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Rome Wrap: Defense

Obligatory Harbaugh item left out of yesterday's post

Obligatory Waffle House Nation take

I would have titled this article "Spurrier points out obvious thing," but I'm no good at headlines.

Defensive items

Status quo on the line, in which the starters are set in stone, Carlo Kemp is the only certain two-deep guy behind him, Mike Dwumfour is hurt, and nobody else draws serious mention. Baumgardner:

Michigan's going to have to get some really strong performances from its freshman defensive line class later this summer. Aubrey Solomon, Luiji Vilain, James Hudson, etc.

Because, right now, it still doesn't look like there's much consistency behind the top five of Rashan Gary, Maurice Hurst, Bryan Mone, Chase Winovich and Carlo Kemp.

Webb is hearing some of the same things we are about Dwumfour, at least:

Dwumfour has a great shot. They're calling him "a bigger Mo Hurst." The other payers rave about him too. But he was injured this Spring and wasn't in on all the contact drills, so I'm not ready to call my shot there.

"Bigger Mo Hurst" is very much in the "Mike Hart, but fast!" vein of Fred Jackson hyperbole; I will take plain ol' Mo Hurst every day and twice on Saturday, thank you very much. Dwumfour was one of our key players going into spring, so for him to miss out on all the publicly available time is a major disappointment. At least the things we're hearing are still very good.

So. The two deep is going to feature a freshman nose tackle 99% likely to be named Aubrey Solomon and a freshman weakside end 99% likely to be named Luiji Vilain. If Michigan has to rely on them as much as they relied on Rashan Gary last year that's fine. Solomon is a five-star ready to chip in, and Vilain ended the year not far off from that status. Any injury to the starting line immediately puts Michigan in crisis mode.

This gap is the consequence of the collapse in Brady Hoke's recruiting after it became clear he was not Vince Lombardi and is the difference between Michigan right now and an elite program. It'll take another year or two before Michigan is stacked front-to-back with Harbaugh recruiting classes.

No changes or even much commentary on the linebackers. There's a top three; Webb asserted that he felt a final member of the two-deep would be arriving in fall with the rest of the freshman class. This is obviously not great news for the linebackers already on campus. They have sufficient numbers there that the backup situation will probably be fine; again this is a spot which will require another year or two before they have guys lined up three deep.

The slightly ominous noise you heard recently was Don Brown talking about the cornerbacks:

Michigan's defensive coordinator doesn't operate in coach-speak, the truth always seems to seep out -- whether he wants it to or not.

And when it came to the question of whether or not he's happy with where cornerback Lavert Hill is heading into Michigan's 15th and final practice of spring ball, he couldn't help but get real.

"No," Brown said Friday after Michigan's practice in Rome, a slight chuckle coming through in his voice.

Lavert Hill missed too much of the spring with minor injuries and the lack of talk about David Long is creeping towards worrying. (Long was one of a few players who did not make the Rome trip, FWIW.) Keith Washington following up that spring game with a major move in fall practice would be most welcome.

Meanwhile reports have Jordan Glasgow as Khaleke Hudson's backup at VIPER(!!!), which is sensible but a wee bit disappointing to your author after his strong performance in the spring game as a safety. He's second string at either position but at safety he is a potential dimeback* like Kinnel was a year ago. As the backup viper that's unlikely. Glasgow continued to impress observers in Rome, FWIW:

That is a diving INT on a crossing route, which you don't see every day. Webb noted that they're "thrilled" with Glasgow's emergence as the viper and that between those two guys they're set there. Furbush and Uche come in for mentions as well, which emphasizes the depth at that spot.

At safety the starters are locked in, and then like DL there are major question marks behind them. Michigan did get to see both freshman S as early enrollees, and the injury that held J'Marick Woods out of the spring game did not prevent him from practicing in Rome:

Safety is almost the last place I want to see a freshman heavily involved—QB is #1—so even if Woods and Jaylen Kelly-Powell are promising I'm hoping their deployment is restricted to blowouts. Webb says Michigan will be monitoring grad transfers for a potential backup S—again, if Glasgow can play S it really feels like he should play S.

At least it seems like the starters should be high quality. Tyree Kinnel put in good work in 100+ snaps a year ago and Don Brown is super enthused about Josh Metellus, a "savant".

*[MGoBlog convention is that Michigan is a 4-2-5 base defense so this is equivalent to a nickelback in a 4-3. IE, the dimeback comes in on passing downs.]

Solitary special teams note

The Quinn Nordin bomb was no fluke:

He booted a few in practice today that looked like they'd have been good from 60.

I have to think he's Michigan's kicker next season. That basically looks like a 99 percent certainty.

Distance is about 20% of a kicker's value so let's not get ahead ourselves. #CollegeKickers is always a possibility. But we can say that Nordin has A+ upside.



This post first appeared on Mgoblog, please read the originial post: here

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Rome Wrap: Defense

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