Brandon Graham is widely considered the most physically-talented player on the 2009 Wolverines. He is also probably the best player, and a big season could propel him into the first few rounds of the NFL draft. Graham was 8th on the team in tackles last year, but 1st in both tackles for loss and sacks (in which he also led the Big Ten). Graham has been a thorn in opposing quarterbacks’ collective side since he burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2006.

Greg Banks has bounced around on the defensive line, playing both end and tackle during his time in Ann Arbor. The redshirt junior from Denver will probably play strongside end and some tackle this season. In his playing time last year, Banks tallied a half tackle for loss to go along with his 5 total tackles.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Friday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Warren v. Stokes.
Schilling v. Emilien.
Mesko v. Ortmann.
Cissoko v. Toussaint.
Forcier v. Patterson.
Stonum . Roundtree.

Completed 1st Round Poll:
Minor defeats Sheridan, 952-53.
Van Bergen defeats Gibbons, appx. 503-199 (numbers not final).

Posted under Football, Personnel

Darryl Stonum is one of the most explosive receivers on Michigan’s roster, though he’s only caught one touchdown in his career, against Purdue (to be fair, the entire team only had 11 TD receptions last year). He’s been cited as someone who has a lot of physical talent, but maybe has a bit of maturing to do before he can live up to his potential. Regardless, Stonum is definitely considered among Michigan’s best deep threats from the split end position in 2009.

Roy Roundtree was one of three Trotwood-Madison commits in Rich Rodriguez’s first recruiting class, and is the player who set of the now-infamous Joe Tiller rant. Roundtree has practiced at both wide receiver and slot in his Michigan career, though he redshirted last year to add some weight for the college game. Thus far, the highlight of Roundtree’s Wolverine career is the 50-yard touchdown bomb he caught from Tate Forcier in the 2009 Sring Game.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Thursday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Gibbons v. Van Bergen.
Warren v. Stokes.
Schilling v. Emilien.
Mesko v. Ortmann.
Cissoko v. Toussaint.
Forcier v. Patterson.

Completed 1st Round Poll:
Minor defeats Sheridan, appx. 947-53 (numbers not final).

Posted under Coaching, Football, Misc., Personnel

Despite never having played a down for Michigan yet, Tate Forcier is one of the most popular Wolverines on the roster. With the dicey quarterback situation last year, and a rousing performance from Tate in the Spring Game, it’s easy to see why. The true dual-threat QB was a record-setter in high school, and with an early enrollment in Ann Arbor, he’s poised to be Michigan’s starter on opening day.

Adam Patterson has had limited playing time so far during his career in Ann Arbor (1 tackle and a forced fumble in 2008), but is expected to be a key member of the defensive line rotation in 2009. He has the ability to play strongside defensive end or even defensive tackle. With three of Michigan’s 2008 starters departing, a big season from Patterson could go a long way to solidifying the Michigan defense.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Tuesday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Minor v. Sheridan.
Gibbons v. Van Bergen.
Warren v. Stokes.
Schilling v. Emilien.
Mesko v. Ortmann.
Cissoko v. Toussaint.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Boubacar Cissoko is a sophomore cornerback who hails from Detroit’s Cass Tech High School. He gained some playing time in nickel packages last year as a true freshman, and will be expected to move into a starting role opposite Donovan Warren this season. He tallied 15 total tackles on the year, and should see that number increase dramatically with expanded playing time.

Fitzgerald Toussaint is an incoming freshman, one of 2 hailing from Youngstown, Ohio. In his senior season at Libery High School, he destroyed all comers through the first 8 games, before faltering slightly in his final few. Still, he rushed for over 200 yards, and is expected to be a good inside runner with breakaway speed for the Wolverines.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Tuesday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Minor v. Sheridan.
Gibbons v. Van Bergen.
Warren v. Stokes.
Schilling v. Emilien.
Mesko v. Ortmann.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Zoltan Mesko enters his fourth year as Michigan’s starting punter (though he also split time with Ross Ryan in 2006), and is expected to be one of the top punters in the nation. The towering Romanian from Twinsburg, Ohio is among the more popular players on the Michigan team, primarily on account of his awesome name.

Mark Ortmann will enter his second year as Michigan’s starting left tackle, having replace #1 NFL draft pick Jake Long. Ortmann missed a game with injury last year, but played both tackle and guard along Michigan’s improving offensive line in 2008. If the Michigan rushing attack improves in 2009 as expected, Ortmann will turn in a strong year.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Monday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Minor v. Sheridan.
Gibbons v. Van Bergen.
Warren v. Stokes.
Schilling v. Emilien.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Stephen Schilling is widely regarded as Michigan’s best offensive linemen, and will be a third-year starter for the Wolverines in 2008. He makes the switch from right tackle to guard, which is a more natural position for him, and allows him to take advantage of his athleticism. Schilling has started 24 of the 25 games in his Michigan career, though he missed last year’s Ohio State game (not-so-coincidentally a subpar rushing performance) with an injury.

Vladimir Emilien will be a true freshman in 2009, but that doesn’t mean he’s unlikely to garner much playing time. Emilien enrolled in the winter semester, and took part in the Wolverines’ spring drills. He was one of the more impressive defensive players this spring, and may even have a chance to make it into the starting lineup.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Sunday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Minor v. Sheridan.
Gibbons v. Van Bergen.
Warren v. Stokes.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Brendan Gibbons is an incoming freshman kicker out of Palm Beach, Florida. With Michigan’s kickers Jason Gingell and KC Lopata departing, somebody’s got to step in and kick the ball, no? Gibbons, among the nation’s top kicker recruits in the class of 2009, is the leading candidate.

Ryan Van Bergen enters his redshirt sophomore year, after earning some playing time as a strongside defensive end in 2008. He should be a starter this year, playing both defensive end and possibly the hybrid roles that new defensive coordinator GERG Robinson favors. If Van Bergen takes a big step forward in 2009, it will go a long way to settling the Wolverines defense.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Friday. Have your heart set on a particular candidate? Try to sway others in the comments. The full bracket is visible here.

Other Open Polls:
Minor v. Sheridan.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Brandon Minor was Michigan’s leading rusher in 2008, after two consecutive years backing up Mike Hart. Despite being plagued with wrist injuries, he rushed for 533 yards last year, splitting carries with Sam McGuffie. Minor led Michigan to a 17-10 halftime lead over Penn State, one of the few bright moments in the year.

Nick Sheridan was Michigan’s starting quarterback in much of 2008, splitting duties with Steven Threet before Threet went down for the year with an injury. Sheridan passed for 2 touchdowns and ran for 1 on the year, and was the engineer of the Wolverines’ upset victory over Minnesota in the Metrodome on November 8th. Sheridan is the only remaining QB on the Michigan roster with more than 1 collegiate pass to his name.

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The poll will remain open for 7 days, closing at 5PM next Thursday. The full bracket is visible here.

Posted under Football, Personnel

Among the many things that have often bothered me about the Michigan football program is the lack of serious Heisman buzz for any player (save, perhaps, for Mike Hart in 2006). So, as a Guy with Website, I fully intend to change that for the 2009 season. But far be it from me to determine which Michigan Wolverine deserves to have a full-fledged Heisman campaign this upcoming season. Why don’t I have readers vote in an enormous bracket, instead?

Who’s Eligible?

Originally, I had intended for this to be a ridiculously large bracket, with everyone on the roster eligible. Well, that didn’t get off the ground quite as I had intended, and to simplify things, most players with a reasonable expectation of playing time and stats will be a candidate in the bracket contest. There will be one contest each day, with voting open for 7 days (so the results will roll in over time). As the roster gets pared down to 4 or 8 candidates, they’ll be spaced out a little more to give each battle a chance to get the votes it deserves.

What’s the ‘Prize?’

The “winner” will have a Varsity Blue section created in his honor, to tout his candidacy for the Heisman trophy, a la the now-defunct Hart4Heisman.com, or official athletic department sites like CurtisPainter12.com (try to stifle your laughter). Depending on the level of effort I’m willing to put in, perhaps some of the runners-up will have pages as well, at least touting them for position-specific awards like the Ray Guy trophy or Rotary Lombardi Award.

Show Me the Bracket!

Ah, patience young one. I’ll reveal the bracket early next week (how does Tuesday sound?) and battles will get started the next day.

Posted under Football, Personnel

A couple things…

• As rumored, Kelvin Grady is indeed expected to join the Michigan football team. He’ll have 3 years to play 3, meaning he’s essentially coming in as a redshirt sophomore. He’ll play slot receiver, and will likely be used in all the ways that Rodriguez has used such players (motioning into the backfield, end-around pitches, etc.) in the past. Grady, while he should be in pretty good shape from having continued his D-1 athletic career over the past two years, is going to have to work to change his physique from that of a football player to that of a basketball player. He’ll probably provide depth at slot this year, though we’ve all seen on the basketball court the quickness that he can bring.It’s still unclear whether he’ll rejoin the basketball team, since he’s still around and all. Most news items have not mentioned it as an option, but I don’t see why not. The kid clearly loves basketball (he picked it over football coming out of high school, after all), and with the football career perhaps becoming the main focus, he could play basketball and provide depth at the point guard position for another year or two, without fretting about his overall role on the team.
• The other personnel issue is with a player who has yet to hit campus: Justin Turner, the defensive back out of Massillon Washington, has been the subject of rumors regarding his eligibility to enroll at Michigan. The apparent issue regards the Ohio Graduation Test, and Turner’s apparent failing of it. Before we get into that, I might as well bring up the source of this rumor, the English-teacher’s-nightmare of a blog GBMW (which I shall not link because I think they’re idiots). The rebuttal to their post at WLA, though clearly written in a heat of passion, is something I agree with: GBMW broke either 1) The law, by getting a student’s private records, or 2) Turner’s trust, by throwing this shit all over the internet. Additional shame to them (on top of the shame of illiteracy, of course). Anyway, since the rumor has become fairly ubiquitous, Sam Webb found it OK to mention on the WTKA morning show today, and I feel okay posting about it.As for the test, the state of Ohio requires its high schoolers to pass the Ohio Graduation Test as something of an exit exam. Don’t pass the test, you don’t get to graduate high school (and get automatic admission to Ohio State – no I’m not joking, this policy was around as recently as 6 years ago). Turner, then, did not pas the test, or so the rumor goes. Webb was not particularly pessimistic about Turner’s ability to still get into school, as he’s a pretty good student who’s already met the NCAA Clearinghouse’s requirements for eligibility, except the no high school diploma thing. There are alternative methods to diploma eligbility, and given Turner’s academic reputation, most don’t foresee him having difficulty there.

So, hurray. Enjoy this video of Charles Woodson and Desmond Howard on College Football Live yesterday as a reward for getting through all that:

Posted under Football, Personnel