2024 spring practice

The reigning National Champions of college football, the Michigan Wolverines, play their nationally-televised spring game tomorrow. It will begin at noon EST and will be broadcast on Fox, just as Ohio State's was a week ago. As always, the spring game is a first glimpse of the upcoming season's team, a small "pulling back the curtain" moment of sorts that offers small clues into the progress of spring practice and the depth chart. The score outcome of the game is irrelevant so for this preview we've got seven storylines to watch for tomorrow, as we've detailed each of the last two spring games: 

1.) Do we have a viable QB?

Far and away the #1 storyline going into the spring game is the question that has dominated offseason discussions since the moment JJ McCarthy put his name in the NFL Draft in mid-January... who is Michigan's quarterback in 2024? We probably won't get the decisive answer in the spring game, but we'll get a much better idea of what's going on based on how the respective QBs perform. The clubhouse leader at this point in time seems to be Alex Orji, but reports of his spring practice have been somewhat up and down. We've seldom seen Orji throw the ball in his time at Michigan, so that alone will be of much interest. How does his accuracy look? Can he avoid the "big mistake" throw? 

Beyond that, the other QBs are a jumble. Jack Tuttle has been out this spring, but Jayden Denegal, Davis Warren, and true freshman Jadyn Davis will be on display. Denegal seemed to get off to a slow start to spring but may have improved recently, though the sense is that Orji is still ahead. Warren has been a spring game staple for a couple seasons now but his flashes in this event haven't really translated to regulation game garbage time action. As for Davis, it doesn't seem like he will be the starter in 2024 due to his age/lack of experience (for good reason), but this will be our first chance to see the prized recruit in action. 

The performance of the QBs will inevitably elicit hot takes because that's the way it goes, but the biggest focus should be on whether any of the candidates seem like viable B1G starters. If they don't, then Michigan should go to the portal and look to find an acceptable option. In other words, if Alex Orji wants to be The Guy for Michigan this season, a strong, confident performance in the spring game would go a long way to calming our nerves and shoring things up with the coaching staff. 

[Patrick Barron]

2.) The wide receiver situation 

Another point of conversation in spring practice is the status of the receiver room. Cristian Dixon hit the portal this week (though he may have been playing defense recently), continuing an offseason of attrition at the WR and TE positions. Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson declared for the NFL Draft, while Dixon, Eamon Dennis, Karmello English, and Darrius Clemons hit the portal at the WR position. When you factor in the previous offseason's exit of Andrel Anthony to the portal, there's nothing left at the position from the 2021 recruiting class or earlier. 

That means the WR room is pretty thin, Semaj Morgan and Tyler Morris being somewhat known commodities as the starters and then Fred Moore the next in line. Peyton O'Leary is still hanging around, but after that... *crickets* before you get into the true freshmen. The problems here are two-fold, unproven starters (Morris and Morgan are still pretty green) and a complete lack of depth. Michigan is almost certainly going to look in the portal for WR help after spring practice, given that they were looking aggressively in the winter portal (just didn't land anyone), but there's a big difference between going into the portal looking for a star and looking for depth. They'll definitely go into the portal for the latter, but if Morgan and Morris have good showings and Moore balls out in the spring game, maybe you feel more like there's a need to shore up depth rather than a plug-and-play starter. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Five more storylines]

Things Discussed:

• Frozen Four: Battle of the Blue Bloods. Usually you're counting on single-elimination hockey to off one of the impossibly good teams but NOT THIS YEAR. BC is fully of snipers—their top four forwards are shooting 18% to 21%.
• Michigan's chances rely on controlling the puck, scoring on their cycling, and Barzo stepping up to cancel out the corners.
• Past BC it's the #1 overall pick or a Denver team full of draft picks.
• College hockey right now: draft picks will coalesce at a few bluebloods like BC, BU, Denver, Minnesota, and Michigan, but the mid-majors are filled up with overagers trying to stay in the game. Also the NHL is enamored with college hockey players, and the US development program has succeeded in keeping talent home that five years ago and beyond we were losing to Canadian Juniors. So there's as much talent and skill in college hockey now as there's been in a very long time.
• Naurauto: He's on track for the perfect roster construction, which is two lines of highly skilled early NHL picks and Quinnipiac's top line, bunch of guys who are just on the cusp of NHL ability and are thus behooved to play out their eligibility in college.
• Break: What's going on at tight end? Beetham in the portal—is that about money? Michigan doesn't seem to have an inline guy this year.
• After Break: Women's basketball gone national. You can tell it's come on because sports fans are filling the hate boxes instead of being patronizing.
• Michigan othersports: wrestling is #2 in the Big Ten (better than Iowa) and is full of transfers! We love softball, women's gymnastics has a following, debate won a national championship.
• Is there enough NIL to go around at Michigan? Probably not, because we want to compete in every sport and donors are getting fatigued. The system doesn't work for anyone except the administrators who are getting the fans to pay out the nose for everything and want to shunt NIL on them too.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

Last season was the final word on a uniquely American pastime, a maximalized rugby/soccer offshoot that began with a spring 1879 trial of Walter Camp's new rules, and concluded with its final championship last January.

Stipulating that Michigan is the final victor of college football's remarkable 144-year year run, like any good MMRPG reaching the end of original content doesn't mean we have to stop playing.* The winners of the first and last games of the mainline series not only plan on continuing to compete in the endgame, but are actively preparing to do so right this very moment. Let's see what's happening. But first the ground rules.

How spring lies: The vast majority of spring chatter is pablum. Established starters get praised for their leadership, focus, and offseason workout regimens. Obvious new ones get compared to the guys they're stepping in for. Coach pressers spin vagarities then name some dudes. Insider information is often more precise, but also usually planted.

How spring truths: Typical things that stand out as positives are players that every practice observer feels they need to mention (e.g. Sainristil), surprisingly short position battles (same), and young depth guys who don't need to get hypes but are brought up anyways (Loveland in '22). Typically negative heuristics are position changes, getting named after a younger player at one's position, battles that go on longer than they should, and when the questions they're answering aren't the more pressing ones we're asking (conversely if we're worried about backups and they talk about the starter it's a good thing).

Thus the format where we start with expectations, and measure what we're hearing against those.

Quick note on paywalled info. There is some, noted with ($). If I'm sharing it anyways it means there's either a lot more for subscribers at the link, or the info therein is so old it's already well percolated through social media and by that point it's better to credit the original source than pretend it doesn't exist.

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* [That only happens once the corporate overlords who bought the IP stack so many subscription fees, microtransactions, shortsighted DLCs, and too-disruptive in-game ads into the thing that the critical mass of people who were hanging onto the diluted product for nostalgia finally let go.]

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Quarterback

Oh Denegal is having a bad week, is he?

The question we're asking is: Who's the quarterback?

But they're acting like it's: That.

What are we hearing? No thought of portal, Jadyn Davis has INTANGIBLES, and Orji is seizing the job because nobody can throw well enough at this point to make up for what Orji can do with his legs.

With Tuttle "working through something" the official channels are making every candidate equal. Tyler Morris:

Each one has their own thing that they're good at, I would say," Morris explained. "I wouldn't necessarily say there was one that's caught my eye, but there's been days where one might stand out for the day and then the next one -- the next practice, another guy. … Alex, obviously he can move. Davis just getting the ball to people. Jayden Denegal, he made some good throws. Jadyn Davis, I mean, he's made some great throws too."

Mason Graham seemed to confirm some insider notes I've gotten that Orji's running ability is standing out from a group that's been struggling to throw it to their own guys.

"I mean they’re all doing a good job — but Alex Orji can make plays with his legs ... You don’t know what he’s doing, even when he doesn’t have the ball because he’s a weapon. … when there’s somebody back there that can just run at any given time and you’ve gotta chase him down, it’s in the back of your mind throughout the game."

Brian Jean-Mary also noted that while he's been impressed by the ground game, the offense is "finding its footing." That is a nicer way of saying the first practices with pads have resembled an Iowa spring game via both Sam and Josh Henschke ($):

Wink’s pressures and blitzes “handled” the offense thoroughly. As for quarterbacks, we’re told that a lot of interceptions were thrown this week and there were some inconsistencies from all quarterbacks. … the offense needs time to get rhythm and gel, a lot of early pressure by Wink doesn’t necessarily allow that but it’s good practice.

When we do hear about a play in the passing game it's not coming from the pocket, which there's one guy who's likely to still be standing when not in it. Josaiah Stewart on Orji:

He can escape the pocket, but believe it or not, he can throw," he said. "People might not believe that, social media or whatnot, say he can't throw, but he can throw. I've seen him throw dots down the field, and it's worse when you just almost get there and he gets the ball off, and it's a touchdown. He's great at doing that. He's great at escaping and getting the ball downfield."

On their podcast (video) Henschke shared that his insiders think Orji is #1, Davis Warren #2, not far behind is Jadyn Davis, who is your presumptive starter in 2025, and then Denegal, who didn't have that great of a week. Jadyn "continues to stack good days."

What it means?

Orji hasn't grasped the offense but he's probably going to have to lead it, because his legs are a bona fide Big Ten-caliber weapon, and none of the other QBs' skills rise to that yet. Denegal shouldn't be written off for one bad week but it sounds like it was quite the bad week. Jadyn Davis chatter is meaningful for the future.

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[After THE JUMP: Focused on becoming the best on and off the field.]