Michigan Football — Wolverine Spring Practice Report — More Clinic Notes

Posted at 6:00am — 4/2/2012

Michigan Football — Wolverine Spring Practice Report — More Clinic Notes

First off, these reports are our opinion and we don’t profess to be experts, but our information is and has been accurate for a long time even though many readers didn’t like our reports especially during the RR era when we simply told them what we saw, what we heard, and what we liked, what we didn’t like, etc. We had some doubters as well during the Carr era as well especially towards the end of his career at Michigan and we reported on them as well.

The nicest thing about watching practice is the players play with so much more confidence and with a lot less “anxiety” than in years past. They really seem to enjoy the experience and they are being coached “taught” very hard at the same time as well. One thing all of you would be very happy and proud with the type of kid Michigan has on its roster it’s a great group.
The scrimmages on Thursday and Saturday last about an hour give or take a few minutes.

David Brandon was at all three practices (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). For those that use to trash him for being there for RR’s practices just so you knew he is still visiting practices. In fact, he was at the entire practice on Friday or almost the entire deal and then he was at the clinic as well. He sat at a table and listened to Coach Mattison and Coach Borges talks which were two hours long including Coach Hoke introduction. He even stayed afterwards for the “chalk talks” and went around to each coach and probably spent 10-15 minutes listening to the groups chat about football. We think the guy just enjoys football and likes to listen to people that talk football. We believe it is an escape for him to get away from the business side of things on campus.

Taylor and Countess were #1 and #2 on kick-off return team.

Offense:

On Thursday they was working on slip screens.

It may be two more years before we see a true pro-style offense totally. Borges has said he doesn’t mind blending the offense at this time and in fact can see him using some things of the spread after Denard leaves. Borges stated to all the coaches in attendance that they wouldn’t mind having another quarterback the likes of Denard Robinson at Michigan again.

Denard had one very bad moment on Thursday where he threw off his back foot and was intercepted by Wilson. Not sure if receiver ran wrong route or if it was a read and Denard thought he was going somewhere else, but as soon as Denard threw the ball he knew it wasn’t going to be good.

Devin had one big play on Thursday which was a long pass to Jackson on a broken play. Devin still leaves the pocket too soon in our opinion. Devin played maybe two plays at WR on Thursday at the most and maybe one on Saturday. He might have been in on a couple during drill work, but we usually only focus on scrimmages. Also very hard to do anything more with him at WR with Bellomy out.

On Thursday the offense spent the entire practice in shotgun (no snaps under center) probably wants Barnum to work on snaps. He only had one bad snap all practice on Thursday and believe on Saturday had one bad snap as well during the scrimmage portions. Miller looked good as well snapping the ball and believe he might have had only one bad snap all weekend long as well.

One thing for sure we cannot afford to lose an offensive lineman and need to keep them all healthy this season. Didn’t think the offensive line played that well on Thursday, but Coach Mattison was running a ton of blitzes as well. Also the fact that they changed the line around since they held out Lewan for the scrimmage. Seemed to play a little better on Saturday, but again they also had a lot of penalties as well which negated several big runs mostly by Denard.

Lewan and Schofield are in a class by themselves when it comes to size. We are good at the OT spots (tall/athletic). We think the best set of OT’s we have had in a decade. Both look like they could still put another 15-20 pounds on easily, but heard they are having problems keeping weight on (nice to be young).

Mealer played RT when Lewan didn’t scrimmage on Thursday. Joey Burzynski (redshirt sophomore) from California played LG with first group when they switched around positions.

For drill work on Thursday they had Lewan (LT), Mealer (LG), Barnum (OC), Omameh (RG), and Schofield (RT).

For Scrimmage on Thursday they had (Schofield (LT), Burzynski (LG), Barnum (OC), Omameh (RG), and Mealer (RT). Lewan looked to have “bothered” his elbow because after drill work he was wearing one of those neoprene elbow braces.

On Saturday it was Lewan, Mealer, Barnum, Omameh, and Schofield for both drill work and scrimmage.

Jackson was our best WR on Thursday in terms of production, but again most/all of his catches was with the second group.

Not having Stonum on this team will hurt the passing game especially the deep threat with this speed. It sounds like he might be playing football at Eastern this season and that is why he is still around the Ann Arbor area besides wanting to graduate from Michigan.

Coach Funk in his talk discussed how Vincent Smith is the toughest kid on the team and is the best pass protector from RB position he has ever coached. He mentioned him many times over the weekend and loves the kid and his attitude of helping the offensive linemen out when they make a mistake or miss a defender.

Offensive line being able to perform on third down is when we will know if we have a good line or not.

The best TE on Thursday was Mike Kwiatkowski (walk-on).

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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