2023 Starters: MLB Junior Colson, WLB Michael Barrett
Losses: Colson (NFL), Barrett (NFL)
Returning players: Jaydon Hood (RS Jr.), Ernest Hausmann (Jr.), Micah Pollard (Jr.), Jimmy Rolder (RS So.), Semaj Bridgeman (RS Fr.), Jason Hewlett (RS Fr.), Hayden Moore (RS Fr.)
Newcomers: Jaishawn Barham (Jr.), Jeremiah Beasley (Fr.), Cole Sullivan (Fr.)
Projected starters: MLB Barham, WLB Hausmann
With the prevalence of the nickel position, linebacker has been somewhat de-emphasized in recent years. A position group that used to play three guys is now primarily whittled down to two. Michigan had a very good two in 2023 in Junior Colson and Michael Barrett, but both are off to the NFL. Both have had very different paths, with Colson playing three years - two as a starter - and Barrett bouncing around between running back, slot receiver, Viper, and weakside linebacker.
Michigan will have two new starting faces at linebacker in 2024, and both of them are transfers who previously wore red. Barham is a two-year starter at Maryland whom the Wolverines poached this off-season. Hausmann started as a freshman at Nebraska in 2022 before joining the Wolverines in 2023, rotating heavily with Colson and Barrett as basically a third starter. So while both will be new starters at Michigan, they have three combined years of starting and another year of heavily involvement out of four college seasons. That's a ton of experience for two "new" starters and should help Michigan's defense succeed in 2024.
The backup situation is a little murkier, especially with a new defensive coordinator (Wink Martindale) and a new linebackers coach (Brian Jean-Mary). Jimmy Rolder got a lot of experience in 2022 before playing sparingly in 2023 in the hopes of preserving his redshirt, which was a successful endeavor. Rolder seems like the most likely guy to emerge as a rotational guy or primary backup in 2024. Meanwhile, Jaydon Hood is a fourth-year player who was recruited by Jean-Mary to Michigan out of high school; some suspected Hood would have left by now with no clear path to playing time, but he's still wearing a winged helmet.
Junior Micah Pollard has played a ton of special teams and some in a backup role, but the rest of the guys are total unknowns on the college level. Semaj Bridgeman, Jason Hewlett, and Hayden Moore all redshirted in 2023, and Michigan gets two early enrollees involved this spring with in-state product Jeremiah Beasley and Pennsylvanian Cole Sullivan. There are way too many players (10) in the linebacker room to support just two starting spots, so this is a position group that will certainly be thinned out by transfers within the next couple years. But for now, it will be interesting to see who could eventually step in, because both Barham and Hausmann could conceivably jump to the NFL with solid seasons in 2024.
Barret will go down as one of my favorites. Not a lot of depth here, but Ernie & Barham should carry the load well
ReplyDeleteEntire defense can get us to 8 or 9 wins, despite the brutal schedule. Just need the offense to come together for a playoff run
The comment about LB getting de-emphasized in "recent" years takes a pretty generous interpretation of the word.
ReplyDeleteMy personal opinion is that the "recent" goes back to Jimmy Johnson in the 80s and 90s -- Johnson emphasized smaller quicker LBs who could be used in coverage and had to dodge around blockers instead of smashing into them head on. Now we call "smaller" linebackers (like Mike Barrett or Khaleke Hudson) hybrid space players. To me, this mostly reflects the continued evolution over the last 40 years, to the point that you almost never see 3 LBs on the field and the "outside linebacker" label is mostly applied to guys who look like defensive ends of the 80s and 90s but stand up. Hence the move to more general term "edge". Of course what we used to call a 4-3 defense is still commonly seen, you just have to have multiple personnel to play it -- you don't have WILL/MIKE/SAM personnel anymore - they're all just ILBs who have to be able to move around and play different roles behind different fronts and in response to different offensive packages.
All part of the evolution towards more emphasis on the passing game that goes well past the 1980s.
The personnel labels for LBs are obsolete, even if the play calls live on -- like split end and flanker. If you're a LB you have to play WILL and MIKE and (probably) SAM too. If you're a WR you have to line up on the line, off the line, or in the slot. If you're a TE you have to line up in the backfield, next to the OT, or in the slot. Those are alignments (like shotgun or behind center for QBs) not different positions.
Anyway, Michigan seems to be evolving in the other direction at this point as our 2 LB spots seem to be getting filled by bigger players than in "recent" years.
Hausman and Rolder are 6'2 235
Barsham is 6'3 250
These guys are approaching the size of an edge, whereas a few years ago it was more common to see 6' nothing LBs like Devin Bush or Barrett or lighter guys like Josh Ross (225 pounds).
Even as big "SAM" type LBs are phased out of defenses or shifted to the EDGE bucket, LBs (who are all just ILBs now) are evolving towards bigger players in response as some offenses become more oriented towards the run than they were 10 years ago.
The LB spot seems to be gaining in importance as things come back around and more teams are running the ball. But all the pass threats from 3 or 4 WR sets have not exactly disappeared either. The LB job is harder than ever, IMO.
Michigan had a true SAM linebacker in the Lloyd Carr, Rich Rodriguez, and Brady Hoke eras. The same carried over into 2015 under Harbaugh and D.J. Durkin. Things changed a little in 2016 when Jabrill Peppers played the Viper position, but NFL linebacker Khaleke Hudson took over from Peppers for the next couple years.
DeleteSo yeah, it's been de-emphasized in the exact same way I described. Michigan used to start three true linebackers until at least 2016, and even for a couple years after that, it depends on how you label Hudson. That third linebacker has pretty much completely gone away ever since Michigan hired Mike Macdonald in 2021.
The 2015 team had Jabrill Peppers playing a hybrid role (i.e., a 5th DB, 3rd safety, or nickel).
DeleteFrom Game 1 of the Harbaugh era - here is the UFR summary:
"FORMATION NOTES: Michigan spent the entire game in nickel save for scattered snaps in a dime package with three safeties (Hill, Thomas, Wilson) on it. Their first drive they came out in an odd front featuring the buck as a standup end:"
"At linebacker it was mostly Morgan and Bolden. Gedeon got a drive; Ross got a couple. Secondary was Lewis/Peppers/Wilson/Hill 100% of the time and a mix of Stribling and Clark at the last spot. Thomas got some snaps in the dime package."
Harbaugh was playing 5 DBs on day 1.
Hoke definitely recruited SAM type LBs but he also definitely recruited Jabrill Peppers and used him as not just a DB.
Here is the mgoblog UFR from Hoke's first year - the 2011 Notre Dame game:
"In the secondary it was mostly Avery and Floyd with Woolfolk rotating in from time to time. Kovacs and Robinson played the whole way at safety; Thomas Gordon got all but a handful of snaps as Michigan spent most of its time in a nickel package."
The 2010 defense also started Thomas Gordan (5'11/210) as linebacker in a 3-3-5. He was a DB recruit who was DB sized. Here is mgoblog post from 14 years ago.
"Note: the confusion about if Michigan is actually running a 3-3-5 this fall or if it's more of the 4-3 with deathbacker hybrid, or if it's "multiple" or whatever leaves the previewer at a loss when attempting to slot players into familiar roles."
Rodriguez famously used a 3-3-5 at WVU which he brought over to Michigan in 2010. He failed at Michigan and scrapped the 3-3-5 but not in a way that eliminated the presense of 5 DB-shaped players in the lineup as noted above.
LB was de-emphasized a long time ago, Thunder. You know this. Harbaugh has never used 3 LB shaped players - he has played 5 DBs. Hoke was more multiple in personnel but also relied heavily on hybrid DBs to shift in and out of the box (like Peppers and Kovacs). Rodriguez very explicitly went to a 5 DB system from the outset.
Peppers is definitely a DB and while, yes, Hudson is classified as a LB in the NFL he is 6'0 and 220 pound LB and doesn't play much of a role outside of special teams. He took over Peppers spot and Dax Hill (another NFL safety) took over for him. You know this of course. You also would describe these players as DBs or hybrid players, even if you classify the position they play as LB.
DeleteMichigan has been playing 5 DBs for a long time, on most downs. If you don't, you end up getting roasted with actual LB sized players (over 230 pounds) trying to cover actual WR sized players that they have no hope of covering.
I'm not going to go back into the Carr era in detail but Carr was notoriously stodgy and lost to modern (at that time) offenses at Appalachian State and Oregon. So it's not exactly a huge selling point that he hung onto playing a 4-3 defense with traditional personnel for too long. Anyway, even he played nickel every down against App State and Oregon:
https://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-defense-vs-appalachian-state
There were never 3 LBs on the field and that was almost 20 years ago! We are not talking about a recent change with Dax Hill replacing Hudson or Hudson replacing Peppers or wherever you want to draw the line in the sand. We are going back through Peppers, Kovacs, Gordon, and Stevie Brown.
These are DB recruits, going back to the Carr era, who played "linebacker" or nickel or hybrid whatever in a way that de-emphasizes linebacker because it does not put 3 LBs on the field. They are not linebackers in a way that would be recognizable to people watching football in the 1980s, even Jimmy Johnson. They were not LB recruits. They were not LBs in the pros. They were not LBs at Michigan.
Even further -- we had a safety/viper type of player starting at inside linebacker last year in Michael Barrett. But that's not new either - Jordan Kovacs also moved from safety to inside linebacker.
If putting 5 DBs on the field on most downs is not deemphasizing LBs I don't know what is. If putting safeties at ILB on top of that isn't deemphasizing linebacker I don't know what is.
I'll reiterate my point that the recent change is to go back to the past, somewhat. We're not talking about a 4-3 with a little WIL and a big SAM, but we are talking about putting bigger LBs into the lineup. Colson is a big boy at 6'3 250 and he was MLB more often than anyone. Branham is a big boy that is the same size. The little darty guys asked to blitz and cover in the last 2 decades are now being asked to do more 1980s linebacker type things - take on and shed fullbacks - more often than a few years ago. Colson and Barnham are bigger even than Shawn Crable who was a OLB/DE that we would call an EDGE in today's game.
So when we talk about a move to less LBs on the field or smaller LBs on the field (de-emphasizing LB in my eyes) that has been going on for 20 years. When we talk about bigger ILBs that is a trend in recent years, going in the other direction.
We have a situation where our ILB might be the same size as our DE/EDGE and that seems pretty retro 80s to me. Reflects a more multiple / amoeba defense to have hybrid personnel.
@ Lank 4:10 p.m.
DeleteMichael Barrett weighed 233 pounds at the Combine. Out of 23 linebackers, he was heavier than 11 of them and the same weight as 4 others; in other words, he was lighter than just 7 other linebacker prospects at the Combine.
You can say he's a safety/Viper type...and I'll say he's average linebacker size. He's a linebacker now. He has been for a couple years. Hassan Haskins was a linebacker at one time, but we're not still insisting he's a linebacker after he spent his last few seasons at running back.
Now you're saying Jordan Kovacs was an inside linebacker, so I can see this conversation is going in the same direction of craziness as "Giles Jackson is a proven option at running back." Yeah, Kovacs might have lined up as a linebacker at one point. Devin Funchess lined up at safety once. Chad Pennington used to line up at WR when Ronnie Brown played Wildcat QB. Don Brown used Kwity Paye at DT in some pass rush situations. Are Funchess, Pennington, and Paye a safety, a wide receiver, and a defensive tackle? No, no, and no.
One time I saw Jose Canseco throw a few pitches, so I guess he was a pitcher. I saw Tom Selleck play with the Tigers in spring training, so I guess he was a Major League Baseball player.
@ Lank 3:38 p.m.
DeleteWait...so we're using the 3-3-5 to indicate that linebacker was de-emphasized when Michigan was starting John Thompson, Obi Ezeh, and Jonas Mouton all in 9+ games in 2008? How did Craig Roh (5 starts), JB Fitzgerald (2 starts), Obi Ezeh (7 starts), Kenny Demens (7 starts), Jonas Mouton (12 starts), Mark Moundros (1 start), and Cam Gordon (6 starts) start a total of 40 games at linebacker across a 13-game season in 2010 if linebacker was de-emphasized?
I'll give you Stevie Brown in 2009. I think that was a somewhat unique situation in that Brown was a very good athlete who was so terrible in space (started off at CB, moved to S, then to S/LB) that kudos go to the coaching staff for figuring out a way to get a good athlete on the field for a squad that lacked good athletes at the time.
I'm not saying the nickel defense hadn't been invented. Let's not blow this out of proportion.
That's a fair point -- if you are getting the extra DB by removing DL (instead of LB) in the 3-3-5 you aren't necessarily de-emphasizing linebackers. However, they achieved this by putting a guy like Craig Roh (who would subsequently insist that he was a DE not a LB) and Thomas Gordon at LB, which is deemphasizing (traditional) LBs. In those instances the personnel is more like a 4-2-5. But quibble aside, your point is a valid one.
DeleteMore generally, the front 7 has been getting smaller for decades. Both in size of the players at EDGE and LB, and number of players -- most teams have a front 6, not a front 7. Anybody putting a 4-3 depth chart out there has been misleading the on the ground reality for years.
We're talking about teams that play nickel a majority of the time -- that's been a steady trend for increasing in popularity for a long time. When you do something most of the time, that's your base defense.
I don't know when Michigan hit the point where a plurality of snaps came in nickel ahead of all other looks but I would guess it happened during the Rodriguez era, even though they didn't come anywhere close to having the personnel to pull it off. Would not be surprised if it was late Carr era though. Michigan is not that unique and was not a hold out to progress in response to more passing and more spread personnel in the 00s. It was a necessary response to offensive ingenuity.
For most teams, the move to more DBs come from deemphasizing LBs. This is not remotely a recent or new trend.
I can almost guarantee Michigan was not playing mostly nickel in the Carr era. His final year of 2007, he had four DL who were always on the field (Graham, Jamison, W. Johnson, T. Taylor) and three LB who were always on the field (C. Graham, Ezeh, Crable). The guy to come off the field in that situation would have been Crable at SAM, but he was too valuable. Teams don't generally remove an ILB for a nickel package; they remove the SAM. You could put the SAM as an edge rusher, but Jamison and Graham were both solid rushers, so they didn't need to be removed.
DeleteThe weak spot of that defense was Chris Graham, but I remember people being upset that he was being played out in space over wide receivers. Again, Michigan played some nickel, but it wasn't their predominant personnel package.
I agree it was probably still a 4-3 base in Carr's last year. It's notable that, even then, they spent at least 2 full games in nickel exclusively. I think clearly did not go far enough and probably should have been playing dime personnel to respond to App State and Oregon's spread.
DeleteAnd yeah, like you said, Chris Graham was already being spot-lighted as a weak link with calls for a better coverage LB needed to respond to modern offenses even back then. Today, Crable would be an EDGE.
The thing about defense, moreso than offense, is that you have to be somewhat reactive. You can "solve your problems with aggression" and ignore what your opponent is doing and try dictate terms of engagement, but that will get you killed at some point. which is what happened with Oregon in 2007 and Ohio State in 2018.