GBMWolverine: Michigan Football — Tidbits from Practice

Posted at 4:00pm — 3/17/2010

GBMWolverine: Michigan Football — Tidbits from Practice

Let us pose a question. What can be learned from the various media reports of attending practice for fifteen minutes? Well, at least some “sources” finally were correct in stating that Tuesday was the first practice date, because many of the media and recruiting sites thought it was on Sunday. But GBMWolverine knew for several months that the first practice was on Tuesday. A little research indicated that practice schedules have been out since January 20th.

We ran across the usual names, numbers, weights, and received information about what players were not coming back and positions some will play. And as always the players looked impressive in shorts and helmets. Six players, as rumored, will be out for most of spring practice, perhaps all of it. This list includes Mike Martin – shoulder, David Molk – torn acl, Junior Hemingway – knee, Brandon Herron – knee, and Zac Johnson – shoulder. The best news we received was that several of the offensive linemen added good weight, namely Patrick Omameh and Taylor Lewan, and that Quinton Washington has lost some weight. These are all positive signs. From the reports we saw, and the conversations we heard, the offensive line is moving very well and could be the strength of the offense this year.

It will be interesting to see if the staff goes with the younger, more athletic linemen or with the more experienced vets like we got a glimpse of last year after David Molk went down and the offensive line was shuffled. The “biggest” news might be that Bryan Wright is not coming back. He was the kickoff specialist last year, but Coach Rod said Bryan had a lot of back problems and thought it was best to move on. So that leaves the entire special teams kicking duties up for grabs with a red-shirt freshman, incoming freshman, and walk-on to compete for those positions. This is a little scary for a coach not having special team players with any game experience. Do not read this comment as being critical of the kickers, but anytime inexperienced special teams players take the field, it puts a lot of worried looks on coaches’ faces. We believe we have good kickers on this roster that will play well at Michigan, but this puts a lot of pressure on the newcomers.

Most people knew about Nick Sheridan not coming back, but it was made official in Coach Rod’s press conference. He will be a GA for the team, but right now he is not allowed to be “coaching” the team since he is technically still on scholarship. Some fans will think that heads rolling is a good thing, or that things are moving in the right direction with Alex Herron leaving the program. Frankly, we see this development as sad news because he is a very good offensive line coach and hopefully this does not hurt his future career in coaching. One thing to keep an eye on is where Herron lands? This will be interesting to GBMWolverine as well as why things turned out this way. Herron played for Coach Frye at South Florida and then was a GA at West Virginia, along with the two plus years at Michigan. He was one of the better GA’s on the staff and really helped the offensive line.

It will be interesting to see how the younger player develop during the spring and to see how they adjust throughout the course of the spring practice sessions. The youngsters will be thrown into the fire to determine how much they can handle and then the staff will back off. This is a make or break year for several of the veterans on the team and it will be of interest to watch the vet players this spring. Will we see a completely different player, after realizing the clock is ticking, or do we see a player who is just happy to be on the team hanging out with friends.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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