Hoke: Norfleet to play cornerback

Unless he is Tyrann Mathieu 2.0, I'd rather see him in the slot receiver position...

I dont get this at all. Can we at least get him a few more looks on offense before we banish him to the CB depth chart? Enough with the mgokissup line of..."well I trust the coaches." They're human, they make mistakes, and not above criticism...see Al Borges. 

The shortest cornerbacks to make the Pro Bowl were the quartet of Aaron Glenn, Antoine Winfield, Cortland Finnegan, and Dre Bly, all of whom measured in at 5'9".  Who knows, maybe Norfleet's got major hops.  But even if so, I think he would be more dynamic at the RB position, heck, even the slot -- why not.

It's all good. They're trying to Woodson-ify him, just in reverse!

Man I don't get this. With Gallon and Dileo gone after next year we got nothing as far as slot recievers go. That along with being pretty loaded at cb assuming countess comes back strong and this looks like a head scratcher. I was really expecting big things from Norfleet as a kind of slot/change of pace rb/gadget player like you see a lot of nowdays.

Not like he was going to start at RB. People are acting like he rushed for 500 yards last year...and all this elusive talk I just didn't see either. The guy has good speed, it's not like he still can't do what he did this year, return kicks.

I'm mostly kidding. But not entirely.

I like Norfleet as a change of pace back.  Why do all of our backs have to be big bruisers.  Can't we have a few burners?

I see people are having their usual freakout.  Keep in mind that 1) position changes aren't necessarily permanent (see our current starting QB) and 2) that the 2013 season is a long way away.

There goes my dream of him being our De'Anthony Thomas/Percy Harvin type player.

Thinking the coaches are smart enough to know if Dennis is going to be the next deanthony Thomas or harvin, obviously he isn't that type of player, so lets just watch this unfold.

According to my grandma's son's son, my gut feeling is that he's no Vincent Smith when it comes to pass pro and he's all Vincent Smith in terms of bulk.

where we are very shallow :(

OK, I just scanned the thread and saw Dennis Norfleet's name mentioned in the same breath as Charles Woodson, Percy Harvin, and De'Anthony Thomas.  

Really?  We are talking about a kid who couldn't crack the paper-thin depth chart at tailback this season and ranked 49th in the country in kickoff return average.   I'm not even convinced he's the long-term answer at kickoff returner, let alone anywhere else.  Some people here need to stop channeling their inner Fred Jackson and breathe into a paper bag for a couple minutes.  

This move isn't that surprising. He wasn't going to be a very good running back in my opinion. He's way to small for manball. Short corners can be very good in college. He has the speed and athletic ability to hawk a receiver. The question is does he have the intangibles and instincts? Most college QB's aren't accurate enough to exploit height like they do in the NFL. I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a reliable DB.

Per the ESPN article, Norfleet played corner soph and junior years in HS

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegesMichigan/post/_/id/8993/norfleet-makes-m...

I take it as he will be return man and is giving him chance to compete on the on a certain side of the ball rather than compete in the backfield. 

What the fuck? If anything, move the kid to receiver. He's too talented with the ball in his hands to move to the other side of the ball.

I dunno. Seems like it must be depth issue. We got some depth issues at Center, why not move Norfleet there? LOL.

The blow-up here from a bunch of people with no in-depth knowledge of the situation over a guy who has contributed almost nothing on offense is a little bit ridiculous.

Whaddaya know, a guy who we were told on National Signing Day probably wouldn't play much running back in college...

...isn't going to play much running back in college.

This is totally out of left field, guys.

get this move

Am I taking crazy pills here!? This is a horrible move. It doesn't utilize his skill set at all. There has to be another motive for this.

The more I think about this the more I realize that Norfleet probably had a 6 inch growth spurt. Everybody calm down!

           after seeing all these people talk about Darren Sproles 2.0 because Brian had a boner for the kid.  He did nothing to make me or any other reasonable person think he was like Darren Sproles, aside from being small and fast. He didn't take over the starting RB spot, hell,he didn't take over the second string RB spot.  So who gives a shit if he moves to corner?  It's not like we are moving a 1000 yard RB to CB.  We are putting our kick returner in a position to see the field more frequently.