Michigan Football: Handing out Midseason Awards for Wolverines

The first half of the season has been an exciting one for Michigan football, here are some midseason awards for the Wolverines.

Michigan football is sitting at number three in the polls behind the best defense in college football and an offense that’s averaging fifty points a game. Illinois comes to Ann Arbor this week for homecoming, and we’ll hear more about them in the coming days, but for now, we’re halfway through an incredibly successful season, so we might as well hand out some fake awards.

Related Story: Getting to Know Illinois

MVP: Jabrill Peppers

Duh. I could say that he’s leading the team in tackles for loss with ten (tied for seventh in the nation), or that he has 25 solo take downs thus far. I could say that he’s second in the nation in average punt return yardage, and that he should have three touchdowns–not just the one.

I could say that he’s averaging 19.6 yards a rush with two touchdowns and is somehow one of the only sure things on the offensive side of the ball.

I could say that he plays five or six positions a game. I could say that he’s the reason Don Brown can do pretty much anything he wants with the defense. But you’d know all of that already.

Highlights don’t do actually Peppers any justice because he alters the game just by stepping on the field, but what you can glean from his highlights is the fact that it just seems like he’s a little better than everybody else.

Full Season Prediction: PEPPERS!

Offensive Player of the Half-Year: Amarah Darboh

The running backs have played generally well, but they rotate too frequently to choose just one of them (and they’ve all had their off games), Jake Butt has been good but not as involved as one would hope, and Wilton Speight–despite encouraging numbers–isn’t quite there yet. Darboh, on the other hand, has been Michigan’s best receiver and a crucial weapon in the passing and running games.

The second half of last season was Jehu Chesson’s coming out party, but his numbers have dipped as Michigan has struggled to throw the deep ball.

Darboh has picked up the slack. He’s sure handed as ever and isn’t afraid to go over the middle or down the sideline. He’s sneaky quick and an excellent route runner that can find empty spaces in zone coverage better than most.

Darboh has 25 catches for 400 yards and 5 touchdowns so far this year, but it’s really two of those catches that earned him this great honor. After coming out of the gate sluggish and sloppy against Colorado, Michigan made its way back into the game slowly but surely until Darboh took a screen pass to the house and began the process of blowing the roof off the game:

By the time the third quarter ended and the game was still tied at seven against Wisconsin, it was clear that the team to make a big offensive play was going to win the game. In stepped Darboh:

He leads the team in receptions, yards, and touchdowns and has made the two most important catches of the season.

Full Season Prediction: Jake Butt

Defensive Player of the Half Year: Ryan Glasgow

I’m not sure how much sense it makes to even give this award out. The defense has a chance to be better than the ’97 version, and the defensive line might be the best in program history. The supposed weak link–the linebacking corps–has not only played better than expected but has been an asset. They have the best secondary in the country.

At this point everyone that’s getting playing time on defense is an elite player, and the big guys on the line are the elite of the elite. Glasgow has been the most co

nsistently disruptive presence on a line full of NFL prospects.

He can occupy two gaps on running downs and attack one on passing downs even though he plays on the interior of the line. A big part of the reason the linebackers have been better than expected is because they are consistently getting relatively open lanes on blitzes because Glasgow and Godin can eat up blockers and move shockingly well for interior linemen.

Glasgow’s best game was against Wisconsin, which counts for a lot because Wisky was the only real test so far this year. The Badgers have a really strong collection of linemen and they’re all huge, and Glasgow decimated whoever he was matched up against. He graded out at an absurd 87.6 at Pro Football Focus, which had this to say about him:

"Ryan Glasgow was the definition of unblockable and took the Wisconsin interior to task. If you want to know the correct way to play double teams as an interior lineman, watch Glasgow’s play from Saturday. He may have only had two run stops, but ruined multiple run plays by eating up both ends of a double team and stalling it at the line of scrimmage."

Glasgow creates chaos for opposing offenses, and the Michigan defense thrives on that chaos. He frees up the edges by occupying interior and exterior linemen, he opens gaps for blitzing linebackers and safeties, he can bull rush All-Big Ten players, he can stunt with smaller teammates. When the defense is clicking, it’s usually because the interior of the line is making the opposing quarterback’s day very unpleasant.

Full Season Prediction: Taco Charlton/Jourdan Lewis

Most Pleasant Surprise: Chris Evans

There are a lot of guys that qualify for this: Ben Gedeon, Chase Winovich, Matt Godin, Khalid Hill, and Eddie McDoom all come to mind. Still, Captain America’s performance has probably been the most most surprising this year.

The running back rotation seemed pretty iron-clad coming into the season: De’Veon Smith had cemented his role as the senior starter, Drake Johsnon could provide some speed after he returned from injury, and Ty Isaac would be around.

The freshmen (Evans and Karan Higdon) seemed like easy picks for odd men out that would rest up for next season after all the guys in front of them graduate, even though Evans earned some praise from the coaching staff during fall camp.

Evans was too good to keep on the bench, apparently. He got into the Hawaii game relatively early and finished with 112 yards on eight carries and two touchdowns and hasn’t looked back since. He leads the team in rushing with 400 yards on 8.3 yards a carry.

It seems like Evans is the first Michigan running back with serious burst in forever, which helps when the feature back is at least nominally a bruiser like Smith. The depth of the running back rotation right now dictates that Evans won’t get twenty touches a game, but he certainly makes the most of his playing time.

Next: Top 10 Michigan Running Backs of All Time

Full Season Prediction: Juwann Bushell-Beatty