Wolverine247 Board

Is this the tune you were singing last year when Michigan was ranked in the preseason top 10 and Denard was a Heisman favorite? Or did that not fit your Bucknut narrative?

Bump

You stating there is UM arrogance is extremely hypocritical when you said things like "lewan and Jake Ryan are the only ones that could start for osu". Also naming your third string running back as a better back than a 1000 yard rusher and the #1 RB in country for the past cycle is hypocritical to saying we are arrogant. And you have the audacity to say we are arrogant in response to my response that more players could start for you guys than just lewan and Jake Ryan. And finally you are doing this all on OUR board.

Since both teams run different systems, it'd be stupid to compare positions. I think "talentwise" the only way to compare is by their ranking in the NFL draft. Michigan's lack of talent showed at this years combine and they still only lost by 5 points in Columbus. I'm 100% confident w/ the game this year and in A2. Does ohio have anybody being talked about as a 1st round pick on their team this year?

umichyank,

did not mean to offend you (or anybody)

my um "arrogance" reference was not intended to be personal, was just meant to be rivalry razzin...

we are all proud of our players and think they are great! (as we all should)

good luck against indy sunday!!!!

Flaming abt Ohio on a michigan board all ways goes well. Use ur head b4 u post

So are there any interesting position switches to watch for with Michigan players? What are some of the position battles that will be most heated?

Some of the younger players like Pipkins?

No real position switches to watch, unless you listen to Bucknuts, who will tell you that we'll have a bunch of OL at WR.

The interior OL will be pretty fun to watch with RS FR Kyle Kalis hopefully locking up one OG spot and then the other two interior spots being up for grabs between RS FR Ben Braden, RS FR Erik Magnuson, RS FR Blake Bars, and RS SO Jack Miller, RS SO Chris Bryant. True freshman EE Kyle Bosch also has an opportunity to make the two deep.

WR will be scary to watch, as we have two pretty proven guys under 6'0 but have to hope that one (or ideally both) of the 2012 WRs (Jehu Chesson and Amara Darboh) breaks out if we want to have a true threat there. SR Jeremy Jackson is a big body but hasn't proven himself at all either.

DL with Mattison will always have 10+ guys contributing, so it'll be an interesting battle to see who gets a lot of PT. We lacked a true pass rush last year and we need WDE Mario Ojemudia or Frank Clark to be that guy this year. Maybe even Taco Charlton, another EE.

The CBs are set with Blake Countess and Raymon Taylor, and one safety spot is locked up by Thomas Gordon, but the other safety spot could be SO Jarrod Wilson, FR Dymonte Thomas, or a couple unproven older guys in Furman or Robinson.

LBs have their obvious leader in SAM Jake Ryan, but the other spots are up for grabs. In our defense, the MIKE and WILL positions are pretty interchangeable, but the belief is that SO James Ross will be the WILL and last year's WILL JR Desmond Morgan will slide over to MIKE. The wildcard will be SO Joe Bolden, who will push for PT at both spots.

The truly interesting position battle IMO though will be RB. Obviously everything did not go swimmingly last year with Fitz Toussaint disappearing and then having a gruesome injury. He should be back by fall, and he'll have two college-ready freshmen in Derrick Green and Deveon Smith in camp to compete with. The darkhorse is RS FR Drake Johnson, who is a track star who put on some good weight this year and could make some noise.

It'll be fun to see what happens. I'm sorry for writing so much I'm sure you didn't read this anyways, but I have fun writing these.

Nah, I read the whole thing (may have skimmed parts, but still).

I thought Kalis and Magnuson were OT's? You can always start those guys inside and move them out if you need to, though. Should be excited to see all these OL start working into the rotation. Making them start now can be a little scary with how young they are, but should really pay dividends down the road.

Sounds like the coaches are moving more towards taller WR's with the new recruits, is that right? Hopefully for you guys one of the freshman WR's can contribute.

RB, IMO is the best position to get early contributions. The hardest part about it is knowing the playbook and being able to block. Just taking handoffs is pretty simple and freshman can jump in right away.

Sounds like a pretty young team overall.

Definitely a young team. We have 15 SRs, 13 JRs, 19 SOs, and 40 FR for now.

Kalis is an interior guy - he could play RT, but he doesn't have great arm length and is a mauler of a run blocker. Braden and Magnuson both should be OTs, but we have two RS SRs at the tackle spots and the coaches will want the best 5 OL on the field. Eventually, it'll probably be Magnuson at LT and Braden at RT.

The coaches are definitely going towards taller receivers. I can't think of very many WRs they've gone after that were under 6'0. Our commits for 2013 are 6'5, 6'3, and 6'3, and in 2012 we had two 6'3 guys. Hopefully at least a couple of those young guys can contribute next year, as we need a better deep threat. Last year we had some jump balls to 5'10 Jeremy Gallon, which obviously won't work very well most of the time.

And I completely agree about RB. Derrick Green was complimented for his blocking for a while, and he seems like a very hard worker, so I'm hoping that he can put in the work to learn the playbook well.

"flaming"????

i gave my opinion on some osu vs um players and why i thought we would win...

the "arrogance" comment was joking around and i apologized

mitch,

i was there and started to leave, never thought they would pull it off...

glad we won, but we did get lucky!