Preview 2014: Cornerback

Previously: Podcast 6.0. The Story. Quarterback. Running back. Wide Receiver. Tight End And Friends. Offensive Line. Defensive End. Defensive Tackle. Linebacker.

Rating: 4.5.

Michigan returns their entire cornerback corps and adds Jabrill Peppers, which is kind of amazing. The top guy on the depth chart is… uh… well, it is one of four guys. Which is amazing.

This happened a lot. [Bryan Fuller]

I guess we'll start with BLAKE COUNTESS, because he's first alphabetically. Countess was on the Michigan Star Corner track after emerging as a freshman starter, and then he blew his knee up in the 2012 opener against Alabama. One medical redshirt later, Countess returned with a bucket of hype (Jabrill Peppers has a firetruck) and just about made good on it.

Countess's six interceptions were the most by a Michigan corner since Todd Howard in 2000 and are in a multi-way tie for third all time (Tom Curtis had 10 in 1968; Charles Woodson had 8 in 1997), and he led the way for a good pass defense that got little help from its pass rush and was so dissatisfied with its safety play that it started swapping them around midseason.

So why does it feel like he's been kind of a disappointment? One Tyler Lockett facecrushing will do that to you.

Countess was also just about run off the field by Devier Posey as a freshman and one of the reasons people are so hype about Freddy Canteen is that he pulled the same on Countess. He seems more vulnerable than a star should be.

But this feeling is probably not an accurate feeling. I mean, six interceptions, and again these were earned. He is a crafty gentleman well versed in baiting a quarterback to throw the deeper route in cover two only to pop up, twirl his dastardly mustache, and make off with the dame ball. His pick at the end of the first half of the Notre Dame game was the thing preventing the later Gardner pick six from being a face-melting event:

His interception at Iowa was a virtual replay, and it's something that Anonymous Big Ten Opponent noted:

"I thought Blake Countess was tough to play against. He's not real physical but he's one of those guys that knows what he does well and what he doesn't. And he sort of lulled us to sleep. We kept thinking that we could go at him and I think that's what he wanted because he stepped in front of two balls, picked one, and we didn't throw at him very much after that."

Opponents hate quarterbacks who feel dangerous to throw against. Countess was definitely that. If he feels like a disappointment that's because our expectations were way too high. I admit some guilt in this department. Post-Indiana:

Other than that he was probably the best guy out there. I said he'd gotten burned in the game column, but the longer Wynn touchdown was not on him. It was more on Wilson and a defense that was vulnerable to that particular play given how they aligned. He got a PBU on a corner route that was straight out of pressing Michael Floyd and living; he was close enough to bother IU receivers; he is pretty good. He's not the crazy star we thought he'd be, at least not yet.

Pretty good is pretty good for a redshirt sophomore. Countess still has considerable upside. He's got two more years in the program—prepare for him to be the Big Ten's Brooks Bollinger Memorial 8th Year Senior next year—and had his quality 2013 despite an injury that required offseason surgery:

"It was lower abdominal pain," Countess said. "(I was somewhat limited), but I played through it. Just movement. Speed. Things like that. Not anything that you guys could probably recognize, but I didn't feel like myself completely on gamedays or throughout the week.

"I had a decent season last year, but it was definitely something I voiced to my coaches and trainers."

Countess probably won't be as prolific in the interception department; he should continue getting incrementally better; if the injury issue was a real problem he could even get to that Leon Hall level. It says here that he remains a bit short of that, and plays at a second-team All Big Ten level.

[AFTER the JUMP: no Peppers, he's in the safeties. BUT LOTS OF GUYS EVEN SO!]

"this did not go well" –Nebraska guy [Fuller]

The question "is RAYMON TAYLOR any good?" hung over last season's UFRs like a blood moon. I don't know why, exactly, the goodness or not goodness of one particular player was so often a topic of discussion. I guess it was because there was one bomb on his face against Akron and then the tempo stuff? Because Raymon Taylor was pretty good.

I'll just quote the post-PSU answer, because it is on point after the season:

Can we just decide if Raymon Taylor is good or no?

Yeah, a couple weeks after losing his starting job to Avery he goes out there and is more responsible for anyone else for shutting down Allen Robinson (M didn't switch on him; he was always outside, unlike Avery and Countess). He also scores one of the better INTs Michigan's seen in the last few years.

Taylor's interception was pretty badass because Hackenberg throws the ball on time. It's out of his hand before the WR is out of his break and right at the sideline; Taylor still undercuts and intercepts.

He also had an impressive PBU on a slant.

He's been a little up and down this year, but that's life as a cornerback. When you play great you usually don't show up on the screen; we're dealing with a low sample size here. He's been beaten over the top less than Countess at this point, though.

Similar sections happened after Northwestern and Michigan State.

Taylor did in fact beat Avery back to the bench permanently after that game, and he was good. That quote about Michigan's CBs being soft is accurate, sure. How much of that was on Taylor and Countess versus how much of it was on the way the defense was set up is something we'll find out this fall.

With the craft Countess opposite him, Taylor was picked on for big chunks of the year. It is almost always a bad thing when one your CBs is your leading tackler and that was in fact the case last year when Taylor's whopping 61 solos were 15 more than James Ross's. But he did fight back with 4 interceptions and 9 PBUs. All of those interceptions were earned, by the way. The only one on which he got help from other guys was the Iowa INT on which Bolden hit the QB, but even so he still had to flash in front of the WR and pluck the ball from the turf. He jumped routes against CMU and Michigan State for his others.

Taylor is a good fit for Michigan's new aggressive man to man orientation. He has always been an excellent athlete; early in his career he struggled with zone concepts, something that bled over into last year from time to time. He has shown the ability to match up against top flight WRs and cope. This is against second-round pick Cody Latimer:

And this is maximum Christian Jones pwnage:

He is good at getting jams on go routes and getting over the top and when he does get beat he's good at that SHORYUKEN trail technique where the wide receiver can't make a catch without pulling a Prothro.

The obvious exception: Tyler Lockett. Taylor was burned for two short touchdowns by the Kansas State legend-in-the-making, and was generally incapable of staying with the guy. Partially this is because nobody can stay with Tyler Lockett, who would have had 1500 yards receiving if he hadn't missed two games with injury and singlehandedly decided the K-State QB battle in favor of the guy better equipped to throw it to him. This means Taylor is not a first round draft pick.

This does not put a particularly low ceiling on him. He was not hit for big plays after Akron, with one glaring exception: Indiana. I tend to give Taylor a pass for some of that. Michigan's inability to handle tempo was a team-wide issue that looked like a cornerback issue; on the first IU TD Taylor and the safety are looking at each other when the ball is snapped, unsure of the call. And even when he wasn't covering himself in glory against IU, part of that was, like, almost kind of good.

I'll take the guy inexplicably not scoring a touchdown after an interception over the one making a tackle after the catch.

His main weakness was in run defense. If you give him a chance to run at you while you try to catch the ball he will tattoo you. Tackling a guy running at him that did not go nearly as well, and taking on blocks is just NOPE.

Welp. I've done it again: I have written much longer than intended about how Raymon Taylor is actually quite good. I expect to have this conversation again six times this year. I expect him to be in the running for All Big Ten, but for corners they so often just go with highly variable INTs; he should get drafted in the middle rounds as well.

WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BACKUPS SECTION

Hey! JABRILL PEPPERS! Woo! Jabrill Peppers is covered primarily in the safety section because we think nickelback/hybrid space player is 1) its own position and 2) more safety-ish than corner-ish in an ideal world.

that gypsy be pissed yo [Fuller]

Michigan has unprecedented depth here. First and foremost there is obviously JOURDAN LEWIS, the Cass Tech sophomore who was projected to usurp one of the starting jobs literally until the moment Michigan released the depth chart for the opener. And he's even an OR there.

Lewis had an encouraging, if thoroughly gypsy-cursed, freshman year. Virtually all Lewis mentions in UFR consist of your author explaining away various deep completions on which Lewis had provided a micron's worth of space. Like this one against Akron:

But they ran past us! They are Akron! We are not to be Akron unless we are to die!

The long outside completions were also a problem. Not the first one, as Lewis gave Akron's QB about a six-inch window, which he hit:

                                                    ball

                                                     \/

It's not perfect coverage—ideally Lewis forces the fade route closer to the sideline—but that's a one in a hundred throw from the QB.

Watch it for yourself if you don't believe me:

A similar thing went down against Indiana, which is where the picture above comes from. On the rare occasions that quarterbacks threw non-perfect balls at him, Lewis showed that he could make a play on it.

So the offseason hit and everyone was cool with waiting for Peppers to hit campus and acclimate himself before talking about potential changes to the starting lineup, and then spring practice arrived with gushing torrents of Lewis hype. Lewis started the spring game; Lewis had two interceptions; Lewis looked damn fantastic doing it:

Lewis looked terrific after a spring in which inside practice buzz has heralded him as a major comer; hell, he looked terrific most of last year except for the bit where the opposing quarterback regularly put the ball in the six-inch window perfect coverage provides. In this game he had two interceptions and two flags along with other instances where his presence forced drops or tough catches. The first interception came on the first play of the scrimmage …. That was pure press man coverage on which he did the one thing the gypsy promised him he'd never do: make a play on the ball after achieving his position.

In fall, Lewis (and Peppers) seemed like the first team, and our insider guy thought he was ahead of the seniors:

Jourdan Lewis may be your best corner. He will push Taylor heavily; they're already splitting reps down the middle and Lewis is outperforming not only him but Countess.

Webb:

Sounds like Lewis is just dialed in.  He is much more physical than he was last year and is the best corner they have when it comes to stay with receivers because of his exceptional quickness. Ray Taylor is faster, but he can’t stick with receivers in and out of breaks like J.D.

He had been so touted and so impressive that when Hoke announced his two good returning starters were still starters, people were shocked! And upset! This is some good hypetrain right here.

I expect Lewis to be the Morgan of the secondary: essentially a third starter with snaps equal to the guys nominally in front of him; I expect he'll perform a lot like Taylor did a year ago.

sometimes the bar eats you [Fuller]

Michigan is so deep here that I'd probably be cool with a world where their #5 guy was second on the depth chart. Sophomore CHANNING STRIBLING [recruiting profile] was a total unknown when he arrived at Michigan's summer camp two years ago; he left it a Michigan commit and then proceeded to lock down a big time recruit to kick off a breakout senior season.

Stribling played a good deal as a true freshman; like Lewis he showed a knack for being in the right place without actually getting any payoff. In Stribling's case it was less quarterbacks making incredible throws—Allen Robinson catch for PSU excepted—than Stribling somehow not getting his hands on a ball that he should intercept. I mean… how does this not even get deflected?

He also phased out of reality against Indiana:

So that's bad. But he's there, virtually all the time. I would much rather be dealing with a 6'2" cornerback inexplicably unable to touch balls he's staring straight at than a guy who's just trying to tackle after the catch, because you figure the former problem is going to get worked out sooner or later.

Stribling has not gotten a ton of buzz what with Lewis sucking up all available oxygen at CB, and he's struggled to add the requisite weight:

It doesn't seem to matter how much he eats, the 178-pounder said - it's hard to add bulk. He's made gains in leg strength, though, and has added seven pounds.

"I wish I could add 20 pounds in two weeks," he said. "I wish I could just eat and weigh 200 pounds next week, but it's always been like that. I have a hard time putting on weight."

It might be tough for Stribling to get much playing time this year what with everyone else back and Peppers around. He should get some rotation; next year he'll have a chance to be a serious part of the rotation.

The Lollipop guild. [Bryan Fuller]

Finally, Michigan has its diminutive Cass Tech speedsters, as mandated by law. Senior DELONTE HOLLOWELL makes me wish I didn't put everyone's names in caps for these previews, but alas. Holowell had a very nice spring game last year and momentarily threatened for playing time before the freshmen mentioned above passed him. He did get on the field sporadically throughout the year and could see some nickel snaps; otherwise he should be a major special teams component.

TERRY RICHARDSON took a bit of an accidental redshirt last year after playing as a freshman; he remains super-small and has not been talked about much as a potential contributor. Michigan should see if he's a plausible slot receiver or something.