Michigan Football: Projecting Mike Sainristil’s impact on defense in 2022

Mike Sainristil is expected to play on both sides of the ball for Michigan football but what is his impact going to be on defense this season? 

If you listen to Mike Sainristil talk about how he pestered Michigan football coaches to let him play defense, it’s probably not surprising that he’s ended up playing on that side of the ball.

At least some of the time. And who knows, maybe nearly full time depending on how well he does.

“Since I’ve been here, I was always joking around with the defensive coaches, saying, ‘Whenever you guys need me to play defense, let me know. I’ll come and play,’” Sainristil said Tuesday via The Michigan Insider.

Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan football coaching staff asked Sainristil to play some defense, in addition to playing wide receiver and special teams.

Sainristil played offense and defense in high school but last season, he had his best season as a wide receiver catching 21 passes for 305 yards and two touchdowns.

Since his first spring on campus, Sainristil has stood out and this past spring, he really impressed with his skills as a defensive back. In the spring game, it looked like he had been playing that position the entire time.

And it seems like he’s going to get plenty of chances once the games start to play defensive back too. He seems like the perfect nickelback and he could be the guy to take over some of the snaps played by Daxton Hill at the position.

Sainristil is explosive and he’s not a stranger to tackling due to his place on special teams.

Michigan football used a lot of nickel and dime defensive packages last season and that’s only going to continue. Jesse Minter is a new defensive coordinator but he comes from the Baltimore system and coached under John Harbaugh with Mike Macdonald.

It sounds like Minter likes to bring more pressure. Or it could be that he doesn’t have quite as good of a front four and needs to manufacture pressure in different ways. Either way, I could see Sainristil being pretty good at blitzing from the slot.

Michigan football is loaded with talent at wide receiver and it’s pretty deep at defensive back too. DJ Turner and Gemon Green are trying to hold off Will Johnson, the five-star freshman, who will see the field, plus others such as Zeke Berry and Keon Sabb have impressed, along with Makari Paige who did start some games as a freshman in 2020.

Projecting Mike Sainristil’s impact in 2022

A lot of guys are going to play in the secondary but one who will consistently see the field, in my opinion, is Sainristil. It’s hard to imagine Michigan football having six defensive backs on the field and him not being out there.

Even five. Sainristil seems like a natural fit and while our looks at him at cornerback have only been limited, he looked just fine this spring and he’s probably only gotten better.

I’m not going to be shocked at all if he starts some games this season as a defensive back. It’s an irrelevant stat anyway (starts). Sainristil is going to play more than 50 percent of the defensive snaps this season and I don’t even feel like that’s a bold prediction.

Harbaugh asked him to play defense for a reason and he can do it. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he intercepted a pass or two (definitely will break up a few). He is a wide receiver after all.