Michigan Football: What About the Cupboard? Defense

Posted at 12:00pm — 12/27/2014

Michigan Wolverine Football: What About the Cupboard? — Defense — Part II

The linebackers are a little more problematical than the defensive line. Ryan is gone and the unit continues to hear complaints about overall speed and coverage ability. Take heart, with today’s skilled players and offensive schemes, based on getting any match-up advantage, plenty of teams would like to have faster linebackers.

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Joe Bolden has plenty of experience, football knowledge and desire to play the game. From the very start our GBMWolverine group has stated that Joe would be a solid performer who did not have elite speed or athletic talent. He is an above average university linebacker and has enough versatility to play more than one position. Joe is an asset to his program, discounting his stakeout at the not OK Corral.

Desmond Morgan is another probable inside possibility, assuming he returns from injury ready to go. He is no longer a lightweight, but certainly is not the Godzilla size middleman programs pursue. Coaches have always spoken highly of Morgan and it is simple to infer that his absence hurt the overall defensive effort. His weakness is being in space one on one against a superior athlete.

Several other returning players have demonstrated adequate performance. Royce Jenkins-Stone and James Ross III came to Michigan as highly touted local products. Both have had good moments and demonstrated weaknesses. Stone is very athletic and Ross is tough. Ross is small, and somehow Stone does not lock down a permanent starting job. There is potential and with a new Head Coach both players will have motivation to put the best effort forward.

Ben Gedeon has toughness and athletic talent. He is another Michigan linebacker who could turn the corner and develop into a top performer; could is both optimistic and pessimistic.

Many hold out hope that Mike McCray can be a higher-level Big Ten linebacker. He does have size and good instinct. McCray seems to be better once in a game situation. His coverage potential is similar to the rest of Michigan’s group.

Losing Ferns hurts the next group of ascending linebackers and leaves Jared Wangler, Chase Winovich and Noah Furbush as the future. The likely destination for all three this year is spot play and special teams.

There is the possibility that one or more safeties move to outside linebacker, Jeremy Clark certainly being, at the least, a consideration to be within such a conversation.

The defensive back situation hinges on Jabrill Peppers emergence. He is big and athletic and the best prospect in several years in Ann Arbor. Hopefully he stays healthy and comes out on fire.

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Michigan Wolverines

Blake Countess struggled some in the new coverage. How much Blake has come back from his Alabama injury remains unknown. Every defensive back gets beat one time or another but Raymon Taylor stretched every definition of getting beat to another level. Any observer can see the meaning of the above statement and no microscopic analysis of Taylor’s defeats need be documented. He was placed on a island that opponents invaded. Taylor was the guy the opponents isolated when a third and long, or must big game play was a must.

Jourdan Lewis may be the answer to giving UM a nice corner/nickel combo with Peppers and Countess.

The safeties, like the corners, had bad moments. But watch any weekend of football and an observer will see plenty of defensive backs getting beat. It is the nature of today’s game. The answer is to minimize the damage with good play by top athletes.

Jarrod Wilson was solid, but after him, no one came close to standing out. Clark and Stribling may have to stay at safety because of a need for reasonable backup.

The exodus of the 2015 commits has taken away two promising talents. So, that avenue of help is on hold, assuming neither has a change of heart.

There is talent and hope for this unit. It will need to be well coordinated and will not be a dominating group. But with some improvement from the back four, things could look upward.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff — Doc4Blu

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