tj guy

Team Maize defeated Team Blue by a score of 17-7 at today's 2024 edition of the Michigan Football spring game. A game that was preceded by the championship ring ceremony and had numerous departed heroes strolling the sideline, the focus on the field was instead on a number of young players trying to make a name for themselves. As in past years, I'm not going to give a play-by-play recap for an exhibition game, but instead will give you a batch of instant reaction takes on what we witnessed: 

Offense

Alex Orji's potential... and areas for improvement. Orji quarterbacked the first drive for Team Blue, as well as the last, with  intermittent snaps in between. In that time we saw some good and some bad from Orji. He varied his touch on throws that showed a decent understanding of quarterbacking, but was mostly throwing checkdown passes. The final drive in particular saw the defense back off (Team Maize had a 10 point lead), ceding the underneath routes and Orji was efficient in connecting on those. But that's what you'd expect any QB at this level to be able to do, so I'm not putting much stock in that. 

However, there were more tantalizing moments. Orji delivered a pass to Max Bredeson with good zip and then sensed pressure before scrambling for a touchdown on the first drive. He also seemed to have another touchdown scramble on the last drive, but it was overturned on a questionable "sack" (the referees blew the play dead in rather dubious fashion). The athleticism and the ability to hit the easy stuff was on display but there were concerning moments. He put a ball behind Tyler Morris on the first drive and forced a laser into double coverage looking for Zack Marshall on the last drive. Orji also showed good pocket presence on a different snap a couple drives earlier, dancing in the pocket and eventually finding an open receiver on 3rd & 5... but he way overthrew his target. I'm not sure if the accuracy and reads are completely where they need to be, but Orji wasn't a total wreck and gave us enough reasons to believe he could plausibly be the QB in 2024. It didn't answer all the questions at the QB position, but there was enough on display to believe Orji could be a successful QB at some point in the future (whether that is in '24 or '25). 

Takes on the other QBs. Davis Warren was the starting QB for Team Maize and just like prior seasons, Warren looked pretty damn good. His arm talent is 100% there, which was most on display on a bomb to Kendrick Bell for a TD: 

🔔🔔🔔

📺 @CFBONFOX pic.twitter.com/G1jgyJAwmO

— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) April 20, 2024

There were several other strikes that Warren uncorked and he may well have been the most impressive QB today. However, it does feel a little difficult to take all of it seriously because Warren has looked terrific in spring games prior too, which hasn't necessarily translated to regulation games. 

Jayden Denegal was a bit of a disappointment in this one I felt. His drives for Team Maize had some moments, but ultimately left a lot to be desired. Yes he did hit a bomb to Fred Moore, but he also threw a wretched interception to DJ Waller (which was punched out and recovered as a fumble), threw a ball that was batted at the line, fumbled a snap that killed the two minute drill in the second quarter, and had a couple other iffy looking throws on the fourth drive. Based on the feel of this game, it would appear that Orji and Warren are the main two in-house contenders for the starting QB this fall. 

Jadyn Davis didn't play a ton, as expected. He threw a nice ball down the sideline for Peyton O'Leary that was PBU'd which showed off his arm talent, but he did appear to miss a wide open receiver on that very play. That was Davis' most notable moment during a short afternoon and based on today I would expect him to redshirt this fall (nothin' wrong with that). 

[AFTER THE JUMP: more takes]

Offense was yesterday, but after I was finished I realized I forgot to give a depth chart status. Then I thought we could use the Don Brown Dude Code for depth charting. Then I repurposed the icons that Brian got from some internet Flash game during the blog's distant past.

Icon	Name	Meaning
	Rock Star	Player is an All-American/1st rounder/bends the game around him.
	Dude	Trusted good starter. Probably All-B10 or in the running.
	Guy	Playable B10-caliber guy, very fine in a rotation.
	Iffy	Probably don't want him playing extended snaps at this point.

Defense in General

The question we're asking is: Is Wink gonna blitz too much?

But they're acting like it's: What does "blitz too much" mean?

What are we hearing? First off I need to be going on about something again, because I was out of town last week and thus missed my chance to remark on Michigan's hiring of former WMU and Memphis line coach Lou Esposito. If the name sounds familiar to you (you're misremembering famous Canadian hockey players and) you remember this author's longstanding appreciation of Bronco linemen like Ali Fayad (DE on the top).

Fayad was the first but they kept coming. Ralph Holley. Braden Fiske. Andre Carter. Marshawn Kneeland. At one point while UFR'ing the offense versus WMU I decided to look up who was responsible for these guys, and have been hoping Michigan would have an opportunity to pluck Esposito ever since. Can he recruit? I dunno. But he can coach.

Michigan also made the addition of defensive analyst Lionel Stokes official, while Alejandro found Pernell McPhee enrolled as a grad student in the School of Social Work. Stokes was LaMar Morgan's guy at Louisiana and before that an FCS coordinator. McPhee is expected to be an analyst as well, but NCAA rules allow grad assistants to be on-field coaches for a couple of years so maybe he's gonna do that.

Staff set, let's turn back to a bullet defined the offense bits this week, which was the front seven is being rather harsh on the passing game. Henschke:($):

Wink’s pressures and blitzes “handled” the offense thoroughly. … The defense is always ahead of the offense early but the offense needs time to get rhythm and gel, a lot of early pressure by Wink doesn’t necessarily allow that but it’s good practice.

There's also this from Ernest Hausmann:

Jean-Mary is imploring the group to be more disruptive in the pass game.

Wink, while calling himself the system's OG, did little to suppress the talk that he represents a more basal, aggressive antecessor of the Mac-Minter defenses.

I am more aggressive than Jesse and the proof is in the pudding. So we’ll see how it works and if we can get to the quarterback rushing three, we will rush three. That’s the way football is. You just got to see how it changes because people are adjusted to us, too.

What it means? Dear only fanbase in football that wants to hear their DC talk about blitzing *less*: Jesse Minter was able to use a lot of sim pressures without committing that many rushers, but Wink's correct that opponents have this on tape and will adjust. If you want feints to keep working you have to punch too. The pressures will go up, but it'll be in the context of all the sim pressures that Minter was using, not the blitz-to-play-man that he ran in Baltimore with the league's most expensive secondary, or in New York with the league's worst starting field position. Chill. Not you Wink.

[After THE JUMP: Dudes, potential rock stars, and a big bummer.]

I don't think this is a real thing. Jeff Goodman asserted that May had received assurances that admissions wasn't going to be as much of a problem for him as it was for Juwan Howard, something that Sam Webb said he had not heard. My assumption is that this is a game of telephone several persons downwind of this conversation:

Sources say Beilein sat in on the first hour or so of the meeting between Manuel and May, answering a number of basketball specific questions about how he built his program, how he recruited, and how he dealt with admissions. It was a meaningful assist.

I doubt there has been a conversation between Santa Ono and the dean of LS&A about letting guys into school, unfortunately.

Staffers. Potential names from 24/7's Davis Moseley:

Got some interesting names to monitor in various staff roles:

LaVall Jordan, Bill Armstrong, Adam Howard, John Beilein.

— Davis Moseley (@DavisMoseley) March 24, 2024

Two of those names will be familiar. Adam Howard is a grad assistant at Indiana currently who knows May well; Indiana fans are bizarrely upset at the prospect of losing him because they credit him with a lot of the recruiting grunt work. Bill Armstrong is a wild name: he was the associate head coach at LSU until Will Wade got sent to Bolivia by the NCAA. He's cooling his heels at Link Academy—the school Tarris Reed was at—this year. If that came to fruition that would be your recruiting guy, I'd imagine. I'm skeptical it does.

[After THE JUMP: portal time]