Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Jake Ryan — Linebackers — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
Posted at 5:30am — 7/10/2012
Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Jake Ryan — Linebackers — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
GBMWolverine Football Spring Evaluations: Position-by-Position — Player Profile.
GBMWolverine readers: Here is a brief overview of Jake Ryan 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 (Linebackers) we will not evaluate #27 Al Mike Jones because we didn’t get a good read on him this spring. If you would like to chat about this player 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: #34 Isaiah Bell who left the team, #42 J.B. Fitzgerald, #51 Marell Evans, and #58 Brandon Herron. #94 Jordan Paskorz has moved to tight end and #97 Brennen Beyer to defensive end.
Coming in for 2012 (Team #133) on scholarship: #35 Joe Bolden and #49 Kaleb Ringer (already on campus for spring football), Royce Jenkins-Stone and James Ross.
Commit for 2013 (Team #134) on scholarship: Michael McCray and Ben Gedeon.
Jake Ryan
Height: 6’3
Weight: 230
Number: 90
Position: Linebacker
Year: Red-shirt Sophomore
City/State: Westlake, Ohio
High School: St. Ignatius
High School Coach: Chuck Kyle
Programs love to have talented and contributing redshirt sophomores like Jake Ryan on the team. He is from the Cleveland, Ohio area and played for the storied St. Ignatius program. Jake was somewhat of a late bloomer but has progressed ever since stepping into the Michigan program.
Jake is one of the two best pass rushers on the current roster.
He has the best first step on the team and gets after it in a hurry. He also had the longest hair during the spring practice session. If there were an A. J. Hawk look-alike contest, Jake would win.
Ryan is relentless on the pass rush and is effective either blitzing or playing with his hand on the ground in passing situations, whether he blitzes or goes back in coverage.
Jake still needs to improve his play in space and be a bit tougher, taking on blockers coming directly at him. He usually doesn’t have a problem moving laterally to the sidelines, but as mentioned struggles a little bit when the play design is heading right at him. Another year in the weight room and eating at the training table should help.
Ryan, like Desmond Morgan, is another one of those players that coaches just love to have on a team. Jake might not wow observers with his stats, or when he puts up combine numbers, but he seems to be around the ball consistently, makes plays, and is not afraid of putting a hit on a ball carrier either.
The above is a good description of a blue-collar type of linebacker. And when one watches, Jake does look to be an old style, blue-collar linebacker.
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!