semaj morgan

Offense was yesterday. That has an explainer for the faces.

------------------------

Defensive Line

Trying Etta at tackle is good for Etta, bad for the other tackles. [David Wilcomes] 

The question we're asking is: Got any depth?

But they're acting like it's: Do we need any?

What are we hearing? We don't need much talk about the starters except reminders that they're awesome. Jaydon Hood noted they keep terking his jerb.

There's times where I might have a gap, and they might wreck it. Sometimes it's fun. It really is. Just let them work. Either they're going to get it or I'm going to clean up after them.

Probably more fun in a game than when you're trying to win the third LB job. Speaking backups, Rayshaun Benny should be back by fall camp, says Lou Esposito. Trey Pierce, our other backup tackle, was seen on crutches. It doesn't sound too serious if you ask Espo.

He's done a great job. [Since] I got to come here, he's practiced a couple times, he got dinged up a little bit. He's come back and got dinged back up. But he's really progressing. I think the biggest thing for Trey was just realizing what he can do. … He's a sponge. He's been around almost two or three times a week with me one-on-one so he's done a great job. I expect him to have a good fall, and we need him to have a good fall. We've got to build that depth.

In their absence the third team DTs have been getting more run, and edge Enow Etta, listed at 6-4/292, has been asked to try playing inside. Etta needs time to adjust, says Espo:

He's a really, really good athlete. It's just that he has to learn. As you get closer to the ball, the hand combat becomes quicker. It gets on you faster. The further away from the ball, it kind of takes a little bit of time and you can use your athletic ability out there. I think the biggest thing with him is getting some of those inside reps has really helped him on the edge. Now when you put him on the edge, some of the weaknesses that he had he doesn't have anymore in the physicality part. He's been extremely physical all spring, and he's a big part of what we're gonna do moving forward.

An insider thought Etta's "a little too trim" for this. "He's got big legs. No butt though." The only other guy being mentioned by name is the only other scholarship guy recruited to play DT.

I think Ike (Iwunnah) has done a great job this spring for us. He's played a lot of snaps.

It seems they need someone for the Goode role, and are pursuing Kent State DT CJ West for the job. West put up an 85.9 (pro caliber) last year and an 80.1 in 2022. Kent State didn't really play anybody—their FBS non-conf games were UCF and Arkansas—last season but West started against Washington, Oklahoma, and Georgia in 2022, so he's show he can hold up against P5 talent. I'm guessing they don't get involved with back-in-the-portal-again MSU DT Simeon Barrow, nor TCU's Damonic Williams, but those familiar names could help to keep other teams away from West.

As for edge, TJ Guy's name was on the tip of various tongues at Pro Day, adding to a pile of people who see him as the next in line at the DE/LB spot. Esposito's presser was more getting-to-know-you stuff so there wasn't much more to add. An insider said Guy is making it hard to judge the right tackle race because there isn't a substantial drop-off when they get a break from Josiah Stewart.

What it means? It's nice to hear from Ike finally, but they're saying too little for it to sound like he's any more than a warm body at this point. The scholarship name nobody's mentioning is Alessandro Lorenzetti, a 2022 sleeper they bumped over from offensive line when they flipped Giudice to offense. He was always a project, but if it's not happening by spring of Year 3 it's probably not.

It's too bad none of the four DTs in this year's class were able to enroll early, because they'd be getting all sorts of playing time, and we'd have an idea which among them can play. That they've moved Etta doesn't mean much for Etta other than he was willing to do it. It does mean the depth isn't where they need it to be. You can have Grant/Graham soak up more usage, but we're probably looking at a freshman getting in the back end of the rotation, with any injuries graduating that freshman to the two-deep.

Depth Chart: Expecting Michigan to pick up someone in the portal but for now…

------------------------

[After THE JUMP: I cannot get insiders to talk about anything but Barham]

FORMATION NOTES: In general Bama was so multiple that I had a hard time deciphering whether something was a 4-3 with a standup end or a 3-4 with a SAM; they would go with a 5-1, they would shift constantly. Surely the thickest playbooks in college football went head to head in this game.

I called this weird thing 30 nickel slide SAM:

You've got your line shifted to the run strength, you've got a standup end in a SAM spot, and you've got your LBs shifted to run strength. This is Bama's "please run at Justin Eboigbe" formation.

SUBSTITUTION NOTES: Johnson, Wilson, Barner, and Loveland all got at least two-thirds of Michigan's snaps. Corum wasn't far behind. Morris, Edwards, Morgan, and Bredeson had 10-20; Mullings and Orji had cameos.

[After the JUMP: retired that so and so]

1/1/2024 – Michigan 27, Alabama 20 (OT) – 14-0, 9-0 Big Ten, Big Ten Champs, Rose Bowl Champs

I didn't go to the 1998 Rose Bowl. I was a freshman in college, and thought I'd go to the Rose Bowl when I was a senior. Instead I watched the most important Michigan game since 1948 in my then-girlfriend's house. She chatted in a corner with a friend, not really paying attention. At one point her mom mentioned that if Washington State scored a touchdown she would win a quarter in the office squares competition. I regretted my choice then, and regret it more now.

I did go to the 2004 Rose Bowl. Michigan lost that one due to a confluence of factors—there was a bizarre interception off of Braylon Edwards's foot; Pete Carrol literally refused to run the ball after halftime and was correct—but the main one was that USC was the better team. They'd snag a split national championship after the season. Michigan was good, but John Navarre was a seventh-round pick and the other guy was Matt Leinart. Lendale White, Reggie Bush, and Mike Williams were on that team.

After the game when we got back to the hotel room my dad pulled out the champagne he'd hopefully bought and started drinking it, bemoaning the fact that Michigan never wins these games. I was still young enough that I didn't believe that was the case, but also drowned my sorrows.

I did not go the next year, when Michigan was the first team subject to Vince Young's Epic Glow-Up, nor in 2007. Michigan lost both those games, because Michigan loses bowl games. That's just part of the deal.

I went to the last two playoff games. I spent the second half of the Georgia game in a lounge, not our seats, nursing a beer. Against TCU my brain short-circuited after the Wilson overturn/Mullings fumble sequence. I guess Michigan also loses bowl games. That's just part of the deal.

So, despite best efforts I'd receded into the Black Pit of Negative Expectations with four minutes and change to go. Michigan had the ball on their 25, down 20-13, having done approximately nothing with the ball since scoring a touchdown a half prior. I glowered at the scoreboard and mentally swapped around eight points in various configurations, stewing about the special teams fiascoes that had squandered a dominant first half and seemingly tanked The Year.

I did not see a way out.

---------------------------------------------------

Today, the day after the Rose Bowl, I was fortunate enough to go on a tour of the place. It was slightly surreal to see a phalanx of workers attempt to sweep up the leftover confetti at the same time as I was scooping up pieces and sticking them in my back pocket. Several times I thought I had acquired enough, then decided I should get some more. The Tournament of Roses could have saved themselves some dough by telling any Michigan fan still in the area that they could come get some if they wanted. Then these poor people would not have had to attempt to sweep small pieces of paper on a grass field into plastic bags. I have children, and a rug. I know their pain.

To be perfectly honest, when Seth said we could go do this thing the day after the game I was willing but sort of indifferent. It is a stadium, I have been in it, I am not sure what this is supposed to do for me. But here is a thing: I believe in the Rose Bowl.

This is a silly thing to believe in, because it is a football game played in a certain place on a certain day. It is sillier because college football is devolving into a dick-measuring contest between television executives at FOX and ESPN, destroying any traditions that happen to be in the wrong conference at the wrong time. At this juncture I largely disdain the bowls and their guys in pastel suits attending games for no reason. They all seem like part of the same class of parasitic grandees that sit on top of the players, denying them their share of television revenue. I think college football should dump them all out of the playoff in favor of on-campus games.

At the same time I think the Rose Bowl should be the site of the national championship game every year.

In part this is because the Rose Bowl has made at least some effort to not go the way the rest of college football has. The halftime show consists of the two bands. The title sponsor has to settle for "oh yeah and these guys are presenting the game." There's a statute of Keith Jackson outside the front of the stadium and he will deliver a sermon about the Rose Bowl about 30 minutes before the game on the tiny little video screens. During commercial breaks you will not be exhorted to Light A Mup.

This only extends so far—before Michigan's game-tying touchdown drive ESPN went commercial-kickoff-commercial and nobody tried to stop them. This is a commercial enterprise. But the Rose Bowl matters to me in a way that is more than just a commercial enterprise.

Maybe that's dumb. But it's true that I was standing in Michigan's locker room and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

---------------------------------------------------

There was a way out.

Sherrone Moore, who'd rolled only snake eyes during the second half, was once again dialing up the right thing at the right time. A fourth and two conversion saw Blake Corum dart into the flat without anyone following him. QB counter bash ripped off 16 yards, and a play action pass was about to be complete down to the 15 when an Alabama player got a fingertip on McCarthy's throw.

Here, the grand cavalcade of life comes to a screeching halt. Time's arrow only goes one direction but sometimes it slows its velocity drastically. This is generally because you are travelling at a high rate of speed towards utter disaster. I am mentally revising the expected path of McCarthy's pass from Roman Wilson's facemask to the outstretched arms of an Alabama safety. The Alabama safety is doing the same thing. He is leaping, reaching. He feels like Rod Moore watching a wounded duck come out of Kyle McCord's hands. This one isn't even hard—somehow the tip didn't affect the spiral one iota. He is going to win this football game.

I live a lifetime in this moment. I have a PhD in Aramaic that I didn't even want by the time Roman Wilson leaves the ground and extends his arms and snatches the ball away from the Alabama safety. In my mind's eye the safety starts frantically attempting to run while airborne before holding up a sign that says NO FUNERAL and plunging off the cliff to the valley floor below. Another Alabama defender is so stunned by this turn of events that it takes him a moment for his processing to flip from "let a naysayer know, boiii" to "oh shit oh shit." Wilson turns the meteor about to end all life on this planet into first and goal from the five, and when Michigan slips him out into the flat two plays later he is so open he can sort of hop into the endzone.

New ball game, and one team would have already won this game if not for a series of inexplicable special teams gaffes. It takes two Corum runs to punch it in during overtime. The second is a glorious flashback to peak Blake Corum; he's got a linebacker shooting up the gap so he explodes outside, regapping so fast you can't possibly stay with him. Karsen Barnhart somehow does the same thing, picking off the safety, and now it's just arm tackles that aren't going to get it done.

Michigan holds on defense after Milroe sets them up at the nine, stoning two runs to set up third and fourteen. Bama gets back down to the three, but after several hundred timeouts everyone in the stadium knows Jalen Milroe is running the ball. He gets nothing, and Michigan streams onto the field.

I am floored. It suddenly occurs to me that I have just watched Michigan beat Alabama in the Rose Bowl. I turn the words over in my head. Michigan. Beat Alabama. In The Rose Bowl. The woman next to me has been very concerned for me, probably because at every opportunity I have been sitting down and pushing my fingers into my eye sockets, and says she didn't even know who I was rooting for because I had been so tense I couldn't do anything. (This is not quite true, as I have clearly been saying things like "get him" when people are chasing Milroe, but fine.)

I still can't really do anything. It takes me 20 minutes before I think to go find my friend Nick, who went to the Waterloo, Indiana game with me some 14 years ago and waited the exact right amount of time before putting on that Phoenix album as we drove home. For a moment I think he's gone, but no, it also took him 20 minutes to find the capacity to move about the world again. We hug, and here begins a process where every Michigan fan you know will hug you when he sees you for the first time after this game. I have done Craig and Dave and the Sklars and you have probably done a half dozen too.

They say time heals all wounds, but I say beating Alabama in the Rose Bowl does.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day after, after I'd scooped up enough confetti (I would scoop up more confetti later), I walked down to the seventeen yard line outside of Michigan's endzone and thought about that run. That cut. The dart. The thing that I thought was lost due to injury and the ravages of time, just like all things eventually are. I didn't run the play, exactly, but I walked through the steps near as I could figure. The cut was here, and then he bursts up field here, and he cuts back outside of Barnhart here, and he spins through the tackle here, and now we're in the endzone.

That endzone is always the endzone Blake Corum scored in. The one in the Rose Bowl, which I believe in.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

[Bryan Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1(T) Derrick Moore, Josiah Stewart, Braiden McGregor, Mike Barrett, and Kris Jenkins. The story of this game if Michigan won was going to be Jalen Milroe living under siege in the first half and Bama going away from any sort of downfield passing aside from a drive right at the end of the first half. Michigan does not have a single dominant pass rusher but they have one of the country's best pressure marks anyway. And Michigan won, so it's a party at the top. 5 points each.

#2 JJ McCarthy. Quietly efficient, with 8.2 YPA against Bama's lethal pass defense. Three TDs, no picks thanks to an overturn on his first attempt, and ran for 25 yards on three carries. Had some bumps in there, but made the plays late to tie.

#3 Blake Corum. Explosive OT jump cut gave Michigan the winning points, and was a crucial outlet on two catches: the first Michigan TD and the fourth down conversion on the fourth-quarter TD drive. 4.4 yards a carry on 19 attempts, spiritual rock on offense.

Honorable mention: Mike Sainristil was blitzing off the slot to good effect all game. Mason Graham had a crucial TFL in OT. Rod Moore had a PBU that ended Bama's downfield aspirations for the most part. Will Johnson was targeted just twice and gave up no completions. Tyler Morris not only converted a third and ten but tightroped the sideline and beat Bama's DBs to the pylon. Roman Wilson snagged a tipped ball on Michigan's tying drive and finished it with a TD. Quinten Johnson punched out a fumble.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

58: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU, #1 UNLV, #2 Rutgers, HM Nebraska, #2 Minn, #1 IU, #1 MSU, HM PUR, HM PSU, #1 OSU, #2 Bama)
34: Kris Jenkins (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 BGSU, HM Rutgers, #1 Neb, HM MSU, T2 OSU, HM Iowa, T1 Bama)
29: Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU, HM BGSU, #1 Rutgers, HM IU, HM MSU, #1 MD, #1 Iowa, HM Bama)
26: Mason Graham (HM ECU, T2 UNLV, #1 Minn, HM IU, HM MSU, T2 MD, T2 OSU, HM Iowa, HM Bama) 
25: Blake Corum (HM ECU, HM UNLV, #2 BGSU, HM Rutgers, HM Neb, HM IU, #1 PSU, HM MD, #3 OSU, #3 Bama)
21: Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU, T2 UNLV, #2 PSU, T2 MD, T2 OSU, HM Iowa)
20: Mike Barrett (HM UNLV, T3 Rutgers, #2 IU, T1 PUR, HM MD, HM OSU, T1 Bama)
16: Braiden McGregor(T3 UNLV, #2 Nebraska, T1 PUR, HM Iowa, T1 Bama)
15: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, #3 Nebraska, #2 PUR, HM Bama)
13: Colston Loveland (HM Rutgers, T3 IU, T2 MSU, HM PUR, HM MD, #3 OSU)
12: Derrick Moore (T3 UNLV, HM Neb, HM MSU, T1 PUR, T1 Bama)
11: AJ Barner (HM BGSU, HM Neb, HM Minn, T3 IU, T2 MSU, HM PSU), Will Johnson(#3 Minn, #3 PUR, HM PSU, #3 OSU, HM Bama)
10:  Jaylen Harrell (HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM IU, T1 PUR, #3 OSU, HM Iowa)
9: Junior Colson (#3 BGSU, T3 Rutgers, HM MSU, #3 Iowa), Josiah Stewart (HM Minn, T1 PUR, T1 Bama)
8: Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU, HM UNLV, HM BGSU, HM Minn, HM Iowa)
5: Tommy Doman (HM ECU, #3 MD, HM OSU), Semaj Morgan(#2 Iowa)
4: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU, T3 Rutgers), Max Bredeson (HM Rutgers, HM Neb, T3 IU),  The Offensive Line (HM Minn, #3 PSU),
3: Donovan Edwards (HM ECU, HM PSU, HM OSU), Rod Moore (HM PUR, HM OSU, HM Bama), Quinten Johnson (HM Rutgers, HM OSU, HM Bama)
2:  Josh Wallace (T3 ECU), Semaj Morgan (HM Rutgers, HM PUR), Tyler Morris (HM UNLV, HM Bama)
1: Kalel Mullings (HM Minn),Keon Sabb (HM Minn), Ben Hall (HM IU), Rayshaun Benny (HM PSU), Cam Goode (HM MD), James Turner(HM OSU)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

Jalen Milroe gets a low snap and doesn't follow his blocks as a result, ending the game.

Honorable mention: Corum puts Michigan up. Wilson salvages the tip. Milroe is sacked a zillion times. Moore puts together a bravura drive after Alabama goes up 7-0.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK

Semaj Morgan muffs a punt, robbing Michigan of good field position and setting up Alabama with a short field to open up the scoring.

Honorable mention: Jake Thaw muffs a punt, almost leading the the worst way to lose a game in football history. Michigan botches an extra point. James Turner misses a 48-yard field goal. Michigan can't fit an iso on the 34-yard Bama TD. Various mishaps in the second half murder the offense until 4 minutes are left.

NICK SAMAC PATHETIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK

N/A. A missed late hit doesn't really rise to the level we want here. There were no egregious moments.

Dishonorable mention: N/A.