Previously: Podcast 11.0A, Podcast 11.0B, Podcast 11.0C. The Story. Quarterback.

[Bolded player rules: not necessarily returning starter, but someone we've seen enough of that I'm no longer talking about their recruiting profile. Extant contributor.]

FEATURE BACK	Yr.	SHORT YARDAGE	Yr.	3RD DOWN	YR.
Tru Wilson	Sr.*	Zach Charbonnet	Fr.	Tru Wilson	Sr.*
Zach Charbonnet	Fr.	Ben VanSumeren	Fr.*	Zach Charbonnet	Fr.
Christian Turner	Fr.*	Hassan Haskins	Fr.*	Christian Turner	Fr.*
Hassan Haskins	Fr.*	Tru Wilson	Sr.*	Giles Jackson	Fr.

Listen to me now and believe me later: I'd rather have an elite pass protector who runs a 4.8 than a home run threat who can't pick up a ham sandwich. Assuming Zach Charbonnet dodges the Curse of Fred Jackson's Beverages, this year will be an acid test of that assertion.

A platonic experiment. In the red corner: a former walk-on with the long speed of a hamster and the blitz pickup chops of a Viking. In the blue corner: two dudes who haven't pass protected in college, at all. One of them is a 230-pound gazelle. Fight!

Gattis's offense does provide a caveat. RPOs don't require running backs to block. That doesn't mean the expanded playbook a pass protection expert brings isn't valuable—passing downs happen. It does mean that if Wilson's getting every passing down his more dynamic compatriots get the carries while Wilson gets the Mr. Worldwide trophy.

Per one of our local insiders, it's going to be tight:

RB has been very entertaining. Lots of views and differing opinions. Depending on the date, time, or person it could be any of the three. You will hear about Wilson holding off the other two, Turner taking snaps with the ones, and Charbonnet excelling early. It's a great problem to have for an inexperienced group. Who can be the best RB in pass protection?

That question has only one answer. But there are ways to get guys carries without exposing your quarterback to excessive Drevno.

[After THE JUMP: old reliable, young money]

RUNNING BACK: PICK ME UP, BUTTERCUP

RATING: 3

crafty, tough, and slow [Bryan Fuller]

Everyone and their dog wants someone other than TRU WILSON to be the starting running back. Well, suck it, dogs!

That's the bar. If someone can approach that and also be a home run threat, the job is theirs.

Seriously. You have only to go back to last year's national title game to find a team that prioritized pass protection above having Travis freakin' Etienne run the ball. Ian Boyd:

Clemson spent a lot of the title game with Adam Choice on the field at RB over Travis Etienne. Why? Because Choice is older, stouter (5-9/220), and more well versed and experienced in their pass protection sets. That proved crucial in giving Trevor Lawrence time to deliver some of the crushing strikes against the Bama D.

Choice was very solid in the Clemson run game but also thickly built and experienced in pass protection, so he was often more valuable to their game-winning effort than the explosive Travis Etienne because his skill set complimented the passing game that was putting the winning points on the board.

Michigan is going to be doing a lot of throwing this year and would like to keep their quarterback upright. Wilson, who cuts down linebackers like they're so many for-hire ninjas, does not have the upside of Michigan's other two options with the ball in his hands. That may not be enough to depose him. Zach Charbonnet is a true freshman who missed spring; Christian Turner also missed spring and large chunks of his freshman year with injuries. If either is in Wilson's class as a protector it'll be a shock.

Meanwhile, Wilson had a promising start with the ball in his hands. He checks a lot of Mike Hart boxes even beyond the pass protection. His vision and feel for odd blocking situations allowed him to rescue some iffy plays. I particularly liked this against SMU because Mason, who is supposed to get a kickout, has to pick up someone else because of a blocking issue. Wilson is able to get around this and then cut right off Mason's butt to maximize the gain:

And this cut against Nebraska is perfectly timed to suck the DT in and allow Wilson unfettered access to the gap.

Wilson is a natural, instinctive runner who consistently sets up his blocks to get the maximum out of them. He threatens gaps and then puts a foot in the ground to wrong-foot opponents, and in dense traffic he paws past his own OL to find a yard or three here and there.

One of his relatively few negatives on the year was for missing an opportunity to bounce. Wilson has internalized his lack of speed to the corner and focuses on threatening said corner and then finding the lane. Post-Rutgers:

The anti-Michael Shaw, that's Tru Wilson. He is a walk-on RB so that's probably something he learned the hard way in practice against Devin Bush. He's going to take conservative north-south angles inside and make the most of them, and he'll grind out a couple yards after contact despite being a wee bit wee. He's not going to be a killer but he'll be a reliable option that will take some doing to beat out as a member of what's probably a three-man RB  platoon next year.

Wilson also had a knack for grinding out YAC despite his size. No one's going to confuse him with Zach Charbonnet, but dang if he didn't squeeze out yards he had no business getting.

That's about 75% of the Hart skillset. Wilson does not have the backfield stop-start, and that is a major thing to lack. And he's not an elite pile-pusher like Hart was, he's just surprisingly good at it. He's not Hart. He is a reasonable facsimile.

There's been some chatter about Wilson working to improve his athletic package:

"Tru’s done a really good job of reshaping himself. Really done a really good job with his athleticism and everything and playing at a really good level."

Wilson on Wilson:

"…me and the strength staff were out there during the spring, before spring ball, were out there two days a week including our five or five mandatory workouts, just out there working with the parachutes. Running up a hill, running up a curb, whatever it was. And just working on my diet, like I said. I was carrying a lot of extra baggage, I guess. That really hurt me last year."

This preview remains skeptical. Wilson was a walk-on for a reason; he is not in the rapid improvement phase of his career. What you saw last year is about what you're going to get this year. That's a stellar pass protector who makes the most of his blocks and grinds out YAC. It's also a guy who lacks an extra gear and isn't going to create yards by sheer physical dominance.

No running back predictions here are made with great confidence. My tentative suggestion is that Wilson has a plurality of carries and barely holds off his chasers as a ceremonial starter for the year.

A MAN-SIZED EL DORADO

someday we're going to find that city of gold [247]

The main threat to Wilson's starting job is true freshman ZACH CHARBONNET [recruiting profile], who will attempt to break the curse Fred Jackson inadvertently put on the program when the sheer number of beverages on his desk infuriated a roving pod of Zandalorian priests—the precepts of Zandalor are maniacal in their beverage discipline—in 1998. Since then, a highly touted Michigan running back has inevitably led to heartbreak. From Charbonnet's recruiting profile:

Since Anthony Thomas—the last good mega-recruit back—arrived in 1997 these are the highest-rated RBs Michigan brought in:

• Justin Fargas (1998): was pretty good and a third round draft pick… for USC.
• Kelly Baraka (2001): never enrolled. [ed: correction, bounced from program after one year]
• Kevin Grady (2005): converted to fullback.
• Carlos Brown (2006): never had more than 79 carries in a season, fell over if you told him a rumor about cheese.
• Justice Hayes (2011): 63 career attempts before transfer to USM.
• Derrick Green (2013): lost job to De'Veon Smith, transferred.
• Ty Isaac(2014): career backup.
• Kareem Walker (2016): transferred.

Busts, one and all.

Your author has said nice things about many of those backs and is thus hesitant to say nice things about Charbonnet. His film virtually forces you to, and Charbonnet does not have the problems that beset the above list. He does not have the off-field issues that submarined Walker, Grady, and Baraka. His contact balance is superb, unlike Brown and Green. He's not a scatback in a manball offense like Hayes. And his high school film is not a lot of caverns in which all the RB has to do is get what's blocked for him, like Isaac. When scouting articles inevitably turn to the downside this is what they find:

The "areas for improvement" section that features in a lot of scouting reports usually read like this for Charbonnet: "really aren’t any discernible weaknesses … high end student, a high character kid "

So we must proceed as if the Zandalorians do not exist.

Because Charbonnet appears to be a rare combination of vision, explosion, and ham. Most of his best runs in high school show a combination of all three, particularly this reverse-field jaunt down the sideline in which he stiffarms one guy, chucks a second into the sideline, and then WOOPS the last three dudes:

All this stuff happened in one game:

His highlight reels mostly go like that. You have to endure the touchdowns where he doesn't get touched before you can get to the good stuff, the stuff were he gets tackled but not before placing several defenders on his back. Charbonnet is not just a running back, he's public transit.

Charbonnet missed some of his senior season with ankle and knee issues but still got in 215 hard-charging carries. Michigan asked him to skip his all-star game and get meniscus surgery as soon as he arrived on campus; the rehab from that kept him out of spring ball. That means the process of reeling in Wilson didn't start in earnest until fall camp. Initial returns are positive, like you might imagine:

"Zach Charbonnet is coming on like a freight train,” Harbaugh said. “He’s really, really playing well. He sees holes, can run, has got a real knack catching the football, and is understanding and learning the game as well."

Gattis:

"He’s always in the weight room, he’s always in the coaches’ offices. Very smart, cerebral player. … he’s made no mistakes this camp. Obviously, he’s got great size. He’s got really good feet and hips. He can make some special cuts. But when you look at him from a personal standpoint, his maturity stands out first and foremost – just a great kid. So we’re real excited about him."

Lorenz reported that sources are saying Charbonnet has the proverbial "it" and is coming along like you'd hope.

Another good sign is that Charbonnet appears to have latched onto the guy who TALKS LIKE THIS and never leaves the gym. In spring Harbaugh described Charbonnet as a "stalker" who is constantly harassing the strength staff, just like Ol' Murderface. And now they're very, very boring muscle bros:

“We went out to dinner one time and she was like, ‘What do you guys do for fun? Do you guys go to the movies? What do you do?’” said [Ben] Mason, known as Michigan’s weight-room warrior. “I was like, ‘Pretty much we just work out.’ That’s the God’s honest truth. That’s what we do for fun.”

With all due respect to the other guys on the roster it feels like when, not if, with Charbonnet. This preview tentatively suggests he won't be the bell-cow until next year. This is not just a self defense mechanism. Listen to Harbaugh:

"I love him! I love him!"@CoachJim4UM is a very big fan of @UMichFootball freshman RB Zach Charbonnet (@zachcharbon). pic.twitter.com/mVUBg93u31

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) August 14, 2019

If we all see Charbonnet strictly in our peripheral vision maybe he'll work out. If you look at him directly I will find you and scold you. Stop it.

ALSO THIS GUY!

this arm tackle was unsuccessful [Eric Upchurch]

CHRISTIAN TURNER [recruiting profile] projects as the third member of the platoon and has been a bit of a forgotten man. He redshirted last year but thanks to the new rule he got a few opportunities to show what he can do. He managed to turn in a couple of impressive runs against Nebraska. Here he finds a linebacker in his lane and regaps for a chunk:

Backs have vision and can stop and start off an OL's butt are good ones to have. Turner also offered a hint he might be able to slip more tackles than his size might imply.

Like the rest of the RB crew, Turner missed most of spring with an injury. This has been an unfortunate trend:

"Big thing with him is just get healthy," Harbaugh said. "He’s had bad luck — broke a bone in his hand, had an ankle injury, then a hamstring in the spring. But at each juncture, it’s always been ‘We’re about to play Christian, Christian’s been really good in practice and here we go.'"

Because of Turner's injury issues, the above is all we've got that's not from high school. A couple of recruiting bits thus feel appropriate. Turner is in the genre of short, slashing back that's irritatingly tough to get on the ground. His high school coach:

“His number one strength is point of contact. His yards after contact is his strength — you better buckle up because he’s so explosive from the hips to the chest. He’s going to hit you and run you high, that’s what he’s gifted at. A lot of people don’t have that. ...  very physical ... very explosive, I think that’s what makes him so good, because he’s very fast in the hole, very explosive on contact. His footwork is really, really good.”

That bore out when Rivals went to see him last season. This tape is from one game, and Turner was splitting carries with two other D-I backs. This is a lot of YAC for a third of a football game:

The Nebraska carries above are no fluke; that was Turner's whole game. He's a slippery contact balance maven who seems like another Karan Higdon.

Turner has consistently been mentioned alongside Wilson and Charbonnet when coaches are real about the depth chart instead of expansive. He should be in line for real carries. How many depends on his versatility and how hard Charbonnet puts the throttle down. I'd expect him to get 50 to 100 carries as the clear #3.

THE DEEP BENCH

VanSumeren's best shot is as a short yardage back, especially if he can catch [Patrick Barron]

Michigan lists two more guys at running back, both redshirt freshmen. Swole BEN VANSUMEREN [recruiting profile] was supposed to be a combination of Ben Mason and Khalid Hill; he arrived on campus a 240-pound brick who'd broken the regular-season state record for receptions. One offensive coordinator switch later, he's in the running back room drawing a modicum of praise:

“And the other guy that’s really seeing some light, a crack of light and is just running through it – literally – is Ben VanSumeren at the running back position. He’s showing speed, he’s showing a cutting ability we didn’t foresee as well. The lightness on his feet, the stop-start, get back up to full speed. And then also the finish. He has the ability to finish through the soft shoulder – come out the other end.”

If Ben Mason's too huge to reprise his short-yardage role from last year VanSumeren could take those snaps over… but Charbonnet will have something to say about that.

If he's not a pure running back VanSumeren could find a role as a Northwestern-style superback, who annually get about 5 carries and catch 60 passes. That would be especially useful in the redzone, where fullback superback play action often sees defenders lower their heads for leverage only to get zoomed by. If that's being explored it's currently under wraps.

Finally, redshirt freshman HASSAN HASKINS [recruiting profile] bounced around last year. They tested him out at viper before moving him back to the running back room. Unfortunately for him, he too missed spring. That's a missed opportunity to turn some heads. He draws mention when coaches are at pains to reference every scholarship guy on the roster…

Hassan Haskins – another guy that was out this spring – having a really good camp. He’s got really good vision and body control.

…but hasn't popped up otherwise. He'll get some run in garbage time.