Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — William Campbell — Defensive Line — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
Posted at 5:30am — 7/23/2012
Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Will Campbell — Defensive Line — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations
GBMWolverine Football Spring Evaluations: Position-by-Position — Player Profile.
GBMWolverine readers: Here is a brief overview of William Campbell 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 (Defensive Line) we will not evaluate #67 Nathan Brink. 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: #39 Will Heininger, #53 Ryan Van Bergen, #68 Mike Martin, and #95 Chris Rock who has left the program.
Coming in for 2012 (Team #133) on scholarship: Willie Henry, Ondre Pipkins, Chris Wormley, Tom Strobel, Matt Godin, and Mario Ojemudia.
Commit for 2013 (Team #134) on scholarship: Henry Poggi, Maurice Hurst Jr., and Taco Charlton.
William Campbell
Height: 6’5
Weight: 322
Number: 73
Position: Defensive Line (DT)
Year: Senior
City/State: Detroit, Michigan
High School: Cass Technical
High School Coach: Thomas Wilcher
Big Will Campbell, that moniker has been used in many forms the last few years: in hope, in praise, in puzzlement, and in frustration. Campbell came to Michigan as a highly touted so-called five-star recruit. Such a label has no value once the game starts and nothing but performance counts.
The members of the GBMWolverine staff have a high level of respect for Big Will. He has been through much, some of which was impossible to predict beforehand, since being recruited by Michigan. He was recruited by Coach Carr and was an early-enrollee, which took high expectations and increased them even more. Then, a new coaching staff arrived making his transition even harder due to scheme and personnel philosophy differences.
Will was later briefly moved to the offensive line before returning to the defense. Since Coach Hoke and staff arrived we have seen vast improvements in Will, but we still need to see more improvement and above all more consistency.
Campbell has been a giant target of critics and still maintains a positive attitude and superior work ethic. Many people, specifically the casual observers, do not understand the differences between the level of competition between high school and collegiate levels. He was easily the biggest player on the field in high school and made playing look easy against smaller and less talented players.
Will did not really fit the scheme of the previous coaches, but under Coach Mattison and the defensive staff he is getting proper coaching on fundamentals and technique. This is critical since at this level it can be difficult to break bad habits a player acquires and gets away with in high school due to simple physical dominance.
At times Big Will showed marked improvement and then, almost inexplicably, he would noticeably fall off in performance. That is probably, as stated above, the biggest thing for Will: to be more consistent and become more of a vocal leader on and off the field.
We are cheering for a solid season for Big Will, this would solve some problems.
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Written by GBMWolverine Staff
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