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| Brennen Beyer |
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 252 lbs.
High school: Canton (MI) Plymouth
Position: Defensive end
Class: Sophomore
Jersey number: #97
Last year: I ranked Beyer #81 and said he would redshirt. He played in eleven games and made 11 tackles.
As you can see, I somewhat underestimated Beyer's chances of playing last year. He was listed at 215 coming out of high school, but his mom (or someone who claimed to be here) came on and said that he was up to 235 by June 24th. The official roster didn't list him as being that large, but he was at least 225 by the time the season began and a gaping hole revealed itself at SAM linebacker once Cam Gordon suffered a back injury. The drop-off from starter Jake Ryan to presumed third-stringer Jordan Paskorz was steep, so in stepped Beyer. He performed adequately at times for a guy who played defensive end and tight end in high school, but he didn't really have any signature plays and was mostly invisible when he was on the field. By spring practices, Beyer had returned to his more natural position of weakside end, in hopes of taking over for former starter Craig Roh, who moved to strongside end.
Beyer appeared to have taken the lead in the competition for weakside end, even before presumed backup Frank Clark got into some trouble with the law. Now Beyer's starting position is all but certain because Clark has been suspended indefinitely and the only freshman weakside end is Mario Ojemudia, who is listed at 223 lbs. and is seriously undersized. If Clark is unavailable for rotation purposes, we could see Ojemudia, SAM linebacker Jake Ryan play some weakside end, or another freshman like Tom Strobel who will eventually be a strongside end. There are lots of contingency plans, but none are ideal. Beyer should start this season and he'll likely hold onto the job throughout the year. I do expect Beyer to have a solid career at Michigan, but he may not break out until 2013, once he adds a little more weight and gets a full year of college-level defensive end fundamentals.
Prediction: Starting weakside end; 35 tackles, 7 tackles for loss, 3 sacks
Beyer and Clark are good example of how it's possible to read too much into player weights and how freshman contributions can be difficult to predict. I've been thinking Ojemudia would red-shirt, but the Clark situation makes that very uncertain.
ReplyDeleteThe ones you listed are more likely, but another contingency plan to throw out there is Roh shifting back to the weakside on first downs (and other rushing situations) if a freshman (or veteran) DT emerges as starter-caliber. (Wormley comes to mind as such a candidate.)
I think Campbell can play either NT or DT, Black DT or SDE, and Roh could slide back to WDE, even though he's not much of rush threat there. That could be one way to turn what is a very undersized DL into a bigger unit, at least situationaly (I'm thinking a game vs Wisconsin).
The makeup of the starting DL and the rotation at the 4 positions remain very fluid in my mind, especially if one of the assumed top 5 or 6 guys is unavailable.
I don't think our line is really that undersized unless you're looking for Mount Cody. Jibreel Black is really the only projected starter who could put on a few pounds, and even then he's not exactly light. RVB played there around 285.
DeleteAlthough, you're probably right about the DL rotation. Mattison has stated and demonstrated that he likes to move guys around a bunch.
DeleteI wouldnt mind seeing Ryan move to end...he already showed his versatility last year, and we have a deep LB squad so there would be a negligible drop off at LB, while a huge gain at DE
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that is Cam Gordon is the only SAM backup and Royce Jenkins-Stone is only 206 lbs.
DeleteI think the bigger issue with Ryan at DE would be that the already smallish starting defense would be even smaller by replacing Beyer with Gordon. They'd risk getting run over. That said, Ryan at DE seems like a reasonable alternative for spread-oriented oriented teams. If a Ryan/Gordon combo on the edges is better than a Beyer/Ryan combo, then they should be the starters. If Gordon is hurt they can move Ryan back to SLB and promote Beyer.
DeleteRJS is 213 according to mgoblue.com roster. Beyer was 225 last year, Gordon was 222, Ryan was 225, so he's not that far off from being at a serviceable playing weight. Anyway, I still think Bolden (230) would have enough athleticism and ability to backup the SAM position and seems the most game-ready freshman, even though he's practicing at ILB.
I don't know who the 4th guy will be between WDE and SAM, but I wouldn't just look at Ojemudia's weight (231), Strobels weight (252) and RJS (213) and draw too many conclusions....the coaches may also dodge that hypothetical conflict altogether by playing nickel defenses with Courtney Avery more often and keep Kovacs up as a pseudo-LB.
I don't think anyone has a firm grasp on how this will all shake out yet - even the Michigan coaches.
I think LB positions are more interchangible then D-line....also Lanko, I like your out of the box thinking of Roh moving back to WDE, but the only issue with that is regarding the freshman. All incoming freshman are more suitable for the WDE position, thus it makes sense to leave Roh at SDE because the shoes will be less large to fill for the freshman playing at WDE
ReplyDeleteI think the incoming freshman are spread all around the line. NT (Pipkins), NT/DT (Henry), DT/SDE (Wormley and Godin), SDE/WDE (Strobel), WDE/SLB (Ojemudia). So it depends on who is needed and who is ready.
DeleteI don't expect Roh to move back to WDE, but if Brink is as good as the coaches want him to be or Wormley is as good as some of his early recruiting hype indicates he could be...it might be an option against more run-oriented teams. Probably not though. I think Clark will be back fairly quickly and Ojemudia sounds like he may play too.
From a tweet earlier:
ReplyDeleteMichael Rothstein @mikerothstein
Hoke said Ojemudia and Jake Ryan could play behind Beyer if needed.
Hoke basically said what Thunder said above. I guess he's a reader of the blog.
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