Name: Tavierre Dunlap
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 222 lbs.
High school: Del Valle (TX) Del Valle
Position: Running back
Class: Redshirt freshman
Jersey number: #22
Last year: I ranked Dunlap #69 and said he would be a backup running back (LINK). He played in two games and ran 7 times for 51 yards.
TTB Rating: 59
Dunlap came into the 2021 season as a true freshman trying to earn carries in a loaded backfield. That was always going to be an uphill battle with the roster Michigan had, and being a 220 pound power back with Hassan Haskins on the roster was never going to work unless Haskins got hurt. Luckily, Haskins stayed healthy and Michigan had a great season, but Dunlap appropriately stayed on the bench for most of the year. He retained his redshirt, got a little experience against Northern Illinois and Indiana, and goes into 2022 with a better chance of contributing.
Unfortunately, linebacker Kalel Mullings has entered the mix. The staff realized they would miss Haskins a bunch and wanted to make sure they had a big back ready. This spring Mullings started pulling double duty at running back in addition to linebacker, and based on the spring game, it appears to me that Mullings is ahead of Dunlap. To me it looks like Dunlap is the fourth best back on the roster, and that might change if we get a look at C.J. Stokes in the non-conference season. Dunlap should get a few carries this season, but I don't think he will play a critical role.
Prediction: Backup running back
I don't let Dunlap off the hook so easy. Michigan had just 2 proven RBs on scholarship heading into 2021 and one of them got hurt during the season. Two very good backs, granted, but no depth at all behind them. The 2020 backfield was loaded, this one was halved.
ReplyDeleteThere was every opportunity for a freshman to step in - and that's exactly what happened. Dunlop was just nowhere near the RB that Donovan Edwards is. This was the case in the first game through to the last (Edwards got 7 touches in each game). Even if you dismiss Edwards as a blue-chip recruit who was always going to be ahead of Dunlop, there are plenty of carries to hand out to 4th and 5th RBs - as we've seen in years past. If they are capable and ready. It seems Dunlap was not.
The Mullings move, if it sticks, is a further indictment of Dunlap. The coaches don't seem to think he's ready to fill Haskins' shoes.
Freshman are freshman and I'm not going to count Dunlap all the way out because of that, but RBs who are THIS quiet as freshman, especially when there's only a few guys obviously ahead of them, tend to not do much in a Michigan uniform.
Hopefully Dunlap can follow in Karan Higdon's footsteps and make a big leap, but I think it's more likely that he gets passed by CJ Stokes. RB is a spot where freshman can be counted on to contribute.
This comment is kind of funny to me, because it ignores the GIANT hole in your theory: Hassan Muthaf***in Haskins, who had zero carries his freshman year.
DeleteHassan Haskins: Redshirt in 2018
Karan Higdon: 11 carries, 19 yards in 2015
Drake Johnson: Redshirt in 2012
Fitzgerald Toussaint: Redshirt in 2009
All those guys ended up decent, and it seems to happen about every three years that an unused or little used freshman running back ends up being okay. Maybe Kalel Mullings will be that guy, or maybe it's Dunlap. But regardless, your theory gets a hole poked in it about every three seasons.
Toussaint broke his shoulder in fall camp and was out for his entire freshman year. Pretty good excuse for not producing as a freshman.
DeleteHaskins was mostly at LB. That's also pretty good excuse, and it applies for Mullings too. Per this blog "Haskins spent the 2018 season bouncing back and forth between running back and linebacker. It seemed like he was bound for linebacker until the great mass exodus of running backs hit".
Drake Johnson was buried in a very deep RB depth chart in 2012. RBs that year included Denard, Fitz, Smith, Rawls, and Hayes. All of them started games in college and 3 played RB in the NFL. That's a pretty good excuse too. Anyway, Johnson was never an exceptional player, he was a track kid who topped out as a serviceable just-a-guy backup. He was considered raw even as a recruit - which is another good excuse for not doing much as a freshman.
Point is that Dunlap's context is not remotely the same as Johnson. The 2021 RB room had a walk-on as the 4th option while the 2012 room was stacked. Moreover, Dunlop still has not generated any buzz. Johnson at least got offseason hype starting in the bowl game and then into practice so that hopes going into his second year where extant.
Higdon is a good example but I already acknowledged it above. The RB room had numbers in 2015, granted, but it was a weak group that saw Houma and Green got a lot of carries behind Smith. Yet Higdon still did very little. He counts as THE notable counter example (i.e., exception).
So you went 0/3 in proving my statement "RBs who are THIS quiet as freshman, especially when there's only a few guys obviously ahead of them, tend to not do much in a Michigan uniform".
Haskins wasn't a RB.
Toussaint wasn't quiet, he was hurt.
Johnson didn't do much in his career and anyway, wasn't as quiet - even as a redshirt.
Higdon is THE model for Dunlap. Maybe he'll be that once-a-decade or two guy. I would love to have another Higdon.
Okay, okay, you win with Toussaint...he was hurt in 2009.
DeleteExcept...he then went on to only have 8 carries in 2010, too. He had 8 carries in his first two seasons on campus, or 4 per year. And he still turned out okay!
Also, Drake Johnson didn't do much in his Michigan career? He scored 10 career touchdowns. That's not nothing. He was also the #2 running back in 2015 and averaged 5.5 yards per carry for his career.
For someone who criticizes me for prematurely writing off players...you're really sticking to your guns about writing off Dunlap after one season with perhaps the most talented RB crew Michigan has had in decades!
Fitz had a 61 yard TD on his first career carry and he started in the bowl game. I appreciate what you are saying, the overall production was modest in his first active season, but that's a different kind of quiet than we saw with Dunlap.
DeleteUltimately you are right that it is too soon to write off Dunlop. Like I said above a freshman is a freshman and we do have Higdon as a relevant precedent. It's not impossible, and I am not writing him off entirely. BUT - this particular context makes me very skeptical - a RB who had every opportunity and no excuses (to my knowledge) to do something didn't.
I'll be happy to be wrong on Dunlop. I would have been wrong about Higdon after 2015 too. He really surprised me.
"perhaps the most talented RB crew Michigan has had in decades" is where I disagree with you most strongly. I think that thinking is playing into your letting Dunlop off the hook so easy.
DeleteThe 2021 RB room was...less talented than the RB crew from the year before. It was top heavy and lacked depth. Haskins and Corum were there for both so the difference is:
Evans and Charbonnet in 2020 > Edwards and Dunlop in 2021.
We went from not having enough carries to go around between 4 RBs who are going to play in the NFL in 2020 to giving the ball to a walk-on and relying on a freshman in 2021. And recall that I believe you characterized that freshman as not a good RB, pretty deep into the season.
Bottomline - If Dunlop was ready there was carries available. That wasn't true in 2020. And I didn't even bring up Giles Jackson!
There's a difference between being ready and being good down the road. I think that's what's clouding your judgment. I just gave you examples of four pretty good running backs who didn't play or barely played as true freshmen in the past 13 years or so. They weren't "ready" as freshmen. That didn't mean they were never ready.
DeleteAnd what I think is clouding your judgement is equating playing time/production with readiness without considering context - who is ahead of them on the depth chart.
Delete2021 was a very thin group at RB. Just 2 non-freshman scholarship RBs. That's unprecedented opportunity at Michigan (thanks to a smart recruiting shift that's halved the scholarships going to RB/FB). Dunlop was a healthy RB (AFAIK) and did not capitalize - that's on him. Edwards did a lot, even though he "wasn't ready" for a full role either.
Michigan historically has used way more guys in meaningful downs and non meaningful downs, both. In Harbaugh's first year these used 10 guys as ball carriers out of the backfield and only 1 was a walk-on. Last year they used 7, 3 were walk ons (Huges, Gash, Franklin).
So it's not just that Dunlop did nothing impressive, it's that he did nothing impressive with WIDE OPEN opportunity in front of him.
We can't even say that about Higdon really. Acknowledging that he didn't do much early while having a great career, his freshman year does comes with some asterisks relevant to this topic.
One - that was a coaching transition year where Michigan had a lot of stuff going on and some things might have slipped through the cracks.
Two - there were just a lot of RBs to go through so Higdon's only opportunities came later in the year than is typical. I had forgotten this but he actually did get meaningful carries against MSU, so again not really as "quiet" as Dunlop. The coaches gave him a shot. The other carries came against PSU and Northwestern so he never got to have the cupcake appetizers others saw. (Dunlops carries came against IU and NIU.)
Three - Mgoblog described his carries as such "Higdon burned his redshirt midseason for 11 carries on which we was almost always buried in the backfield by no fault of his own.".
Even Higdon made more noise than Dunlop as a freshman when you consider the context.
If you are talking about readiness I think we can distinguish between being ready to take on starter-level workload (like Charbonnet and Hart were) vs being able to carry the ball effectively late in the game against a cupcake (like any walk-on is, and any healthy freshman should be.)
DeleteThose late game runs are where people like us can get excited about seeing RBs show us they HAVE IT as runners, regardless of overall readiness. We see guys like Fitz, Cox, Shaw, Smith, Isaac (at USC) and Edwards break big plays off as freshman in mop up situations, even coming directly out of camp. It doesn't mean they're great players, nor does it mean they are ready to be every-down backs who start games, but it does mean they have the requisite talent to be a RB at Michigan - demonstrating the ability to run through big holes against overmatched opponents. This is "necessary but not sufficient" for future success.
You know who didn't show this kind of ability as a runner - Teric Jones, Derrick Green, Joe Kerridge, Stephen Hopkins, Wyatt Shallman, Kingston Davis, Kareem Walker, Omaury Samuels, Ben VanSumeren, and more.
Haskins first year at RB (2019) - he did a lot of stuff.
Fitz's first year at RB (2010) he broke off a 60 yarder on his first carry.
Higdon's first year at RB (2015) he was getting carries in a close game against MSU.
I'm not going to write Dunlop all the way off. To be fair he did have ONLY 7 carries and you can't really say much about a guy on that sample size. And he did rip off one run over 20 yards, so there's that.
But the context of the 2021 season has me looking in the Green/Samuels/Walker group a heck of a lot more than it has me looking at the Fitz/Higdon/Haskins group.
Can RBs develop with experience? Of course. Chris Perry and Higdon are notable examples of RBs who got much better over the years. But that development comes principally in areas like blocking and pass-catching. Becoming a complete back.
DeleteBut a RBs ability as a runner is usually something that is there or not, on day 1. Running is something most running backs do in HS and can do as freshman - and it's often all they are really asked to do as backups early on. Contrast with understanding college level blitz pickups or passing routes/reads.
Getting handed the ball and being told to run through the big cupcake holes - that's something anyone healthy should be ready to do. It may not be all the way there - familiarity is another relevant element of running ability - comfort in the scheme and trust in the OL - but the foundation of being able to move effectively in space against lower level college athletes has to be there or the writing is on the wall.
RBs get better over time - they can become complete players - but most RBs don't go from unplayable to starter. That's extremely rare. And Dunlop appears to have been close to unplayable last year to me.
Again, I'm hoping this take is dead wrong. Just my opinion on the tea leaves. Dunlop getting zero meaningful carries last year in thin backfield, doing very little with his cupcake carries, garnering zero hype through the offseason, and watching an older LB plugged in and Michigan recruiting the portal for a backup are all bad signs for Dunlop's prospect in 2022 and beyond.
Fun fact: Derrick Green's 62-yard run against Appalachian State was longer than any run in De'Veon Smith's career, despite Smith having 283 more opportunities.
DeleteI guess you were right when you gave him that 95 rank after all.Ha. Yeah I definitely forgot about that run by Green... Necessary but not sufficient.
DeleteI remember when people thought Green was going to be the savior, and then Ty Isaac was going to be the savior, but DeVeon Smith turned out to be sitting right there all along as the best of the bunch.
Too bad he's so infatuated with pizza or he'd be thriving in the whateverFL.
With Mike Hart I'm feeling good about the run game. So this guy is going to be good for the team I'm hoping, for real, that coach Bellamy will be the same for the WRs.
ReplyDelete