Michigan Football: 3 Takeaways from commitment of Xavier Worthy

Speed-in-space isn’t talk

When Josh Gattis came to Michigan football he said he was going to bring an offense focused on speed-in-space. In other words, getting guys who have speed, the football in space to do something with it.

It’s not really a complicated philosophy. The biggest trick is having the players to do it and after the last two recruiting classes, the Wolverines are definitely in a good spot.

Giles Jackson and Mike Sainristil were big additions in the 2019 class as the Wolverines already started adding more slot-type players on offense. It continued last year with A.J. Henning and each of the past two classes have brought a really good vertical wideout too. In 2019, it was Cornelius Johnson and in 2020, it was Roman Wilson.

In 2021, Michigan is hitting all the targets at wide receiver, getting three of the top guys on their board according to Steve Lorenz of The Michigan Insider ($). Worthy can basically do it all. He can play outside, line up in the slot and kill it in both roles. Allen and Dixon are bigger bodied, outside receivers. Both show a knack for catching the ball in traffic and getting deep, even though they don’t offer blazing speed.

Pairing Worthy with those guys, along with Henning, Jackson, Sainristil and Johnson in the future is an exciting prospect, not only for Gattis, but all Michigan’s future quarterbacks.