Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Russell Bellomy — Quarterback — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
Posted at 6:00am — 4/27/2012
Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Russell Bellomy — Quarterback — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
GBMWolverine Football Spring Evaluations: Position-by-Position — Player Profile.
GBMWolverine readers: Here is a brief overview of Russell Bellomy and GBMWolverine’s analysis concerning his progress this spring in our opinion.
Note: We will not evaluate every player on the team and with this position group (Quarterbacks) we will not evaluate #4 Steve Wilson, #13 Alex Swieca, and #14 Jack Kennedy. If you would like to chat about these players bring them up on the message board or send us an e-mail request.
Reminder: Also noted that we didn’t attend every practice and realize things happen during those fifteen practices, but our evaluations are based on what we seen first hand and in our opinion and not what we hear like just about every other site out there that relies on second, third hand information to make their evaluations of the players during the spring.
Losing from 2011 (Team #132) on scholarship: Nobody.
Coming in for 2012 (Team #133) on scholarship: Nobody.
Commit for 2013 (Team #134) on scholarship: Shane Morris.
Russell Bellomy
Height: 6’3
Weight: 189
Number: 8
Position: Quarterback
Year: Red-shirt Freshman
City/State: Arlington, Texas
High School: Martin
High School Coach: Bob Wager
Once upon a time Russell Bellomy was a three star quarterback from Texas in a year and in a state with plenty of talent. He was not deluged with offers. Russell did have some qualities gong for him and as such was not a football orphan. Russell has good size, pretty good speed, a decent arm slot, decent arm strength, and his greatest asset may be in the cerebral area. Russell therefore is good at many things but so far is not outstanding at any.
He is slowly starting to show he has talent to one day be a starting Big 10 quarterback. The coaches have taken notice and like what he has done in the off-season to prepare for playing the position. Bellomy is a lot better than people give him credit for and the assumption by many he will likely never see the field with Devin Gardner here and Shane Morris coming in with the 2013 recruiting class may end up faulty.
Bellomy’s confidence and fundamentals are light years ahead of where they stared, and that comes from learning the system, understanding the system, and knowing what the coaches expect from him running the offense.
He was, this spring, able to run much more of the offense compared to last fall. The coaches have praised his ability of knowing the offense and studying film to get better on a daily basis.
Russell was held out briefly this spring for undisclosed reasons and we would have liked to seen more of him this spring.
He must get physically stronger and continue to work on his fundamentals. He needs to get in the weight room and bulk up to be able to take a pounding in the Big Ten if necessary. With Denard Robinson the starting quarterback, and the possibility of Devin Gardner seeing time at receiver, Bellomy needs to continue high-level preparation and be ready to play immediately. All it takes is one hit to Denard and Devin to advance the need for him to be inserted in the lineup.
The talk of possibly moving Devin Gardner to receiver for scripted plays probably will not affect Bellomy’s current status, but the coaches are feeling more comfortable with Bellomy as a third option since he is getting the grasp of the offense. Bellomy is pushing Devin, but Devin is clearly the second string quarterback.
Like any other back-up, Russell needs a chance to show what he can do and we believe that is one reason why both back-ups were used in the spring game: to show what they could do with the first group offense. For most of the spring, both Bellomy and Gardner were taking snaps with the second group and didn’t get many reps at all with the first group, so it was nice to see what they could do leading the first group.
Is Bellomy ready to play this season? Probably in a limited role, but that is the reason he is one of the back-ups and not the starter. He needs other pieces of the offense and some of those other pieces are coming to Ann Arbor. The pieces we speak of are coming as a part of Coach Borges continued metamorphosis to the West Coast Offense.
Just a reminder, you must be a member to participate on the free Message Board. Here is the link for the registration page for those people interested in becoming a GBMWolverine member of our message board. GBMWolverine Register.
Please comment on our GBMWolverine Message Board about this article and read what others comment.
You can contact us at our e-mail address: GBMWolverine
Please follow us on Twitter: @GBMWolverine
Written by GBMWolverine Staff
Go Blue — Wear Maize!