Previously: The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. 

WIDE RECEIVER:

RATING: 4

Depth Chart

WR	Yr.	WR	Yr.	SLOT	Yr.	SPREAD H	Yr.
Cornelius Johnson	Sr.*	Tyler Morris	So.	Roman Wilson	Sr.	Donovan Edwards	Jr.
Darrius Clemons	So.	Peyton O'Leary	So.*	Semaj Morgan	Fr.	Semaj Morgan	Fr.
Christian Dixon	So.*	Fred Moore	Fr.	Eamonn Dennis	Jr.*	Eamonn Dennis	Jr.*

A note on the depth charts: they do not take potential COVID years into account.

While this spot has been regarded a bit owlishly by some commentators—notably your author—it should be made clear that this is largely about context. On virtually any other Michigan team a couple of returning, probably draftable senior starters would check in as a strength. And they are likely draftable. The Athletic's Dane Brugler listed Johnson and Wilson as the #12 and #18 senior WRs for the upcoming NFL draft; 23 senior WRs went in 2023.

But also there's this, which also made an appearance in our JJ McCarthy discussion:

Quarterback J.J. McCarthy completed 65% of his passes and finished 16th in Total QBR, but big pass plays were mostly hard to come by (the Ohio State game aside), and in what Sports Info Solutions defined as "contested" passes, McCarthy averaged 3.7 yards per dropback, 142nd among 165 FBS passers with at least 100 passes. His receivers need to help him out a bit more in 2023.

There were a couple of games—most notably Rutgers—where it seemed like anything that was not wide open was going to hit the ground. But some of this may just be circumstance. McCarthy was very accurate on everything except bombs, there weren't a whole lot of contested opportunities.

And, while this preview doesn't want to dump on Ronnie Bell it looks like much of this is traceable back to him. Bell's career contested catch rate was 20%, and last year he was 3/18. Luke Schoonmaker, Erick All, Amorion Walker and Andrel Anthony, who are no longer options, combined to go 6/17. Actually returning receiving options (Wilson, Morris, Johnson, Loveland, and Edwards) who were charted for a contested catch a year ago went… drumroll… 12/17.

This could get fixed in a hurry, especially since Loveland (3/4 on contested catches last year) will be a magnet for those opportunities. That's another post, but it's relevant here. Michigan's safety valve is no longer a six-foot-nothin' receiver but a six-six guy with freaky arms. I expect Michigan to take a step forward here.

OUTSIDE: ONCE MORE, WITH TARGETS

Ruthkanda forever [Barron]

CORNELIUS JOHNSON came in for a bucket of hype in this space last year, as it seemed like he was turning the corner from potential into production:

[Johnson's route artisanship] first really popped in the Indiana game, where he turned a Hoosier DB 360 degrees and would have had an easy touchdown if JJ McCarthy hadn't gotten lit up on the throw.

This pass isn't complete, but THIS is how a receiver gets open. Excellent route that gets the DBs shoulders turned. pic.twitter.com/UhPw5Nr6r7

— Due# (@JDue51) November 7, 2021

He did catch a bomb later after slickly selling that corner route and turning into a go. … Going over Seth's UFR's from last year the sheer number of Johnson (route+) events really leaps out. By the time Johnson torched an Ohio State quarterback on a go route that was just a thing he does.

And then… nothing. Johnson's 2022 makes little sense unless it was a season-long rope-a-dope to let him do the route artisan thing in a fairly important spot:

This was highly unusual. Michigan barely looked at Johnson downfield. He was targeted on just seven balls of 20+ yards. Ronnie Bell (18), Roman Wilson(11) and Andrel Anthony (9) all surpassed him. Only Bell brought in an acceptable number of those balls, though in Wilson's case that was largely out of his control.

Even wilder: Johnson was only targeted nine times on passes between 10 and 19 yards. I find this to be fairly inexplicable; best explanation that I can muster is that Michigan thought events like these were issues with Johnson's receiver skills and not the throws:

He did have a couple of routine drops in our charting which isn't great on 22 opportunities—Bell had that many in 47—but Bell primacy was so ingrained in last year's offense that even when the choice was between top ten pick Devon Witherspoon and a guy playing because Illinois was down their #2 and #3 corners, Michigan went after Witherspoon:

I don't really know why Michigan kept going at him. I would rather have Bell running the decoy deep routes and Cornelius Johnson getting the pivot against Illinois's #4 cornerback. Bell managed to get open in man coverage on the pivotal pass interference call on Michigan's last drive, but that was an exception. I don't think the gap between Bell and Michigan's other WRs is anywhere near the gap between Witherspoon and a who-dat redshirt freshman.

The other possibility is that JJ McCarthy was a young quarterback with a tendency to make pre-snap assumption and favor certain receivers he has more trust in. That goes hand in hand with "issues with Johnson's receiver skills," I guess.

Personally I do not see these issues. As noted above Johnson was not the main culprit when it came to contested catch issues a year ago. Last year this preview projected that issues in this department that NFL types saw were probably ephemeral, citing various "contested" opportunities that got filed as uncatchable in our charting. The jury is still out here due to the lack of usage but there are some good signs. PFF had him at 6/17 a year ago; that ticked up percentage-wise but on vanishingly thin volume to 3/7. That percentage is solid—the recent gold standard contested catch guy in recent Michigan history, Nico Collins, was 12/25 in his final year on the field—but it says something about something that Michigan defaulted to Bell when nobody was open.

FWIW, we had him for a 75% conversion rate on "tough" opportunities in 2021, which are often but not always contested. Last year he bettered that, bringing in 4/5 tough balls and 3/6 circus catches. Those are excellent rates, but that's less than one difficult opportunity per game.

If you're asking me, Michigan misused their receivers last year, favoring Bell to their detriment. Bell was a fine player but there's no reason he should have gotten twice as many targets as Johnson and almost three times more than Wilson. Michigan should be striving for more balance this year. Because the Cornelius Johnson who was drawing NFL draft scouting like this…

…enticing toolbox to defeat defenses on all three levels. His long and angular frame quickly stood out. … uses his frame and strength to play through contact during his route stems. He does a good job mirroring his stems early in the route—they look the same until they are not. He pushes vertically well to stress the defender’s reactive transitions down the field. … stem work is impressive for a bigger receiver. The way he sets up defenders is exciting. He combines route tempo, stems, and sharp plants/cuts. He attacks space and leverage to manipulate his opponent’s hips before breaking away. … Once in the open field, he can pull away from defenders.

…is still in there. Ron Bellamy said "his movement skills are elite" earlier this offseason, and that's about right. This seems like a good place to embed the other one.

Here he is giving Johnny Dixon, the guy who chased touted transfer Storm Duck off PSU's campus immediately upon arrival, the business:

It's in there. Just throw him the ball some. Let the next guy move the chains.

I still believe that Johnson has something to show the nation. His targets aren't going to be high enough to draw a ton of attention from All-Conference teams and the like, but he should get up to 700 yards or so and get drafted in the middle rounds.

[David Wilcomes]

A briefly amusing JJ McCarthy subplot was his tendency to lock onto former high school teammate AJ Henning at the very beginning of his on-field Michigan career. That didn't last long as McCarthy matured and Henning remained stuck in the gadget-guy role for the duration of his time in Ann Arbor. TYLER MORRIS [recruiting profile], on the other hand… this could be the beginning of one of them beautiful friendship sort of things. McCarthy mentioned Morris first when asked about who he's "developed a connection with":

Tyler Morris: He’s gonna make a big name for himself this year. I have had that connection built since my sophomore year in high school. He's gonna do great things. … That’s my guy. That's my day one. It's one of those things where it's like, I feel like I could close my eyes and throw the ball and I know where he's gonna be out of his break. So having that with everyone is my goal right now. But with T-Mo, it's just like that — [snaps fingers]. It's money.

Johnson and Wilson were not listed and can be taken for granted as major contributors; it's clear that Morris has separated himself from the other contenders to start. The bolded bit above sounds an awful lot like Devin Gardner and Jeremy Gallon, and it says something that Michigan trusted Morris enough to run him out on third and eight against Rutgers:

Yes, Michigan was trailing in the second half when he caught that ball. Weird year for first halves.

Anyway, Morris was the only member of the freshman WR trio to catch a meaningful ball. That's doubly impressive since last year's edition of this post barely mentioned him since he was coming off a torn ACL and sat out spring practice. It merely linked a piece from fall camp that said he "catches everything" before projecting an even more emphatic redshirt than the ones coming for Clemons and Amorion Walker. Fast forward a year and he's the guy at the front of the queue for a Sherrone Moore "phenomenal":

Tyler Morris obviously doing a phenomenal job. You know, we got CJ, we got Roman, we got Tyler, you got these young guys, you got Darrius Clemens, these young freshmen they're just making plays.

He entered fall camp as a clear starter, which is usually a good sign.

In addition to the Rutgers conversion above, Morris chipped in a couple of routine, metronomic underneath catches against Nebraska and Hawaii, and that projects to be his role on a team overrun with home-run hitters. Morris isn't going to be the guy to rip the top off the defense, at least not this year. He'll get his opportunities when it's chain-moving time, where he projects as Jason Avant, but less burly. From his recruiting profile:

The biggest thing that stands out to me about Morris is his ability as a natural pass catcher. He has the body control and underrated athleticism to make acrobatic catches, but his hands are perhaps the best I've ever covered. Even Nazareth Academy head coach Tim Racki said Morris has Hall of Fame hands. Morris literally catches everything in his vicinity and never drops passes. He's very Larry Fitzgerald like in that regard.

Also:

The most clutch receiver in the camp … seemed to come up with the big plays whenever Midwest Boom needed them. Very reliable, a terrific route runner, a player that understands how to get open with terrific leaping ability.

Morris had a giant sophomore year with McCarthy, but COVID hit and McCarthy lit out for IMG. Morris tore his ACL playing defense and missed his entire senior season as a result, blunting any potential charge up the rankings. If he's fully recovered Michigan could have a breakout star on its hands. His trajectory to date is encouraging, and per Ron Bellamy he's a program guy like the most recently departed one:

I remember one day, coach and I looked at each other. 'It's like Ronnie Bell!’ And he has that junkyard dog mentality. ‘I'm gonna do anything, coach. I can go run a dig knowing I'm gonna get hit. I'm gonna go in there and block the end, I’m gonna go block a backer. Go get the safety.’ Whatever it is, Tyler is that kind of guy. He's scrappy, and that's one of the things we love about him.

Morris might have a tough time gathering a lot of targets what with the rest of the roster, but 30-40 is likely, with a slant towards critical third down conversions.

SLOT: MEEP MEEP

now wearing #1 [Fuller]

Last year's preview pigeonholed ROMAN WILSON as "the bombs guy" and this was more or less the case. Per PFF, Wilson's average depth of target of 13.5 yards was tops on the team for receivers with more than twenty targets. 30% of his targets were more than 20 yards downfield, which is about on par with the conference's premier deep ball artistes. And, well, why not? Via Bruce Feldman's Freaks article:

This offseason, Wilson clocked a 4.33 40 out of a two-point stance; ran a sizzling 6.20 3-cone drill that was only upstaged by teammate Amorion Walker. But then again, Wilson topped everyone with a 3.77 shuttle time, and also had a terrific 10.76 60-yard shuttle and flew up the Wolverines’ reactive plyo stairs in 2.22 seconds, also best in the program.

The man has wheels.

Unfortunately, Wilson was one of the primary victims of the midseason McCarthy wonkiness. He only caught two of his eleven downfield targets, and not because he was getting obstructed. He can get over the top of anyone, even a team like Iowa:

Yeah, he ate up a seven-yard cushion and was three yards clear by the time the ball got there. His touchdown* against TCU saw him get over the top of a guy who was 11 yards deep and backpedaling on the snap. This is just what he does. The ease with which he gets handwavingly wide open is frequently shocking. Doing it against Hawaii is one thing, but Georgia?

When you have those afterburners route running can be pretty simple. After Wilson puts the fear of God into you, his second trick is to turn you around and then stop. This Maryland safety gets the fear…

…and then Wilson goes back to that route but stops; a more mature McCarthy finds this for an easy first down:

That's been the Roman Wilson story for going on three years now. Even NFL level defensive backs tend to give him a wide berth, as future sixth-rounder Tariq Castro-Fields did here:

That's almost in the redzone and he's getting a cushion of half the remaining field.

It's possible this will be a hidden source of efficiency for Michigan this year. Wilson caught 17 of his 19 targets under 20 yards. Bell, by far the most-targeted guy in these circumstances, had a catch rate of 64%. No disrespect to Bell, who got drafted about where Wilson is likely to, but if a lot of Michigan's targets move to Wilson there's some upside there just because events where a defensive back dares to get nosy are going to be few and far between. This touchdown sees Wilson and Bell run identical routes and by the time the ball comes it out it looks like Wilson has an extra step of separation:

The margin for error he gives quarterbacks is larger; hopefully he's able to level up when it comes to consistency and route wizardry. There's a reason Bell got all those targets when he was on the same team with two guys who are, at first blush, better athletically. Bell ran a 4.54 40 at the NFL combine, which Wilson will crush. If Wilson can pick up some of those Bell traits in year four he'll be an upgrade. He has flashed the ability to get open in a zone and come down with something somewhat contested; he's also flashed the ability to give guys the business when they dare to roll up on him at the line of scrimmage. Wilson actually ran the best route on Johnson's first touchdown against Ohio State:

Siddown, the main said.

Wilson was not primarily responsible for the contested catch issues, largely because when you throw it to Roman Wilson you don't throw it to him because he's got a defender on screen with him. FWIW, he was 3/3 on tough catches and 1/5 on circus ones by our reckoning, with one flat drop. By the same token, Wilson is not a potential solution to those issues, either. He's listed at 6'0" and has never been the kind of bouncy tank that can be a jump ball threat without being 6'5"—think Junior Hemingway.

Michigan did use Wilson on some actual slot-like activities; he had chunks on bubble screens against the noncon goobers. Even those succeeded largely because of Wilson's electric straight line speed; he set up a block nicely on one but he did not juke a guy into the ground. There's a reason he's returning kickoffs but not punts. Despite the shiny shuttle numbers he's not great at ghosting defenders, but give him a crease and he's gone.

This means that Wilson's better as a (very occasional) keep-em-honest option around the line of scrimmage. I'd expect about the same level of usage—once or twice a game.

BACKUPS: A SLIGHTLY CONCERNING NEAR-TOTAL LACK OF EXPERIENCE

The portal departures of Andrel Anthony and AJ Henning are unfortunate, Anthony in particular. He ended up at Oklahoma, which is not a place that acquires rubes at WR, and will never get to deliver on the promise he displayed in that one MSU game in 2022. Not in a winged helmet, anyway.

As a result Michigan has virtually no experience beyond the two seniors.

OBLIGATORY CAVEAT!

A team with Colston Loveland and Donovan Edwards doesn't need a whole lot of playable depth at WR.

…CARRYING ON

The rest of the WR corps has combined for a total of six career catches, three of them from Morris. Compounding matters is that Michigan doesn't have a whole lot of bullets here. With Amorion Walker flipping to defense, the only outside WR who is 1) not a freshman, 2) on scholarship, and 3) not in "late early" purgatory is sophomore DARRIUS CLEMONS [recruiting profile].

[Barron]

Clemons looks like he should be a hit, long term, and should start rotating in to do something other than block. In a nod to Michigan tradition, the only clip I have for Clemons last year is a downfield block against Colorado State. He had a seven yard catch the next week against UConn that was apparently not interesting enough to clip, and then he got stuck on the bench. This an offense where a couple of draftable WRs got about 30 catches over the course of the year, so there's no shame in that.

The lack of on-field zing-zang does mean we're forced to rely on offseason chatter, which was strong a year ago. Fall camp chatter last year included stuff like "they will try to get him on the field as much as possible," which no they did not. There was also this Fred Jackson-level take from Ron Bellamy:

Darrius Clemons right now, the young buck. Now  he’s not as polished as Jason, but he will be. He will be. But he’s the guy that — ‘Coach, watch this!’ He’s that guy that — he’s a bigger guy, 210 and now he’s strong as an ox, is explosive and he loves contact. Jason was like that.

Clemons did have a spectacular TD in the 2021 spring game…

…but was relatively muted in 2022 (two catches for 5 and 6 yards) while Maize teammate Peyton O'Leary, about whom more in a second, went "ham," as the kids say.

Clemons has been hurt for much of fall camp and has thus not generated any talk. It might be slightly concerning that even in spring it seemed like his main competitor for WR #4 was drawing much of the talk and that Morris was an unscalable hill in front of him. Hopefully he's able to see the field and re-establish a baseline with a few nice catches. 

[Fuller]

Michigan does have a second lottery ticket in the aforementioned PEYTON O'LEARY, a walk-on who caused a lot of consternation during the spring game when he repeatedly beat Walker en route to seven catches for 128 yards, including the game-winning two-point conversion:

Peyton O'Leary is having a day.

Here's his late go-ahead 2-point conversion.@peytonoleary6 x @UMichFootball pic.twitter.com/QRJm6MwvkO

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) April 1, 2023

He looked quite plausible doing these things:

Phenomenal throw by JJ McCarthy from the opposite hash mark to the sideline to Peyton O’Leary.

pic.twitter.com/ytVmHmDydn

— Brendan Moore (@bmoorecfb) April 1, 2023

Most of his production was against Walker, who'd just moved to corner, but he showed good awareness of where to be and what throw was likely to come. Michigan hit him with two hole shots where he slowed up to avoid a safety. These traits are probably going to be pretty useful against zone coverage, which I assume Michigan will see plenty of when Donovan Edwards is in the game, because the alternative is having linebackers chase Edwards.

This space has long maintained that walk-ons drawing mention a year before there is even the faintest chance they could see the field are probably legit, and O'Leary came in for frankly unreasonable praise a year ago. Harbaugh:

Another guy who has surged is Peyton O'Leary. So Peyton O'Leary is backing up Cornelius Johnson right now at at the ‘X’ position. And he has had a a Cooper Kupp-like training camp. I mean, he’s almost got that nickname around here right now.

No. But… also yes? It helps our projections here that O'Leary was part of the worst-scouted high school class in history. His senior year was wiped out by COVID, and in April he asserted that "I think if I played my senior year, I probably would have had 20 Power Five offers." Maybe; these things do happen.

Meanwhile Mike Sainristil also shouted out O'Leary just behind Wilson and Ronnie Bell last year, and O'Leary was the second name out of McCarthy's mouth after Morris early in fall camp:

But also Peyton O'Leary, Darrius Clemons, the young bucks Fredrick Moore, Semaj Morgan, Karmello English. All those guys are showing up on tape.

Clemons had his own praise for O'Leary:

"There were a few fall camp practices where everyone knew the ball was going to Peyton and there was nothin' nobody could do about it. Peyton's a dawg for sure."

I would have liked to see him dunk on Will Johnson instead of Walker, currently a baby fawn as a defender, but you take what you can get. O'Leary should break into the rotation and pick up a dozen catches, most of them in the late stages of annihilations.

Dixon (#10) hasn't been the subject of much talk [Barron]

Beyond these two is the Land of Freshmen And Probably Not Happening. Redshirt sophomore CRISTIAN DIXON [recruiting profile] made one catch in the 2022 opener against NIU and has barely been heard from, or about, since. The only time he was brought up last offseason was in the Harbaugh In The Trenches depth chart dump, when virtually everyone on the roster was mentioned; his tag on this site has not seen use since last year's edition of this post. Hard to see him breaking through at this point.

EAMONN DENNIS [recruiting profile] is in a similar spot, but has a couple advantages over Dixon. He's frequently mentioned as one of the fastest guys on the team—something you shouldn't take lightly since Donovan Edwards and Roman Wilson exist. Heck, Wilson himself shouted out Dennis as one of the fastest guys last year. DJ Turner was on that roster and put up a 4.26 40 at the NFL combine. Last month, Clemons said that Dennis was the fastest player on the team and "it's not close." I believe that Dennis is absurdly fast. This is advantage one.

Advantage two is that might be the only true slot on the roster outside of the freshmen, depending on how you regard Donovan Edwards. If Michigan wants to run some gadget plays he looks like an appealing target for them. He'll need to establish himself as at least a hypothetical threat to get a downfield target before any of that looks like a good idea long-term, and the dearth of conversation about him in that regard means he's down here. Ominous for him that when Ron Bellamy talked about the "rest of the receiver room" the order went Dixon, freshmen, and then a group of walk-ons and Dennis.

True freshmen SEMAJ MORGAN [recruiting profile], KARMELLO ENGLISH [recruiting profile] and FREDERICK MOORE [recruiting profile] are all kind of the same guy: inside/outside types who are somewhere in the middle of the Norfleet-Funchess continuum of receiver size. Morgan shades more towards gadget slot and Moore more towards Ronnie Bell, with English in the middle. It would be a major upset if any played enough to burn a redshirt. If one guy does break through it's likely to be Morgan for the same reason Dennis might get a little run: there's an opening for a designated end-around guy. 24/7's Brice Marich posted that Morgan has "made several plays," one of them against Mike Sainristil, and that he was told that he would get some run this season.