Hoke: Norfleet to play cornerback

I keed, I keed

Are you serious?????? Wow. Just wow.

Are we going to have depth issues at CB next year, or is this a case of having the best athletes on the field?

Generally I'm not all up-in-arms about short cornerbacks, but this is a little...

Well at least this makes more sense than safety.

WAT

And to think he didn't even go to Cass Tech.

I don't get this at all. I'm not super-high on Norfleet as a runner or anything, but CB was (I thought) a place where we had depth and ability. This is like Justin Fargas all over again.

I guess they were serious about maball in the future. Seems anyone under 6'2 might be destined for defense. 

Heck, maybe he has great instincts and good tackling ability. I'd take a guy in the mold of Antoine Winfield.

Norfleet has embraced move to CB according to Hoke, and that "he loves to play the game."

A 5'7" corner? I don't know....

I don't get it. Why not slot receiver or running back? It seems like a waste. We have pretty good depth at corner, and our starters are both really young (Blake and Raymon). 

Mind bottling.

The last six years may have been the strangest six years in Michigan football history.

Devin Gardner to running back.

Hate it. Couldn't we add him to the offense to make it more dynamic.

Too bad. Would've loved to see that speed out of the backfield. Still remember that end around we ran with him and he got 12 yards just like that. Seems to dynamic of a runner to put on defense

Told ya

Sooo...Berkely Edwards then? Not sure I get this one. Seems his value you would be far greater in the Vincent Smith role than at CB.

As long as he's still returning kicks, I'm not gonna freak out too much.

Nickel/dime packages.

Well hopefully he doesnt tackle like he did when we punted the ball to Ohio and he came hauling ass down only to grab all facemask at 300mph. The refs missed it cuz it was like a fucking blur.

Does this mean we can finally move Furman to RB? Seems like a fair trade to me.

Hoke and Borges are really going to use him at RB but they are just telling everyone he'll play CB.  

Don't tell anyone else though, because that would ruin this secret.

Well we do have such an abundance of explosive playmakers...

South Carolina's receivers aren't very tall. Norfleet's height isn't a big deal in this game. He  makes up for it with agility, change of direction, etc.  I think its a good move for this game. Long term, not so much.

I really thought he would be an asset catching passes out of the backfield and running sweeps or reverses.  Very surprising move.

Corner makes more sense than safety but Norfleet is a guy that the coaching staff was designing plays for earlier this year. Now he's just a corner unlikely to ever start considering our current depth at the position?



I do not have high hopes for our offense going forward.

Moved to CB purely based on interception return potential.

Why, WHY?  This guy was made for the jet sweep type plays.  Maybe he can still get in on offense a few plays a game. (Probably not)

Book it, my friends.

Also, Keith Stone to 3-tech.

Norfleet was too much of a playmaker for Borges. His replacment at RB is AJ Williams.

I'll admit I am a bit puzzled by this move but I think a bit of perspective is necessary...stats showed that he was an average kick returner and he couldn't garner meaningful playtime, even with our atrocious running game. The way people are acting seems like we just moved denard to safety...

Still return kicks, not sure why everybody is so up in arms...on offense he could run one play, jet sweep, and we can probably run that play with Hayes if it even stays in the play book. Seems like he is destined for nickel back coverage and not anytime soon. He can still do what he was probably brought here to do, return kicks or punts.

Norlfeet looks like a career returner to me, not much more.  They can switch him to Nose Guard for all I care, he's going to be behind many others at RB, Corner, Receiver, Safety...  He was a flier as a recruit whose worked out well in a special teams role.  He's a good little returner, but I never saw him playing meaningful minutes on O or D anyway.  RB makes the most sense as his "position" given his skills and the team's depth there, but honestly, which group he practices with every day is of minimal concern to me.

panic level for M offense, 2013 version, sloooowly starting to rise.

Lewan and the twosie gone....breaking in up to 4 new starters on the O-line....our best WR is also our projected starting QB....we have very poor WR depth....Northfleet now a CB....

Borges' fault?

I suppose it could be because he's an awesome corner, but man, this is kind of depressing. Hope for a diverse elite offense is slowly starting to sink.

an athlete.  He started returning kicks as a true freshman and is obviously showing something to the coaches.  Smallish athletes have been proving armchair pundits wrong for a long time.

I hope Dennis turns to be another "story" like a certain slow walk-on who played safety and became a team captain.  

Or perhaps we're going to be seeing a new RB come in very soon. :)  Ok not for the bowl game ...*grumble grumble bryant gumbel*

Hayes and Drake must be looking good. Or maybe they feel good about Green.

Borges staking his claim for most obstinate offensive coach in last five years.

Hey look - another inexplicable, idiotic move by our coaching staff.

Norfleet seems like a kid who wants to contribute in any way shape or form.  His attitude seems pretty emphatic when returning kick offs and hell the kid just excites me when he catches the ball and runs it out the endzone on kick offs.  Maybe he wasn't happy with only returning kicks a few times a game and was looking for other ways to contribute so he had a sit down with the coaches about the depth chart and decided to give him a shot at corner as possibly the thinnest position.  Does it necessarily mean he can't return to running back if the need arises? I mean look at Gardner.. QB to WR back to QB in less than half of a season roughly...

My theory is this is a trial run to see if he can be a good corner which I assume the coaches think there is a decent shot.  If it doesn't work, they move him back to RB in the Spring or before Fall practice.  It's not like learning RB is that hard that he couldn't go back before Fall practice and be able to play (ok, blocking is kind of hard but that's unlikely to be his specialty anyway).

I think the odds are near zero that he's moving to CB if they didn't expect him to be at least 2nd string at one of the CB positions (nickel?).

Remember, Borges RBs at SD State were small. 

I choose to see the upside in this by assuming we now have Derrick Green AND Ty Isaac in the bag... And Dorial Green-Beckham. That's why we didn't move Norfleet to slot.

For some reason I feel this is temporary for the Outback. I still see him as Michigan's next Percy Harvin/Quizz Rodgers.

But i honestly cant remember a good 5'6" CB. I could be wrong but i really dont think there has been one here.

So so so stupid.  Now that he's at corner, he'll never be able to produce on the offensive side of the ball.  A school like Michigan isn't going to ever let a kid playing cornerback and line up on offense, right?

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.