Asiasi-asi! Oy! Oy! Oy! [Bryan Fuller]
Our weekly roundtable.
The Question:
How are our pre-season predictions on new starters and heavy rotation guys holding up? Eligible players are anyone getting significantly more snaps this year than last.
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The Responses:
David:
Tyree Kinnel. I'm relieved and satisfied from what I've seen from Kinnel so far; he looks to be another Boring Safety™. Hooray!
I looked back through the last few defensive UFRs and he received increasingly more snaps, hovering around +1 while being relevant on only a few plays. After Clark got hurt Kinnel seemed to be the DB of choice to take his spot and shift others around as necessary. Kinnel has also been used on special teams and blocked a kick. While he's not going to be a starter just yet (hopefully), his work load should increase, and for the moment it looks like that will come without a drop-off. I'm not thinking that anyone ever has serious doubts about whether he could contribute on this team, but he's at least met expectations so far.
On the other end of the secondary spectrum appears to be Brandon Watson. He hasn't played a ton, but he definitely saw his snaps go up for the Hawaii and Colorado games. In the UFR he was -2 and -3, respectively, for those games. He was put in the slot against Colorado for the first couple of quarters and definitely looked overmatched. He's always been a guy who could potentially succeed if he got a good jam on a WR...however, when that does not happen, he looks lost in space. With Michigan's current and future set of CBs, its not looking like Watson will see too much extra time in close games, or not on defense anyway. It looks as if he could be destined for special teams duty for the long term.
[Hit THE JUMP for MGoBlog contributors trying very hard to find something that hasn’t gone right so far.]
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Alex:
Devin Asiasi. The highly touted true freshman cracked the tight end rotation and has played well in the increasing number of snaps he's been given, catching his first touchdown pass against Penn State on Saturday. While he's clearly a few years of seasoning from reaching his peak, Asiasi has already demonstrated that he has the requisite blocking ability to make an impact on the edge—plus he's surprisingly svelte and he moves well. His decision to come to Michigan in order to play his preferred position looks to be a good one; even though he may not develop into a Butt-esque receiving target, the sky is the limit for him as a blocker and he's definitely athletic enough to make an impact in the passing game.
Tyrone Wheatley. It might just be a function of how deep his position group is, but Wheatley has played sparingly despite a low rumbling of hype about him this past offseason. There are only so many reps, and it appears as if Asiasi is taking the ones that could have gone to Wheatley. Fortunately, he's just a redshirt freshman - he'll contribute at some point down the line and may develop into a terrifying tight end in time, but perhaps the hype came a bit too early.
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Seth: Wheatley's been in for goal line sets but I haven't seen him used as a target much even then. I really wanted to see that guy against Michigan State, which asks its quarters safeties to come down into the box when they're lined up over a tight end. Butt or Bunting they can afford to treat as receivers, but the Wheatley we saw at Ford Field puts that defense in a damned-either-way decision at its weakest link (Cox).
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Ace:
Ben Gedeon and Mike McCray. It’s hard not to discuss these two as a duo, as their presence as new, relatively untested starters made inside linebacker the position group of biggest concern during the offseason. Brian is notoriously hard on LBs in his UFR grading, and yet last week he openly wondered if the opposite had occurred. I don’t think his grading has changed as much as the athleticism at linebacker; the upgrade is apparent when either of these two come charging in on blitzes.
There have been some hiccups, but the good has far outweighed the bad. Gedeon looks tough between the tackles and has displayed a knack for taking on blocks before redirecting into the RB’s path. McCray has been a great blitzer whose athleticism can cover for minor issues in technique. Their steady, productive play has been a big part of the defense’s success so far.
There aren’t a ton of options of here, so I’ll get borderline nitpicky. Dymonte Thomas has had a little more Bad Not-Boring mixed in with his Good Not-Boring than anyone would like, even if a couple plays that were on him—namely the short Colorado touchdown pass—came on plays in which he was put in a tough position. Hopefully the angle he took on the 87-yarder was more a product of the UCF guy’s legit track speed than anything else.
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Seth:
Grant Newsome. At the break of fall camp we were hearing about Bredeson starting at left tackle. That triggered a quick devaluation for Newsome, whose iffy spring game piled on evidence that he was only penciled in for lack of bodies. We're still talking more about a recovery than a blue chip takeoff, but Grant's Penn State performance (PFF had him M’s second best offensive player) closed the buy-low window.
That of course comes off an awful (7 pressures) Colorado game. The complicated stuff Colorado did would bewilder any 19-year-old—remember Lewan at this point in his career was merely pushing a junior Huyge, with more false starts than donkeyed ends. ; Penn State's far less imaginative gameplan gave us a glimpse of how good Newsome's going to be one day. That's on par with our pre-spring predictions, but a big uptick from getting dominated by Winovich in the Spring Game and passed by Bredeson in fall camp.
I had to delete my Dymonte response because Ace just posted it. Next down the nitpick chart is Chase Winovich, who is playing about how we should have expected, though a tick behind where we thought he would be. His issues with irresponsible edge defense are easily explained by his move back from offense; getting pulled for Lawrence Marshall and making more mistakes than not-his-position Rashan Gary means Winovich still has a long way to go. It took just one series with Taco back to make the gap between Charlton and his backup manifest. Given how stacked Michigan is at the other end spot, I'd like to see Gary eating up Winovich's playing time rather than, say, Godin's or one of the 3-techs.
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Ace: It says a lot about how the season has gone so far that Winovich is an option for stock down. As Seth said, his issues were things we expected, and I honestly considered him for the stock up section; part of the reason he’s lost contain a few times is he’s had more success than expected exploding off the edge and going right around offensive tackles. He’s not a Kraken like the rest of the defensive linemen, but he’s a really nice guy to have in the rotation.
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Brian:
Karan Higdon. Higdon's coming off a game where he was seemingly the #2 tailback, and he looked like it. We haven't seen much of him because of a variety of ailments, but what he showed on Saturday was a guy who runs low to the ground and powers through tackles; he's plenty quick and seems to have a good feel for where his blocks are going to be. I'd just about forgotten about him, and now he's in the thick of things probably for good. Area for improvement: pass protection.
Drake Harris. A third of the way through the year and Harris has been sparingly used again. To some extent that's true for all the backup wide receivers, but Harris's lack of playing time is notable because some folks hypothesized that his rapport with Wilton Speight would help him become a contributor. Doesn't look like it so far, and with Eddie McDoom sliding in front of him already I wonder if he's lost his shot.
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Adam:
Khalid Hill. Entering the season it seemed fair to cast Hill as a blocky/catchy type, emphasis on the catchy. After four games, he's a blocky/catchy/dive-y/seal-y dynamo. He's obliterating guys on the edge and pushing the ball across in short-yardage situations, all while maintaining the ability to get out and run a route; he has caught all six of his targets and is averaging 7.8 yards per. Jim Harbaugh said yesterday that Hill has a long-term future at fullback; when he's already doing the things we weren't sure he could as well as he is, I can see why.
Ben Bredeson. Not really a complaint and certainly a nitpick, but there was a modicum of hype surrounding him before the season that has petered out. He's not going to take Newsome's LT spot now, and though he got a fair number of snaps in Braden's first game back from injury that now appears to have been simply to get Braden rest as he got back up to game speed. Bredeson's obviously going to be a contributor in the near future, but there aren't nearly as many snaps to go around for a guy who's still developing (see: targeting) as it looked like there may have been a month ago.