Michigan football names six captains for 2023 season
Michigan football has announced its captains for the 2023 season and we look at all the Wolverines who earned the honor.
Michigan football announced a total of six team captains on Thursday, which were the result of a vote by the players.
Quarterback J.J. McCarthy didn’t make the list of captains, but it has nothing to do with his leadership abilities. McCarthy wasn’t eligible to be a team captain since he wasn’t a senior.
Even so, Zak Zinter, who was voted as a team captain, called McCarthy one of the “biggest leaders on the team.”
2023 Michigan Football Team Captains@zak_zinter @blake_corum @bigtrevk @mikebarrett_MB1 @MikeSainristil @KrisJenkinsJr1 #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/U1BGlzRg64
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) August 24, 2023
Zinter was a no-brainer and the five others are too — Kris Jenkins, Trevor Keegan, Mike Sainrsitil, Blake Corum, and Michael Barrett. To be honest, I could have picked those six names ahead of time and that’s because they are all incredible leaders.
Michigan football is blessed with incredible leadership
It starts with Jim Harbaugh but it trickles down the entire roster. McCarthy will be a Michigan captain if he decides to come back for the 2024 season but that’s a big if based on where I believe he could be drafted in April.
However, all of the other captains are dudes who could easily be playing professional football right now. Corum would have probably won the Heisman Trophy in 2022 if he remained healthy and that’s one of the reasons he’s back. He also wants to win a national title.
Jenkins is going to be a first-round pick, but I think he might have had a shot of going that early last April and at least was a second-rounder at worst. Keegan and Zinter were both day-2 picks in my book and are good enough to be NFL rosters right now.
Sainristil and Barrett also would have been drafted. Mikey turned into one of the best nickels in the game and in Barrett, some NFL team will get a stud linebacker that can truly play well in nickel situations and dominate on special teams from day one.
Next. Final game-by-game predictions for 2023. dark
They are all talented and they have all helped build a championship culture, which we all hope will deliver a third straight Big Ten title and even more in 2023.