Three Hot Takes For the Upcoming Season

I know there are plenty in this space who are experiencing negative feelings or outright apathy in regards to this upcoming season. But I want to make three positive predications that I am willing to stick my neck out for. Feel free to point out the egg on my face if by the end of the season these predictions do not come to pass. But I'm feeling pretty good about each one of them.

#1 - Cade McNamara will be a top 5 Big Ten quarterback this season

REASONING: McNamara got a handful of snaps as the starter last season. He was a redshirt freshman, during a weird Covid season, in which he did not receive starter reps leading up to the season. Players improve, particularly from their freshman to sophomore seasons. I know Brian is down on McNamara because of his limited physical tools but college football history is littered with Heisman contending quarterbacks who had similar or worse tools as McNamara. Gattis has mentioned the high esteem Alabama held McNamara in when he in high school so it wasn't just Michigan who saw something in him. Others have mentioned the correlation between gaudy high school career stats and subsequent college success. He may have hailed from Nevada but he tore the hell out of the competition he faced.

McNamara has the leadership skills you look for in a college quarterback. Yes, your mileage may vary in regards to the usefulness of said leadership skills but it's a nice bonus nonetheless. You may have noticed that Tennessee just named Joe Milton as their starting quarterback. It's true that Tennessee's program is way down compared to the past but it's still Tennessee. Milton being their starter has to say something about something. And McNamara was so clearly ahead of him on the depth chart (and presumably Dylan McCaffrey, had he stayed), that Milton didn't even bother sticking around for the spring. Finally, I too am utterly bewildered that Harbaugh continues to whiff on the quarterbacks he has recruited. But even if you believe the ol' quarterback whisperer has lost his touch, the odds are in his favor that at least one of these guys breaks through. If nothing else, at some point luck tilts in your favor. Harbaugh is due.

#2 Josh Gattis does a good job coaching a unified offensive unit that displays coherent and at times creative play calling

REASONING: We know Gattis was a relatively hot commodity prior to accepting the OC position at Michigan. We saw towards the end of his first year that he could put together a great game plan and get his players to execute said game plan. So we can be confident that the ability is within him to accomplish what we as fans would like him to accomplish. But then we were hit with injuries and a quarterback who regressed and a defense that fell apart and was thus putting our offense in bad situations far too much of the time. Assuming better injury luck in 2021, Gattis will have the players and the continuity to execute his game plan, including a quarterback who can hopefully make the proper reads on RPO's. 

#3 Our defense will be pretty good during the second half of the season

REASONING: There are reasons aplenty to be scared to death of what our defense will look like during the first half of our schedule. Not only are the players learning a completely new scheme but this scheme is multiple, which inevitably translates to "not easy to master quickly." There might be a lot of mental mistakes and/or vanilla looks until we get our sea legs. And yes, it's true that we shouldn't expect a fully weaponized version of Macdonald's scheme until probably next season. And given that he's a young first time coordinator, there could be plenty of learning pains and hiccups during his first season.

But on the other hand, everyone seems to agree that Macdonald is a bit of a rising star in the coaching ranks and that he's had the opportunity to learn under some great defensive minds. Furthermore, unlike last season, if the players are too slow to pick up on one schematic strategy or if the personnel simply doesn't jive with what the coaches want them to do, we won't have to pivot towards something we didn't really practice during spring and fall practices. That's the advantage of being multiple compared to Don Brown's one-size-fits-all tendencies. Perhaps our players won't be able to master everything being thrown at them but it feels like something should stick.

Finally, our roster is loaded with players who were developmental types that were supposed to be coming into their own right around this time. Sure, the depth chart gets scary in a hurry once you get past the starters but those starters have always held immense promise and have always needed some time to marinate before they were ready to come into their own. And the secondary should be vastly improved across the board compared to last year, for a number of reasons.

Am I off my rocker? Feel free to let me know or just post your own hot takes. It's time to get excited for the upcoming season!