Michigan Football Tidbits: Spring practice is now over … now what

Michigan Football Tidbits: Spring practice is now officially over

Players will now get ready for final exams and take some time off (workouts will be optional until June) although most of the players, if they are in Ann Arbor, will workout regularly. Summer workouts officially start the first week of June and all incoming freshman are expected to attend and enroll in summer school.

Practice on Tuesday was a scrimmage. About 100 plays; very similar to the spring game.

Some highlights:

1) Most of the regular players scrimmaged, but for only one or two series’ and then sat the rest of the time.

2) B. Graham played sparingly and then Patterson played with the first group on the defensive line with Banks and Sagesse. At times, they played both Sagesse and Big Will on the defensive line, which was more of a four-man front with Big Will replacing Banks, and Herron playing with his hand down.

3) Herron is clearly in the first group right now as the “spinner” and it is a close call on who else is in the second group between Watson and Evans. Evans was first one in, but they alternated quite a bit.

Note: “Spinner” is a position of need. We need to upgrade it through recruiting. We can see Michigan taking at least two prospects in this class and there is still discussion going on regarding where Roh will play. Since we have depth issues at both “spinner” and defensive end, there is a strong possibility that Roh will not redshirt.

4) Minor started and C. Brown also played with first group, as did Grady at times. It was interesting to see the offense play with many more two back schemes on Tuesday. They were probably working on certain plays, as there were times when Minor and C. Brown were in together. Moundros was also occassionally in the mix when Michigan played two running backs.

Cox and Smith were playing mainly with the second group along with Grady at times.

5) Williams was again with the first group at safety, while Vlad was with the second group. Safety is a position that will be contested this fall. Vlad is telling people he is still only 85%, but by the first game on September 5th, with all summer to train under Barwis, he expects to be back to 100%.

6) B. Smith played a lot of linebacker (Hybrid), but also took some snaps at safety. As reported here, there have been discussions about him moving full time to linebacker and we expect that to happen by fall.

Note: One thing we keep bringing up is coaches are anxious to get Turner and Witty on campus. Witty could be a key factor with the defense next year. If Witty proves he can play cornerback at this level as a freshman, he will team with Floyd to complete the second team cornerbacks. That would free up Turner to move to safety initially, but he could move to cornerback if needed. They think Turner is a special talent.

7) Offensive line was the same and barring injury or some unforeseen event this summer, we expect the starters in spring game to be the starting unit on Sept. 5th. Omameh is pushing Huyge at right tackle and Barnum is still in the mix when healthy. Coaches really like Ferrara’s attitude and Khoury is making a push at offensive center.

8) In our opinon, the starters on opening day at split end will be Stonum and Matthews. We have high hopes for Stonum and we think this summer will be huge for him. If he shows a willingness to put forth great effort this summer he should separate himself from other split ends.

9) Roundtree was again mainly playing slot receiver and right now looks to have locked down the second slot position behind Odoms, and ahead of T. Robinson.

10) Tate was good, not great, but solid in scrimmage.

Overall: Think Tuesday scrimmage was somewhat of a downer for the players after a great spring game. Players were still talking about the turnout and the crowd at the spring game and how it got them pumped up for the upcoming season. Kids are going to have a tough summer, but the enthusiastic fan turnout will only motivate them more. In addition, we think the coaches got more out of the entire spring experience than they even expected. Overall, spring practices were a big success.

Some Thoughts about Spring Practices:

1) Quarterbacks progressed and the coaches feel more comfortable.

2) Coaches wanted to have at least eight offensive linemen ready to play and we think they have that. In fact, we may have nine potential starters.

3) Main goal to is make sure everyone was buying in to the program. If not, it would show. We can’t think of any players who did not buy in. There are still some players who need to increase their intensity, but overall attitude of team is as good as it’s been in years. Now it is a matter of whether Michigan has enough talent to win.

Coaches talked individually with the players, showing them the drills they should work on and areas for improvement by the time fall practice starts. They also (Coach Rod mainly) talked about how important the summer workouts are and that coaches were happy with the progress of team, but warned them they were not close to where they needed to be. They wanted kids to play harder, faster and although they saw glimpses of the level of intensity they want, it was not consistent enough. They told them that conditioning was the key to playing consistently.

All injured players are expected to be at 100% by start of June.

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Written by MaizeMan and ErocWolverine