I feel really good about my predictions for 2023 and I'm nearly certain they'll all be correct.
LEADING RUSHER
Junior running back Blake Corum had 1,463 yards on the ground in 2022. Unless his surgically repaired knee doesn't hold up, he's a good bet to lead the team in rushing again, even with the presence of star running back Donovan Edwards. Edwards should get a lot of rushing attempts and might even top 1,000 yards himself (he had 991 last year), but Corum should still be the #1 guy.
Prediction: Blake Corum, 1400 yards
Hit the jump for the rest of the prognostications.
LEADING RECEIVER
Ronnie Bell was one of my favorite Michigan players, and when he was healthy, he was assured to be the Michigan quarterbacks' favorite target. Now that he's gone (he made the 49ers 53-man roster), someone new has to step up. While I ranked Roman Wilson as the highest receiver in the countdown, I actually have fifth year senior Cornelius Johnson pegged as Michigan's statistical leader with 48 catches for 700 yards. Last season he caught 32 passes for 499 yards and 6 touchdowns, while Bell had 62 for 889 and 4.
Prediction: Cornelius Johnson, 700 yards
LEADING TACKLER
Just a sophomore in 2022, Junior Colson stepped into a consistent starting role and immediately led the team with 101 tackles. It was a solid debut as a starter, but he did have some inconsistencies when it came to his reads. Now up to 247 pounds, he should be even more physical, while hopefully also maintaining the athleticism that allowed him to be a kick returner back when he was in high school three years ago. I think his tackle numbers may drop a little bit just because Michigan has a little more depth this year now that Ernest Hausmann has transferred in from Nebraska, along with some growth from the likes of Jimmy Rolder and Jaydon Hood.
Prediction: Junior Colson, 90 tackles
LEADING SACKER
The last couple seasons, Michigan has had a defensive end come out of nowhere to lead the team in sacks. Aidan Hutchinson in 2021 notched 14 sacks when his previous career high was 4.5. It was Mike Morris's turn in 2022 when he made 7.5 sacks on the year after his previous career high of, uh, 0.5. This year my prediction for star sacker extraordinaire is Braiden McGregor, who has overcome a nasty knee injury from his senior year of high school. His play seemed to pick up in the second half of 2022, and I have a hunch we'll see that continue. There are other feasible options like Coastal Carolina transfer Josaiah Stewart and sophomore Derrick Moore, though.
Prediction: Braiden McGregor, 9.0 sacks
LEADING INTERCEPTOR
Sophomore cornerback Will Johnson had 3 interceptions in the second half of last season after taking over a starting role, including 2 in the Big Ten Championship game against Purdue. Maybe teams won't throw at him much, but they have to throw at someone. He also has the length and athleticism to make an occasional play on balls that aren't even targeting him. Safety Rod Moore led the team with 4 picks last season, but I have him dropping off a little bit and Johnson jumping up to nab 4 takeaways.
Prediction: Will Johnson, 4 interceptions
ALL-BIG TEN FIRST TEAM
Prediction: J.J. McCarthy, Trevor Keegan, Zak Zinter, Blake Corum, Kris Jenkins, Rod Moore, Will Johnson
ALL-AMERICAN
Prediction: Blake Corum, Zak Zinter
LEADING SCORER (NON-KICKER)
Prediction: Blake Corum
BREAKOUT OFFENSIVE PLAYER
Michigan has so much returning on offense that it's hard to call for much of a breakout. Colston Loveland kind of had his breakout at the end of last season, or else I would choose him as the guy. He will have a huge impact on the team. Newcomer tight end A.J. Barner should also have a solid season, but he's a starter coming from Indiana, so I can't really choose him, either. Instead, I'll go with sophomore Tyler Morris. He caught just 3 passes for 25 yards in seven games last year, but with the departure of Ronnie Bell, Morris is likely to step into that void and eat up some targets.
Prediction: Tyler Morris
BREAKOUT DEFENSIVE PLAYER
Braiden McGregor is a player I mentioned above as my guess for leading pass rusher with 9 sacks. I think he's going to take that step forward this season, much like Mike Morris did in 2022. Morris went from 0.5 career sacks in his career to 7.5 last year alone. McGregor made 2.5 sacks this year, and I expect that to jump up and for him to lead the team.
Prediction: Braiden McGregor
MOST DISAPPOINTING OFFENSIVE PLAYER
I don't know who's making me pick this category, because it's truly tortuous considering how good the offense is expected to be in 2023. But if I have to pick someone, I'm just going to choose a guy whose role will be smaller than some people think. I have seen some people projecting Darrius Clemons to be the third receiver, to go along with Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson. I picked Tyler Morris to be the breakout guy as the #3 receiver, so I'll just go with Clemons as the most disappointing for probably getting on the field less than some expect.
Prediction: Darrius Clemons
MOST DISAPPOINTING DEFENSIVE PLAYER
This off-season began with Jim Harbaugh singling out Amorion Walker as being "considered a starter" at cornerback, and then the spring game came along. The spring game was not kind to Walker. I think he's still a year away from being a functional starting cornerback. He needs to put on some weight and keep learning the technique of the position. I do think he can be good down the road, but not until late in the year, or more likely not until 2024.
Prediction: Amorion Walker
THE BIG FINISH
September 2 vs. East Carolina: WIN. East Carolina was 8-5 last year but lost a lot of its production.
September 9 vs. UNLV: WIN. The Runnin' Rebels were 5-7 last year and Bobby Petrino left them in the dust to be the offensive coordinator at Texas A&M.
September 16 vs. Bowling Green: WIN. This would be a battle between former Michigan quarterbacks, but Jim Harbaugh will be suspended for the contest against BGSU head coach Scot Loeffler. Loeffler has not been impressive as a head coach, but he got the Falcons to 6-7 last season. Still, Michigan will dominate.
September 23 vs. Rutgers: WIN. I actually believe in Greg Schiano as a coach. He might be the best possible coach for Rutgers, and he gets those players believing in what he preaches. But their roster doesn't compare to the one in Ann Arbor.
September 30 @ Nebraska: WIN. Matt Ruhle has a tough rebuilding job in Lincoln after the Cornhuskers went 4-8 last season.
October 7 @ Minnesota: WIN. Despite a little bit of off-season controversy, P.J. Fleck is another coach who gets his players to buy in. He should field a competitive team, but the skill talent doesn't match up with the Wolverines'.
October 14 vs. Indiana: WIN. There are some people questioning whether Tom Allen can rebuild this program after a temporary peak with Michael Penix at quarterback a couple seasons ago. This is probably going to be a rough year in Bloomington.
October 21 @ Michigan State: WIN. Michigan State has depth problems all over the place, and they lost their starting quarterback and their star receiver to the transfer portal. Also, I hate Michigan State and Mel Tucker is a booger.
November 4 vs. Purdue: WIN. Purdue had to hire a new head coach after Jeff Brohm dipped for Louisville. I'm interested to see how a defensive head coach with an Air Raid offensive coordinator will do, but they don't have the horses Michigan has.
November 11 @ Penn State: WIN. I hate Penn State and I think they're overrated by many, but this is a dangerous squad. Playing in Happy Valley is always a tough environment, but since it's not a night game, that should make it a little less intimidating. I expect a competitive game.
November 18 @ Maryland: WIN. Maryland with an experienced Taulia Tagovailoa is a little bit dangerous, but Maryland's downfall has always been its offensive line. I expect Michigan's defensive line to be able to harass Tagovailoa and keep a lid on the running game.
November 25 vs. Ohio State: WIN. Ohio State has long had superior quarterback play in this rivalry, even during Michigan's wins over the past two years. This season confidence doesn't seem to be very high in the quarterbacks. Head coach Ryan Day should have a decent QB by game twelve, but if even C.J. Stroud couldn't pull off a win, I'm not sure how things will go with Kyle McCord or Devin Brown.
OVERALL: 12-0
What did I get right, and what did I get wrong? (Hint: I got nothing wrong.)
Wow, normally I expect the wet blanket, voice of reason so this is exciting to see the 12-0 prediction. I want to believe 12-0 but for hedging purposes, I am going 11-1. But I would go 12-0 over 10-2. This team seems stacked.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing this year...there's really no other team on the schedule that can claim to be on par with Michigan's roster except POSSIBLY Ohio State, which has more talent (according to star rankings) but they've done less on the field. In past years, it was more like, "Ah, I'll predict Michigan's 50/50 matchup."
DeleteThere are no 50/50 matchups this year. On paper Michigan should win every game. They could ABSOLUTELY lose. I'm not saying 12-0 is a foregone conclusion. But the favorite in every game at this point has to be Michigan.
100% agree, but this is college football ... weird things happen
DeleteMinnesota & Nebraska bored me to sleep last night - on the first night of week one! But the way things work (historically) is that a team like that will play its butt off against MICHIGAN, while we come out flat
If PSU were not on the road, I would agree (and I probably still do as I see that game as 60/40 Mich). Going game by game 12-0 makes sense. And, this is a relatively veteran team that should be able to avoid many letdowns. Still, it seems like 11-1 is the most probable. But I am definitely buying that 12-0 is very realistic.
DeleteJe - if you missed the end of that Minn/Neb game, you missed a good/trainwreck ending. Minn ties it up on one of the best receptions you will see all year. Then Neb takes over and looks to be moving downfield only to throw a back breaking interception with 1 min to play. Minn drives and gets a FG to win. Classic recent Neb.
DeleteOSU and PSU can make legitimate claims to be on par with Michigan. Or really dang close. Oddsmakers may give us an edge right now but it would be narrow. I think those are still 50/50 matchups, or 45/55 at best.
DeleteI feel like the lasting impression of the dominant 4th quarters has our fanbase collectively a little overconfident about OSU. They have not slipped very much in my view. PSU might have their best team of the Franklin era. So we'll see.
The Big Ten East is the best division in football and the 3 teams at the top all have reasons to be excited. Michigan is the favorite and PSU is the dog - but the dog in this case might be the 5th best team in the country.
@Kurt, I saw the highlights and slapped my forehead. After week 0 snooze fest, and the way both Minnesota & Utah-Florida games looked, I gave up too early!
DeleteI tuned in early and late and caught all the good stuff. Very entertaining game. The TD catch was good but made by a great route.
Delete11-1. I'll dodge on picking the specific loss. I think we'll be favored against everyone but get tripped up somewhere. When it happens, it'll be a surprise. PSU/OSU/Minn/Maryland are my leading contenders. It's college football. It's math.
ReplyDeleteHarbaugh has dodged getting beaten by lesser teams very well since arriving in 2015 (except for MSU). There have been plenty of other close calls though. At some point that luck is going to run out. Cumulative probabilities are ruthless.
My differences with Thunder's player predictions are few this year.
At DE I think either Stewart or Moore will breakout and be the top sack guys and maybe make an All Big Ten team. If you give me a choice, I pick Moore. If I had to put money on it, I pick Stewart. I'll guess McGregor is closer to good solid "thank you for your service" territory like Harrell.
At receiver I think Johnson might disappoint some folks who expect him to be WR1 and Loveland will be a breakout player. There's a lot of hype (for a TE LOL) but he only had 235 yards last year. I think he will emerge as the go-to guy and lead the team in targets, receptions, and maybe yards. Wilson is the guy I could see topping him in yards.
OSU -- I want to believe that they on the verge of falling apart (or more accurately drifting down closer to 10-15 range rather than top 5) but I don't see it yet. They are breaking in a new QB but they've done that time and time again with pretty much no issue. When your WRs are that good it tends to make life easy for everyone else. Their talent level is still overwhelmingly good. There are some chinks in the armor and certainly the finishes the last 2 years have been impressive and awesome and all that. At the same time, these were one score games (28-20 and 31-23) in the middle of the 4th quarter both years. That all said, I do share the relative optimisim of thinking we have a matchup advantage on our OL and our DL. As we've seen the last 2 years that's where these games are won and lost.
Two things that I believe are working against us against OSU. 1) OSU should be fairly well prepared to play on the road with big games earlier in the year in South Bend and Madison. Doesn't matter if they win or lose those games for our purposes - they won't be intimidated by the crowd. 2) For the first time a long time it'll be OSU against the world, while Michigan is fluffed up as the favorite. There's some potential for the "who wants it more" advantage to be in Columbus for the first time in a long time.
All Conference 1st team -- I'll add Nugent to the list in the place of Keegan. I'll drop McCarthy to 2nd team also.
My 3rd thing about OSU is secondary depth. I am optimistic that this concern could evaporate by mid year but for now I am worried about what happens if say Johnson or Moore can't play. OSU will ruthlessly exploit any weak spot in the secondary and we have to replace Turner/Green/Moten from last years rotation.
Deleteagree on mccarthy 2nd team vs 1st. even if hes the best pro prospect in the league right now (he should be but well see how it plays out), harbaugh QBs will never put up top notch numbers given his preferred style of play.
Deletealso i see nugent as more likely to earn 1st team than keegan. theres a few other talented guards in the league, more so than center at least. who knows, maybe the coaches and reporters split the baby there.
will johnson has the talent to earn all american as do jenkins and maybe moore. i agree its unlikely they all earn that honor too as stats and other issues factor in. corum and zinter are great bets
Not much to add but my pick for somewhat breakout player is Roman Wilson. I think teams crowd the line more this year and he really prospers on the deep shots from JJ. On D, I will pick Derrick Moore to have a big year and lead the team in sacks.
DeleteI strongly considered Wilson as well. I chose Loveland over him but I don't feel that strongly if it's one or the other.
DeleteIt would probably be highly beneficial for recruiting if Wilson was targeted enough to put up a 1,000 yard season. He has the talent for it but there's a lot of mouths to feed on offense.
I am with you on Moore too. Like on offense I chose another guy in a similar role, but it might as well be a tossup.
Regardless it seems like the consensus is that breakout opportunities come at the spots where we have high usage departures (Bell and Morris).
I'll be at the Bowling Green game, a first Big House night game for me. I might be wrong, but didn't Lloyd hire Loefler over Harbaugh as QB coach?
ReplyDeleteI remember a whole back it was taboo to pick MICHIGAN over ohio ... I'm torn, but leaning toward a W. But can we repeat at 12-o? That's a really tall order, despite the cupcake schedule
Breakout on defense: Josiah Stewart
Breakout on offense: too much returning (or transferring in) for a qualifier
Interested to see: how will our Punter & KICKER do? Big shoes to fill ...
I don't think he'll be disappointing exactly but I would be kind of surprised if Edwards rushes for 1000 yards. If they use him as a receiving target and punt returner often I think he might be able to get to some impressive yardage. I think he'll have a helluva season for an RB2, but barring an injury to Corum, I don't think he'll have the kind of production that many expect to see from possible 1st or 2nd round NFL pick. The NFL will not care about that (in fact the exact opposite - they may see a benefit to less wear and tear) but I think some people are thinking we'll get more from Edwards than we will.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping for something like 800 rushing yards / 500 receiving, but fully recognize that requires one to buy into some of the hype around using him as a receiver. We'll see. It would be a shame if he's not fully utilized this year, as he feels like the type of guy Michigan needs to maximize if they're going to win the NC.
DeleteI would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see 500 yards receiving from Edwards. I think he and Corum are both guys you can motion out to receiver and have them be a mismatch for most LBs and some safeties. True for both but more for Edwards.
DeleteI'm just skeptical you're going to see many 2 RB formations. The data I've seen says this just doesn't tend to work. And it's rarely used for that reason. So from there you are talking about him playing slot WR and Edwards is a great receiving RB but I doubt he is substantially better as a pure WR than say Morris, Clemons, or one of the freshman.
That's a way to push up Edwards individual stats but not necessarily a big benefit to the team. I doubt they'll go this route with any regularity but I very much do expect to see it some.
Where i see the bigger opportunity is with Orji package because then you're going to have the secondary freaking out about the run and then you can have Loveland and Edwards coming as a WR-like threats out of a heavy package. It could be extremely hard to defend if Orji has developed as a QB (and for most guys there is substantial development between year 1 and 2).
I'm far more skeptical about the Orji package being anything more than a fun little way to incorporate another guy against some non-threatening opponents. Perhaps I'll be wrong there, but those heavy packages with a non-passing threat at QB just feel super gimmick-y. I'm also not totally buying that Orji is such an incredible athlete that he can make that type of formation work consistently. I'll admit that's completely a recruiting rankings projection, but if he was such a superior athlete I feel like he would have seen more recruiting love.
DeleteFor Edwards, total yards is where I expect him to earn his draft grade. Carries & rush yards might even dip a little, if everyone stays healthy AND we win the cupcakes big
DeleteWe've had success with it before. (Milton and McCaffrey combined for 66 rushing yards against Wisconsin. Not all, but most of that came late TBF but that was a competitive game against a legit opponent. McCarthy was helpful for the offense in 2021, not just because he was a good runner, but because he was a change of pace from McNamara. Similar with McCaffrey rotating in during the Patterson era. And of course Denard before he took over for good for Forcier. )
DeleteI don't really see a "gimmick" as a problem. The only difference between a gimmick and a regular play is how often it is used. People have called reverse runs and zone reads and RPOs and 6th OL gimmicks and they are that - until they are used frequently.
I agree that Orji isn't necessarily THAT different of an athlete but that's beside the point. The goal would not be to fundamentally change the core offense or have him take over but to free up McCarthy of wear and tear and give a different look that keeps defenses honest.
I think what Orji offers is that he is built like a RB and thus could potentially run like one. In short yardage in particular this can be an asset. Meanwhile if your RB and TE can catch like WRs -- suddenly you are doing things from skill positions that are unexpected.
It is pretty widely expected that we'll see a 2RB set with Corum and Edwards. I submit that it might be more fruitful to see a 2RB set with Orji and Edwards. If you are going to run it to Edwards anyway, the threat of Orji (since he's really a QB) throwing a pass is going to be more impactful than the threat of Corum running.
But they can certainly try both.
Keep the gimmicks coming, IMO. This is a veteran offense that can run the base plays so why not get creative.