Michigan Football: 6 young players standing out this spring

Michigan football is working its way through spring practices right now and here are six young players that are standing out. 

The Wolverines are going through spring practices right now. The spring game is set for April 2nd and that will be our first full glimpse of the 2022 Michigan football team.

Yet, Michigan football’s coordinators — Sherrone Moore, Matt Weiss, and Jesse Minter — all met with the media recently, as did Jim Harbaugh.

Along with some inside info and reporting, here’s a look at six young players who are standing out this spring. By young players, I mean guys who will be entering their third season (or younger) and haven’t really played much.

With essentially 10 starting jobs open on both sides of the ball and a number of roles open on the depth chart, Michigan football needs some of its talented recruits to pay dividends and one guy who should play right away for U-M is Will Johnson.

So with that in mind, we start our list with three defensive players who have turned heads this spring.

Will Johnson, Cornerback

New defensive coordinator Jesse Minter was at Vanderbilt last season and wasn’t involved in getting Will Johnson to Michigan. Yet, he talked glowingly about the freshman’s performance this spring on the “In The Trenches” podcast with Jon Jansen.

Minter essentially said that Johnson was everything you would hope for in a five-star prospect and he’s not the first to sing Will’s praise this spring. Here’s what Harbaugh said about him:

"“Will Johnson, son of Deon Johnson who played here at the University of Michigan and was a heckuva good football player. Been recruiting Will since it seems he was a freshman in high school. I think we probably offered him as a freshman, at least as a sophomore, but right down the road. He’s been fantastic, been one of our best recruiters. Michigan legacy. Everything you want in a corner in terms of length and movement skills, traits. Fantastic."

Michigan is better in the secondary than some people realize even with the departure of Vincent Gray. DJ Turner looks like an All-Big Ten candidate and Gemon Green has played well in coverage. If he could just improve his ball skills a little, he could be an NFL corner too.

But Johnson, who is wearing No. 2, might be the best player at his position since Charles Woodson and I have a hard time believing he won’t at least be one of the top 3-4 corners this season. He might not start from day one, yet it’s only a matter of time and he will play right away.