Michigan Football Tidbits: Position Group – Incoming Freshmen Cornerbacks and defensive tidbits:

Turner: His biggest advantage, right now, is his size, and another advantage is his ability. He has the type of talent you just cannot teach. His upside is unlimited, and because of our lack of size at the cornerback position, he will be given every opportunity to make an impact right away in 2009 — specially in red zone where he could be put in as a cornerback with Boo Boo in at nickel.

Whitty: He’s most liikely a red-shirt, although injuries and lack-of-depth may force him into action. Never complain when Michigan recruits a kid who had an injury, especially one who could have been highly rated had he been healthy.

We know the coaches think a lot more of Whitty than his ratings: he has some size (height), and speed — two things that you cannot teach. He just needs a couple years with Barwis. He is a nice addition and can always be used, early on, to upgrade the special teams.

Overall: A pretty good group although very young and inexperienced. Size was a problem which Turner helps alleviate. We still expect Michigan to go after at least one tall cornerback in 2010.

Sometimes, hard to judge the effectiveness of cornerback play, especially when they play zone, because sometimes the pass gets completed because of a bad linebacker drop. Safety play, in most cases, is essential to good cornerback play. Coach Robinson says he likes to play man and he now has the types of cornerbacks that prefers man coverage. But will it work? It didn’t last spring.

As you with the cornerbacks, on defense, the numbers and depth at every position is deficient when compared to the offense.

This lack of numbers will eventually catch up to a team, because if forces players to play very early in there careers when they may not be totally ready. We have to recruit aggressively on the defensive side of the ball this year and are hoping that at least 60% — or more — commits are defensive players.

Side Note: Position changes, more times than not, do not work, unless — sometimes — if the it happens early enough in a player’s career, usually the first year.

If it is not done early, then — usually — position changes are done solely to alleviate depth shortages, and that player ends up as a role player. We do not see a lot of position changes, maybe not any, but there are a lot of numbers on offense. The coaches cannot play them all, so either some players move to defense or we may have some unhappy players down the road. Yes, some changeovers between teams happen later on, but, in the norm of things, a player changing positions and becoming a key factor is a rare event.

>>> (Tomorrow, we will be talking about the Position Group — Safeties)

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