Michigan Spring Game Roundup

Michigan held their annual spring game this past Saturday and here are some semi coherent thoughts about the experience.

The locker room tour line was insanely long. By the time we got to the stadium around 9 am, the line already stretched about halfway around the stadium from the Crisler parking lot to the corner of Main and Stadium. According to reports, about 15,000 people managed to see the locker room during the 2 hours it was open to the public. The first person in line showed up at 3:30 am. The reasons for this excitement to see a locker room are not apparent to me. The huge line was enough for us to say "No thanks" to the experience. It is something that would be interesting to check out but not worth waiting an hour or more in line to see. Some people were said to be crying. About seeing a locker room. Again, I don't get it.

The Walmart Wolverines were out in full force. There was quite a collection of missing teeth, bad hair, and Wolverines apparel straight out of the '90s. I guess a chance for free admission to Michigan Stadium to watch Michigan football was enough to get them to put down their Natural Lights and pull them from their trailer parks. I can't knock them too much because at least they are fans enough to support the team even after a historically bad year.

The alumni flag football game was somewhat entertaining. If a seemingly made up on the fly point system, Jim Brandstatter and Frank Beckman rambling to each other on the PA system, and teams mostly made up of former walk-ons sounds like a good time, then this game was for you. The big name participants were Rick Leach, Anthony Thomas, and Larry Foote. The rest of the teams were filled with guys you may remember: Ron Bellamy, Carl Diggs, Phil Brabbs. And a bunch of guys I had never heard of before. Rick Leach looked like he probably could have been a better quarterback than Sheridan or Threet last season, huge gut and all (ok that's a lie). Larry Foote, most likely risking a fine from the Steelers by playing, made a ridiculous one-handed interception that ended up being called back by a penalty. Ron Bellamy was by far the best player on the field and made several nice plays. The point system included 4 points for an interception and 10 points for an interception returned for touchdown. Brandstatter and Beckman, who apparently walked around for most of the game with his fly down, were interviewing various participants during the game but no one in the stands could hear them or really seemed to care. The Blue team won on this TD


and mostly people seemed happy that it was over. I was fine with the arbitrary point system and the general silliness of the event but I hope that next year they can build off of this year's buzz and get some bigger name alumni back.

As for the actual game that wasn't even a game. The team came out and warmed up like a real game and even ran out onto the field under the M Go Blue banner. A small version of the band was present along with the dance team. The team warmed up with rap music blaring and left the field to "Thunderstruck." People around me commented that Lloyd never would have allowed such blasphemy. I think that changes like this that Rich Rodriguez has brought are good things that show that this event is supposed to be fun.

The scrimmage started with 10 minutes of special teams that really did nothing to boost anyone's confidence. All 3 kickers looked terrible on field goals, Zoltan booted a few huge punts but also shanked one about 10 yards straight out of bounds, and Odoms dropped the only punt he fielded. Zoltan really shouldn't be a cause for concern and should be a top 3 punter in the nation. The field goal situation won't be sorted out until recruit Brendan Gibbons shows up this summer and Rich Rod even hinted that some other walk-ons this summer will get a shot. Rodriguez also said that pretty much every slot receiver will get a shot at returning punts along with some other freshman. Really this shouldn't be an issue by fall as one of the 8 or so players seems likely to be able to cleanly field punts.

After the special teams debacle, the real scrimmage began with a point system that tried to reward the defense but still heavily favored the offense if they put together a scoring drive. Most of the day consisted of the first teamers on each side against the second and third teams of the other side, although most players on the 2 deep got a chance with the first team. The point system had the offense winning with a number like 58-30. Here were the six main highlights for me:

1. Tate Forcier is pretty solid. Most of the reports after the game are going to gush about how great he was throwing 3 TDs and running for another while not throwing an interception. Outside of the fact that it was against the second team, the defense couldn't hit him and didn't blitz him much at all. So expectations of greatness need to be tempered.

I'm already very annoyed by the Tate fanboiz

With that said, he looked very sharp, missing only 2 or 3 passes and delivering very catchable accurate balls. He showed good decision making on several rollouts and options in terms of when to run. His quickness is good and he seems elusive but not amazingly fast. All things considered, he seems to have a good start heading into summer.

2. The offensive line looks improved. The inexperienced line of last year is nowhere to be found as offensive line appears to be a source of strength and depth this coming season. They opened up several nice holes, pass blocked well, and rarely seemed to miss a block. However when facing players like Dominique Ware, a 5'7" 250 pound walk-on defensive tackle, holes are expected to be opened. While Ware might resemble a fire hydrant, he is much easier to move than most DTs the team will see this year. I may support the Rodriguez's emphasis on recruiting fast midgets to make plays on offense, I do not support midget linemen. One of the most amusing sights of the day was seeing Ware next to 6'5" 330 pound freshman DT Will Campbell, ranking a close second behind 6'5" QB David Cone handing off to 5'6" RB Vincent Smith.

An example of a Cone-Smith handoff

3. Playmakers will emerge on offense this year. Last year's edition of the Wolverines severely lacked playmakers on offense. Carlos Brown busted an 82 yard TD run, Roy Roundtree caught 2 TDs including a 50ish yard strike from Forcier, and Vincent Smith and Kevin Grady both broke free for 25 yard TD runs. Darryl Stonum and Greg Mathews also made acrobatic catches. Highlights can be found here.

4. The defense looked not so good. Saturday was essentially a showcase for the offense and that was partly due to the defense. But this defense is breaking in the third coordinator in as many years and essentially played base defense the entire day. Not wanting to give anything away to future opponents, they didn't blitz much, couldn't really attack the quarterbacks, and seemed to know that they shouldn't try to hit too hard for fear of more injuries. They did show multiple base looks (3-4, 4-3, over, under) highlighting the changes brought by new coordinator Greg Robinson. Stevie Brown got the award for the senior with the most improvement during spring practice, continuing his legacy of being a Heisman caliber practice player. Thoughts were that he might finally put it together this year in this new hybrid safety/linebacker role. He promptly got juked by David Cone, who seems slightly faster than John Navarre, on the way to a 50 yard run. In all fairness to Brown, he couldn't hit Cone and didn't seem to consider him a running threat (and who can blame him). He gets a free pass for now.

5. The safety position is still a huge question mark. Troy Woolfolk was one of the starters at safety and he was moved there 4 or 5 practices ago. Not a good sign. Woolfolk is supposed to be one of the fastest guys on the team but the fact that a converted CB can move to a starting role in 4 practices over a physical specimen like Brandon Smith is not good. True Freshman Vlad Emilien is supposedly impressing in practice but got burned badly by Carlos Brown on his 82 yard TD run. This will be one of the most important positions this coming year.

6. The team, especially the defense, is pretty thin in terms of depth. The defense was essentially playing without 5 starters all day. CB Donovan Warren, DT Mike Martin, and LB Jones Mouton didn't dress, DE Ryan Van Bergen injured his knee early on during the scrimmage, and DE Brandon Graham barely played for fear of injury. This highlighted the lack of depth at almost every position on defense as the second team was full of walk-ons and freshmen. The defense will need to be abnormally injury free this year for any chance of success. The offense was in much better shape in terms of both injuries and depth. As mentioned the offensive line should be really deep, and there are plenty of WRs and RBs. QB depth is obviously lacking as the third team was led by a true freshman walk-on QB Jack Kennedy. Kennedy actually looked better than second teamer David Cone but will likely be the 5th stringer come fall once Denard Robinson shows up and Nick Sheridan recovers from this broken leg.

Random additional thoughts:

More highlights can be found here.

There were a ton of recruits present at the game and most seemed very positive toward Michigan afterwards. Michigan picked up another commitment for 2010 from a RB out of Texas named Stephen Hopkins giving them 8 verbals so far for 2010. Hopkins is a bigger back in the mold of Brandon Minor.

The stadium construction looks on schedule and it looks like most of the facade on the inside of the stadium will be in place by the start of next season.

A number of former Wolverines were on hand including LaMarr Woodley, Mike Hart, Desmond Howard, and Steve Breaston.

With one more spring practice left on Tuesday, look for comprehensive offense and defense reviews and wrapups of spring practice later this week.