Name: Chris Bracy
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 200 lbs.
High school: Mobile (AL) St. Paul's Episcopal
Position: Safety
Class: Senior
Jersey number: #7
Last year: Bracy played at Memphis. He started eleven games and made 81 tackles, 9.5 tackles for loss, 1 interception, 10 pass breakups, 1 forced fumble, and 1 fumble recovery.
TTB Rating: N/A
Michigan has frankly done an excellent job of recruiting safeties in recent years.
There was a lamentable time when the Wolverines stunk pretty badly at finding and developing safeties, from the mid-2000s through the early 2010s. Names like Michael Williams, Brandon Harrison, Cam Gordon, etc. all floundered on the back end of Michigan's defense, and even elite recruits like Dymonte Thomas looked lost in the defensive backfield until Jim Harbaugh arrived.
That's not the case anymore. Or at least it hasn't been for a while.
Michigan has pretty consistently been getting good safety play for the past several years, recruiting good players and then developing them into NFL-quality contributors. So when the Wolverines looked to Memphis to bring in Chris Bracy, it raised my eyebrows a little bit, because why does Michigan need a Memphis transfer when they have Mason Curtis on the roster, as well as young, highly regarded recruits like Jordan Young and Kainoa Winston?
Well, it turns out this Chris Bracy guy is supposed to be pretty good. After being coached by former Michigan linebacker Desmond Morgan, the safeties coach for Memphis, Bracy went out and put up 81 tackles and 9.5 tackles for loss in 2025. He graded out excellent at stopping the run, and he broke up 10 passes last season, too. He was named American Conference Defensive Player of the Week against an SEC team (Arkansas) when he made 5 tackles, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 1 tackle for loss, and 1 pass breakup.
Now Bracy arrived at Michigan in the spring and he picked up where he left off at Memphis. He pretty much asserted himself immediately as a starting safety to the point where head coach Kyle Whittingham said over the summer that Bracy and Rod Moore had essentially locked down the starting safety positions. Young and Winston are just going to have to wait in the wings for another year - barring injury - and Bracy should be a run-stopping force from the strong safety position. So after Michigan lost head-hunter Brandyn Hillman (Virginia) and Tevis Metcalf (Tennessee) to the transfer portal, they might be better off with Bracy and the return of a healthy Moore in 2026.
I expect Bracy to be a bit like former Wolverine Jordan Kovacs, somebody who isn't going to wow with his range but who should make quite a few plays within three yards of the line of scrimmage.
Prediction: Starting strong safety; 55 tackles, 1 interception
Good historical perspective on the performance of safeties at Michigan.
ReplyDeleteTo me, a transfer was really a must-have. Even with Curtis still around to take on more snaps and Rod Moore hopefully stepping back into the rotation -- Michigan was still losing 3 safeties (and with them their #1, #4, and #13 players in terms of plays on the field in 2025.) Curtis can probably absorb most of Mangum's snaps for a bigger load and Moore can perhaps replace a lot of Hillman's workload. But, while Young and Winston are promising players, I don't know that I trust them enough to fill in at near full-time duty after modest freshman years (especially Winston). And then we need depth behind those guys too. So, I think Bracy fills a massive hole in the roster and is a decent bet to take Metcalf's spot with the most snaps on the defense. Without him we'd be in trouble.