Michigan Football: 3 Storylines to Watch for During Fall Camp

At long last, the season is in sight. Following a 13-1 season that left a bad taste in your mouth, Michigan Football is looking to be even better this year. Many are calling 2023 a championship or bust season.

With that said, there are a few questions that remained unanswered following Spring ball. Those questions lingered throughout the Summer, but with Fall camp beginning, we will finally get some answers.

While we won’t really know the specifics of this team until games roll around in another month, Fall camp allows for speculation and reasonable predictions. It gives us a hint of what the season is going to look like.

Let’s take a look at three storylines that everyone should be paying attention to during fall camp.

#1: Who is the Second Cornerback?

Will Johnson is the established cornerback on this team. He looks like a future first-round pick, and the Freshman All-American should be a nightmare for opposing teams all season long.

At the nickel position, Mike Sainristil returns after a tremendous first season on defense. He’ll undoubtedly be one of the leaders of the defense and should do an excellent job at the nickel.

But one position that has been a question mark ever since Gemon Green declared for the draft is the second cornerback position. Who will line up opposite Will Johnson?

At first, it seemed like Amorion Walker was the obvious answer. Then he got exposed during the Spring Game, and fans realized how raw Walker really is. He’s a tremendous athlete who has All-American potential, but he’s got to figure out the technicalities of the cornerback position.

Then, it seemed like Ja’Den McBurrows could be the guy. He had a tremendous Spring and played well in the Spring Game. He’s finally healthy and could be an impact player. Another guy who turned heads in the Spring Game was freshman Jyaire Hill.

He looks like he’ll be a future star at cornerback, but cornerback is such a tough position to play as a freshman that it’s hard to see him winning the job this season. Possible, yes, but unlikely.

Michigan then brought in UMass transfer Josh Wallace, who was a captain yet struggled with consistency. While Wallace has experience working in his favor, it’s still up in the air whether or not he can effectively cover elite wide receivers.

Michigan football has options here, but no definitive answer yet. Fall camp is going to change that. While I doubt we’ll know for a fact who’s going to start at the second corner position for the whole season, we’ll be able to hear who in the group is separating themselves.

This is one that the entire country is going to be watching. If one of these guys can step up and be a championship-level cornerback, the Wolverines’ defense is going to take a leap forward. This is undoubtedly the most important position battle of the offseason.