Michigan Football Has Dark Horse Heisman Candidate in Jabrill Peppers
A Michigan football player hasn’t won the Heisman trophy since 1997, but the Wolverines do have a dark horse candidate in the race in 2016.
Jabrill Peppers emerged onto the scene for Michigan football in 2015 as one of the Big Ten’s most versatile weapons, and it has some believing he’s to be considered a Heisman candidate this season.
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The reason: Peppers ran the ball 18 times for 72 yards (4.0 average) and scored twice. He caught eight passes for 79 yards (9.9 average). He had 45 total tackles, including 5.5 for loss, and broke up 10 passes on the defensive end. Then he returned eight kicks for 223 yards (27.9 average) and 17 punts for 194 yards (11.4 average).
Peppers has the ability to do it all—quite literally. He even took a couple snaps last season at quarterback.
This season Peppers is moving primarily to the strong side (or SAM) linebacker position, which in Don Brown’s defense is arguably the most important and demanding spot on the field. It’s not entirely different from what Peppers was doing toward the end of last season when he spent more time in or around the box.
Is Peppers playing exclusively at linebacker this season? Hopefully not. What a bummer that would be. It’s extremely unlikely that happens. Brown has said himself Peppers isn’t going to be a one-role player on defense.
“We did a bunch of stuff with him,” Brown said recently, regarding Peppers’ many roles in the defense. “I thought he did a tremendous job of handling all the pieces. He’s a really, really bright football player and a bright young man and can do a lot of things to help our football team. And we’re going to push that to the limit.”
Peppers probably isn’t good enough as just a defender to be in consideration for the Heisman trophy—even if he is running all over the place and playing every which position.
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What’s really going to set him apart is what he can do with the ball in his hands.
Offensive coordinator Tim Drevno said in March that Peppers wasn’t working with the offense in the spring, but that the time could come when he does. We can do some reading between the lines and recognize that Peppers’ first priority was learning a new defense and a new position. Michigan didn’t need to throw in special packages on offense to top it off.
Assuming that Peppers does in fact see some time with the offense, will it be enough to make him stand out? That’s the best question to ask. Peppers played a lot of snaps—around the 90’s—a couple times last season, and some are worried that’s too heavy of a workload.
Between hitting people on defense and then being hit on offense, as well as returning kicks and punts, you can see where fatigue and durability factor in.
It won’t take something as drastic as a “perfect storm” of events for Peppers to find himself in the Heisman conversation, but it will probably take a little luck if he’s going to be used as often as it’ll take to get him there.
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If that works out for him, though, and if Michigan is winning games, don’t be surprised if in mid-October we start hearing serious conversations about Peppers taking a postseason trip to New York City.