Spring Roster Overanalysis 2015! Comment Count

Seth

We get excited about certain things around these parts. Like fun-to-size ratios. And new official rosters with updated weights. We've had 24 hours to parse the Spring data, and with Brian on the road today it's up to me to see how they've grown:

Things of [a Certain Definition of] Interest:

  • Brady Pallante is a fullback
  • Ross Douglas is listed as Ross Taylor-Douglas, and is back at corner
  • Ian Bunting is up to 6'7/243
  • A.J. Williams is up to offensive tackle size (6'6/285)

Weight Gain/Loss 2000

A reminder of internet policy on weight changes: all weight gain is muscle fiber, all weight lost was fat, and all static weight means fat was replaced with muscle fiber. I've highlighted things discussed after.

Player '11 '12 '13 S'14 F'14 Sp'15 '11- '12 '12-'13 '13-'14 '14- 15

Quarterbacks

Shane Morris     202 202 204 209     2 5
Wilton Speight       230 234 235       1
Alex Malzone           218       N/A

Running Back

Derrick Green     240 227 220 234     -20 14
DeVeon Smith     224 223 220 228     -4 8
Drake Johnson   203 213 212 211 207   10 -2 -4
Ty Isaac         225 240       15

Fullback & Tight End

Joe Kerridge     238 247 244 249     6 5
Sione Houma   221 231 240 242 243   10 11 1
Wyatt Shallman     237 243 239 244     2 5
Brady Pallante         263 276       13
A.J. Williams   282 265 263 260 285   -17 -5 25
Jake Butt     237 250 249 248     12 -1
Khalid Hill     258 255 252 252     -6 0
Ian Bunting         227 243       16

Wide Receiver

Amara Darboh   218 212 214 211 216   -6 -1 5
Jehu Chesson   183 196 195 197 207   13 1 10
Dennis Norfleet   170 169 167 169 168   -1 0 -1
Freddy Canteen       170 176 185       9
Da'Mario Jones     192 198 196 199     4 3
Jaron Dukes     190 200 197 204     7 7
Maurice Ways         195 205       10
Drake Harris       180 176 174       -2
Brian Cole           200       N/A

Offensive Line

Jack Miller 263 287 290 297 299 297 24 3 9 -2
Patrick Kugler     287 295 299 297     12 -2
Graham Glasgow     303 308 311 303     8 -8
Kyle Kalis   292 302 304 298 292   10 -4 -6
David Dawson     297 295 296 309     -1 13
Dan Samuelson     283 282 292 289     9 -3
Ben Braden   299 318 319 322 331   19 4 9
Mason Cole       275 292 287       -5
Erik Magnuson   290 285 295 294 296   -5 9 2
Blake Bars   282 291 290 294 281   9 3 -13
Chris Fox     338 310 309 303     -29 -6
L. Tuley-Tillman     300 290 290 309     -10 19
J. Bushell-Beatty         319 319       0

Defensive Line

Ryan Glasgow   294 300 300 296 297   6 0 -4
Bryan Mone       315 312 325       13
Ondre Pipkins   337 315 313 306 317   -22 -9 11
Willie Henry   302 306 297 293 311   4 -13 18
Matthew Godin   270 280 283 286 287   10 6 1
Maurice Hurst Jr.     270 277 282 281     12 -1
Chris Wormley   268 289 292 295 300   21 6 5
Taco Charlton     270 275 275 273     5 -2
Tom Strobel   250 265 268 268 270   15 3 2
Henry Poggi     260 271 270 273     10 3
Mario Ojemudia   223 250 250 251 252   27 1 1
Lawrence Marshall         241 238       -3

Linebacker

Desmond Morgan 220 230 228 232 232 236 10 -2 4 4
James Ross   225 220 225 227 232   -5 7 5
Joe Bolden   230 225 225 231 232   -5 6 1
R. Jenkins-Stone   206 225 221 234 240   19 9 6
Allen Gant   196 212 222 223 225   16 11 2
Ben Gedeon     236 236 240 241     4 1
Mike McCray     237 242 241 242     4 1
Chase Winovich         220 227       7
Noah Furbush         210 217       7
Jared Wangler         219 230       11

Safety

Jarrod Wilson   190 200 202 205 210   10 5 5
Delano Hill     205 205 205 204     0 -1
Dymonte Thomas     190 191 193 191   0 3 -2
Jeremy Clark   191 205 206 205 205   14 0 0
Jabrill Peppers         202 205       3

Cornerback

Blake Countess 176 182 182 183 180 185 6 0 -2 5
Jourdan Lewis     170 174 175 176     5 1
Terry Richardson   154 167 172 170 174   13 3 4
Ross Douglas     176 186 189 186     13 -3
Reon Dawson     170 178 178 175     8 -3
Brandon Watson       185 188 189       1
Channing Stribling     171 176 178 178     7 0

[Hit the jump for discussion on this and other bits I could glean.]

All Weight Change and Non-Change is Good

But we can speculate anyway, so long as EVERYONE IS AGREED this is just speculation.

RBs: Derrick Green has been torn down and rebuilt, we hope. He was too slow to be of much help at 240 in 2013, and slimmed down to 220 by fall last year. At that point he wasn't very good at spotting holes but displayed tremendous acceleration when he found one. Ty Isaac is also up to 240 this spring. FWIW Gerhart played at 237 for Stanford.

FBs & TEs: The most positive sign here is Ian Bunting up to 243. Since he's 6'7" think of the difference between 227 and 243 as that for a PF—increment your Bunting expectations. A.J. Williams is now back to his size as a high school offensive tackle. He was never going to be a passing threat at any weight; hopefully this will make him an implacable load as a power-running blocker; he certainly has a ton of experience. Brady Pallante is discussed below.

WRs: Horray for Jehu Chesson entering the 200-pounders' club. Canteen's growth is also promising, though he went from wire to skinny. Mo Ways added 10 lbs; other guys are hovering around 200. Drake Harris is down a couple of pounds thanks to the rehab process; at 174 he's probably still a ways from playing strength.

OL: Blake Bars lost 13 pounds and Dawson picked them up. The starters all shed a few; that's not surprising except with Mason Cole. Hoke's OL recruits arrived big so we shouldn't be too surprised at even this young group not growing.

DL: Mone, Pipkins and Henry all grew, and represent a very large DT/NT rotation with Glasgow. Wormley's up to 300. Lawrence Marshall you'd hope would be up to 250-ish by fall and he's a long way from there. You remember Craig Roh playing at that size as a freshman; WDE is a bit alarming now.

LB: An older group so not much to see here except Jared Wangler is now a proper WLB instead of a strong safety moonlighting there.

S: Peppers.

CB: Michigan still has a lot of 175-pounders, some longer than others. Terry Richardson is among them, which means he's now plausible to help.

No Longer Here:

Gardner, Beyer, Ryan, Taylor, Hollowell, Hagerup, and Wile were out of eligibility. Frank Clark would have been. Funchess left early for the NFL. Bellomy, Justice Hayes, and Heitzman are grad year transfers, and Bosch and Ferns were regular transfers.

Slot receiver Anthony Capatina, sometime starting interior OL Joey Burzynski, and buried TE/DE Alex Mitropoulos-Rundus also played out their eligibility. To them add quarterback Alex Swieca and tall WR Jonathan Keizer, two redshirted walk-ons who graduated in four and have apparently moved on.

    New Guys:
# Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Elig. High School
12 Alex Malzone QB 6'2 218 FR Brother Rice (Bloomfield Hills)
13 Matt Thompson QB 6'5 214 RS FR Indian Hill (Cincy)
81 Brian Cole WR 6'2 200 FR Heritage (Saginaw)
89 Brad Anlauf WR 6'4 199 RS JR Hinsdale (Illinois)
41 Ryan Tice K/P 6'1 177 FR Saline

Alex Malzone and Brian Cole you know—the only news is they received jerseys 12 and 81 respectively. In duty to my friend I point out that nobody since Brandon Williams ('99-'02) managed to hold on to #12 his entire career, though Alan Gant is on track to do so. I expect Cole hopes to get the 8 removed one day.

Unrecruited walk-ons don't officially join the team until they've been enrolled for a year so guys who've been around since last fall will suddenly appear as redshirt freshmen. Quarterback Matt Thompson was an unranked pro-style 2014 QB out of Cincy whose best offer was Davidson. Hudl page is extant. Junior highlights are on Youtube.

Anlauf is a two-sport guy who walked on the football team in 2012 and 2013, then tried to earn a basketball scholarship as a Zack Novak-sized forward. He played in eight games for Beilein last year and failed on each occasion to earn a trillion in the box score.

Ryan Tice is a preferred walk-on this year; he enrolled at Michigan in January. Tice is a local Wolverine lifer who retweets John U. Bacon, Norfleet doing Atomic Dog, and Bentley photos; his Halloween pumpkin has appeared on this site in the past. So yes I am a fan. Since Tice is a kicker and a walk-on there's no video—omigod there's video.

And a Hudl page. They got Kyle Secychel last year, and projected punter Kenny Allen can also kick, but Tice is another good backup plan in case Andrew David goes weird.

Position Changes in Order of I Care

  1. Brady Pallante to Fullback: This one I'm not sure I believe is permanent. Pallante committed to a grayshirt offer and was bumped up to a scholarship once Michigan realized the class would whiff on most of its late decisions. One bit of Brady Hoke's reputation that remains pristine is his evaluation and development of defensive tackles, so the stubby (now 6'0/276) guy is still a possible Grant Bowman.

    So what's he doing on offense? A guy the size of your average MAC center can be a goal line/short situation blocker that Michigan hasn't had since Sean Sanderson. I imagine with Mone and Pipkins available behind Ryan Glasgow there are enough bodies at nose for the short term that Pallante can spend a spring learning to go "BOP!"

    Michigan didn't get a nose in the 2015 class, but are in line for at least one instant impact guy and lose only Pipkins (whom the NCAA owes a medshirt!—that's a personal vendetta for another day). Since Pallante's role in the offense is probably limited, I'm guessing he can still progress at DT while being useful now.
  2. Ross (Taylor-) Douglas to Cornerback: He was recruited as a corner and played it his redshirt season before adding depth to the RBs, who were down to Drake Johnson, De'Veon Smith, and Antonio Whitfield at that point.
  3. Joe Hewlitt from DB to QB, and Nick Volk from LB to FB: Hewlett walked on the team last year; he'll be wearing Bellomy's number in Spring. Volk was a quarterback for Frankenmuth.

What this all means: cornerback now needs the dudes more than RB so if Douglas had remained there we'd be silently writing off his career. This is good. The additions to fullback probably don't mean very much since Pallante's projected role there isn't the same as Kerridge's or Houma's.

Number Changes:

Most notable thing is Magnuson is listed at his OL number of 78 (he'd worn 81 when Hoke used him as a TE). Brady Pallante switched from 54 to receiver-eligible 45. Nick Volk went to 38 because Bobby Henderson (another walk-on fullback) had his 37. Hewlett was 46, now 8. Cornerback Matt Mitchell is now #20; he had to give up 29 when Ross (Taylor-) Douglas returned to the D side.

Position Non-Change:

Wyatt Shallman is still listed as "RB" and probably will be until the ceremony anointing him to the sacred order of Aaron Shea.

Not Appearing:

John O'Korn isn't listed, though I don't know what transfer rules are for official documentation and whatnot.

Fact that Pretty Much Sums Up the Value of This Post:

Long-snapper Andrew Robinson is down 21 pounds: from 230 to 209.

Comments

Mr Miggle

February 24th, 2015 at 10:11 PM ^

I don't believe Hoke burned a single redshirt for garbage time. Morris doesn't count in my book, since he was clearly #2 on the depth chart and needed to get ready.

That staff may have sucked at special teams but they are important. Baxter says he's going to put the best players out there. Maybe we're not done burning redshirts just for special teams.

FreddieMercuryHayes

February 24th, 2015 at 2:25 PM ^

Re: the Issac/Gerhart comparison, Issac is like 6-2, 6-3, while Gerhart is 6' on the nose.  I know it's easy to compare him to a Harbaugh RB in the past, but they seem like different types of runners, and that extra 2-3 inches means Issac can effectively carry more weight.  I hate comparing college kids to NFL vets, but Stephen Jackson is a 6-2, 240ish guy (at the combine he was 231 in 2004).

Space Coyote

February 24th, 2015 at 2:51 PM ^

My guess is that Cole was never at his listed weight last year. That was some nice "fudging" so that when opponents looked at the roster they just say "RED FLAG - TRUE FRESHMAN LT" instead of "RED FLAGS - GROSSLY UNDERWEIGHT TRUE FRESHMAN LT". His spring weight is probably relatively legit.

champswest

February 24th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^

whole lying about height and weight. Add weight to footballer players and make basketball players an inch or two taller. If everyone is doing it, who are you suppose to be fooling? Are we tricking MSU or OSU by over inflating the size. Or are we being fooled if they are doing it? And if a guy is 15 pounds heavier now than he was last year, were we lying then or now or both?

yzerman19

February 24th, 2015 at 10:14 PM ^

i remember filling out my weight and height when the tem photographer showed up and i filled in 6'4" 225 because i remembered that's what chrsi reeves told lois lane what his height weght was.  yes i am that old.  Then 6'4" 225 showed up in the program.  i was like, "really?  does no one check these things?"

 

6'2" 170 in pads soaking wet.  i checked.  i got the extran inch from the cleats.  that's what she said.

WolverBean

February 25th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^

Maybe it's like setting the time on your alarm clock or car radio or whatever to be five minutes fast. When you actually think for a second, you'll remember that the number is intentionally inflated, but when you just glance at it you can easily forget that and get a different impression about what time it is -- which is exactly why one might set one's clock fast in the first place, and the same reason one might lie about weights and heights.

/Food For Thought

AJ1

February 24th, 2015 at 2:24 PM ^

O'Korn is not on there because he's not enrolled in classes. Can't go through spring practice unless you're a student, and the transfer went through far too late for that. Assume he'll just hang around in the background, go through all the position meetings and such until he can practice.

Also, Brad Anlauf was on the team last year. Might not have been on the roster, but he was definitely on the team. Not sure about Matt Thompson.

LBSS

February 24th, 2015 at 2:25 PM ^

Dear Ondre Pipkins,

Please be healthy and an animal this year and play yourself into the NFL, you big lovable galoot of a young man. I would very much like to see you replicate the Alan Branch domination walk shot, preferably with JT Barrett/Cardale Jones playing the role of Anthony Morelli. Thank you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

LBSS

 

On an unrelated and truly irrelevant note, I'm friendly with Ross (Taylor-)Douglas's older brother, who uses the hyphenated last name instead of just "Douglas". Wonder why Ross went without the "Taylor-" part before.

AC1997

February 24th, 2015 at 2:27 PM ^

I am concerned about the overall weight gain by the running backs. We already lacked explosiveness and now Green and Isaac have gained weight? I wonder if the transition and long period between firing/hiring allowed some extra pizzas to be consumed.

bluebyyou

February 24th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^

Remember, the next game is six months from now.  A lot can and will change in terms of player weights between now and the start of the season.  15 practices and the spring game will give the coaches a significantly larger set of data as to weather players are too slow at their current weights and vice verse.

FreddieMercuryHayes

February 24th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^

ALL WEIGHT GAIN IS GOOD

But really, I kind of agree.  It's not like Green was a burner anyway, and I liked his quickness last year (just needed to read block correctly).  I thought the 220-225 was fine for a 5-11 guy; enough bulk to break some tackles, not enough to slow him down.  But at least in his picture he looks a hell of a lot more in shape than his freshman year.  As for Isaac, at first I was concerned, but if he's a legit 6-3, he could carry around 240 pretty well; 225 might actually be too light.  But we'll need to see him actually play more to figure that out.  Hopefully the coaches scout well during spring and set goals for the players for fall they feel will help.

Tyrone Biggums

February 24th, 2015 at 4:13 PM ^

I wouldn't be to concerned about Isaac or Green.

Green was reported to be around 260 as a sophomore in high school. After dedicating himself in offseason conditioning and in the weight room he morphed himself into one of the top 3 HS backs in the nation. He's still maturing physically and 235ish and is ripppppped right now.

Isaac was listed as 220 as a senior in HS and 225 on the USC roster but many who saw him in person and if you watched any of the games he played in could see that he was much bigger. Was probably 245-250, remember he's 6'3", think Christian Okoye big! If anything he may have slimmed down a bit.

Commence bruising!

Don't forget the little guy, Smith.