovacs got burnt crispy during his 4-game stint there when Woolfolk was moved to try to plug the more dire (?)cornerback leak. At box safety, Kovacs turned in some of the best performances in five seasons, especially at tackling. He demonstrated a clear nose for the ball, a good head, and solid technique despite not-great speed – like a slightly larger version of Brandon Harrison actually.

His play at box safety, however, is not under review. At deep safety, Kovacs was smarter than Michael Williams, and for a freshman, surprisingly good at being in the right spot. The problem was in how long he took to get to that spot, i.e. pure speed, or the lack thereof. Kovacs didn't have the athleticism to chase down a Hoosier receiver or Hoosier tailback, let alone provide coverage assistance on a deep seam to an Ohio State receiver. With him in a deep safety, Michigan was at serious risk of four long TDs per game.

Coming up:

Hero With a Thousand Faces, Part II: A breakdown of the above info, plus candidates for the role in 2010, and how they may compare to the erstwhile heroes we just talked about.
EDIT: A complete re-imagining of the position with regards to new, important information as to the future of our defensive scheme, and what it requires from the free safety spot.

Cameron 'Dark Side' Gordon	Vladimir 'The Impaler' Emilien	'Marvelous' Marvin Robinson