Offense: Patrick Omameh
Defense: Cam Gordon
Vincent Smith. Yes he was a somewhat known commodity late last season, but the unknown is how he comes back from the torn ACL.
Ryan Van Bergen. If Will Campbell lives up to 75% of his hype and owns the NT position demanding double teams, Van Bergen can have a huge year as he will be one on one with a tackle or tight end.
Bill Hagerup.
Emperor Zoltan was extremely important over the last few years. Hopefully, this year, it will not be required that the punter break out. However, he must be good enough for us to know that he goes by the name Will.
I think we should go "old school" and begin calling him Bill.
Slick Willy
I never went by Bill but professors would ALWAYS call me it. I went to get a new badge for work, and of course the name that appears on it is "Bill"
Funny thing, my name is really Frank.
He is a special teams player.
Offense: Je'Ron Stokes
Defense: Josh Furman...I feel his speed gets him some PT.
You should define "unknown" a little bit. If you mean "unknown" by "hasn't played," I would say you might be right with Lewan and I would substitute Marvin Robinson or Jibreel Black for Turner.
But if you mean "unknown" as "underrated player who hasn't gotten intense recruiting / spring hype and will pleasantly surprise us this year," your players don't qualify. And if those are the parameters, I would say there aren't that many that qualify on offense but I'll spring for (hopefully) Drew Dileo, particularly on returns, and Floyd Simmons as a situational defender.
person **
Hard to say who is relatively unknown on this blog (there's so much information here), but here are my choices:
Offense: Mike Cox
Defense: Cullen Christian
Special Teams: Jeremy Gallon
Offense: Mike Cox
Defense: Kenny Demens
and will throw Jeremy Gallon in on special teams.
Offense: Stephen Hopkins (I think he will get some PT and become the Thumper back of the group)
Defense: Cullen Christian
Offense: Fitz Toussaint
Defense: Marvin Robinson's abs
EDIT: After reading being reminded by today's countdown entry at Touch the Banner, I would consider replacing Je'Ron Stokes for Fitz.
comes from Carvin Johnson. His lack of Guru hype then avalanche of attention once he committed to M has me excited about his potential. On offense, I'll have to say Fitz just because of his overall ability.
with Carvin. Scout is saying that he is much faster than expected and is expected to compete to be in the 2 deep at one of the safety positions (including deep safety).
Any help we can get in the secondary from the incoming freshman would be a huge plus.
On offense: I'm going with Terrence Robinson. Get him the ball in some open space and he is dangerous!
Also on NCAA 11 when I was smoking Mass I put in the second string D and Carvin was the man. He had 2 pick 6's and a strip in 2 quarters. So hopefully NCAA 11 got him right.
Offense: T. Lewan
Defense: C. Gordon
Offense: Terrence Robinson
Defense: Thomas Gordon (spur)
I want to see the 'Dream Shake' at least once this year.
Offense: Je'Ron Stokes? The outside WR position seems pretty open as neither Stonum nor Hemmingway have stepped up to become stars.
Defense: Will Campbell. Does he count as a "surprise"?
if he can stay healthy (history suggests this is unlikely), i actually think hemingway could be a solid outside reciever. the qbs just need to get him the damn ball
Going with Fitz on Offense and Cullen Christian on D.
No reason. I don't even know if they have good PAD LEVEL.
Just makin' sacrifices to Jobu so that there are multiple surprises on both sides of the ball......
Offense: Denard Robinson, teams will be surpised Michigan has developed warp speed.
Defense: Mike Martin, teams will be surpised Michigan has a real live, living hulk.
Surprise
What, you mean like "Supplies!"?
I don't get it.
It really had nothing to do with your comment.
It was in reference to a joke that is only funny because of how bad it is. The punch line of the joke is an asian man jumping out and yelling "supplies!" when he means "surprise!".
Despite how bad the joke is, the punchline has always cracked me up for some reason. When ever I hear the word surprise, I usually have to suppress an urge to reply with jazz hands and "supplies!".
Sorry for the thread-jack.
It's from Weird Al's movie "UHF"
but I have one question....what the fuck is a frush?
Martin and Robinson playing well won't surprise us, but they'll surprise people who don't follow us closely. Martin seems to be getting next to no attention in the national press. It also seems that they see Robinson only as a runner who can't throw, and so they see our QB situation as "Forcier can't even beat out Robinson now, they're really in trouble" whereas we see it as "Robinson has made so much progress, now we have 2 viable starters".
Will Campbell has to be a beast this year for us. Otherwise, I'm worried.
Offense: Michael Cox
Defense: Greg Banks
good call on banks...as much as id like campbell to have a breakout yr, im keeping my expectations limited until he can prove himself
I really do think many on this blog are making an incorrect assumption that the three defensive linemen will be Van Bergen, Campbell, and Martin. I don't think Campbell is going to get as much PT as a lot of people expect, and Martin isn't a great fit at DE.
My prediction is RVB, Martin, and Banks on the front line, but with a solid dose of Campbell and Sagesse as backups.
be nice to have fresh legs on the defensive line. I think part of why we played so poorly in the 2nd half of games last year is because of how limited the DL rotation was.
Furthermore, our DL will have versatility too. In Short yardage situations we have the ability to go with a much bigger lineup.
Yea I agree. I was skeptical of the switch to the 3-3-5 or whatever defensive scheme we have now, but the more I think about it seems like a really smart move considering the players we have.
I know people are really high on the RVB-Campbell-Martin lineup but I would really rather have RVB-Martin-Banks, which if I recall correctly, is your preference as well. Martin's a proven beast in the middle, and Banks is experienced and pretty technique-sound. Another year of spot duty for Big Will wouldn't hurt him.
Not to be mean but Greg Banks has done literally nothing since his time at Michigan.
Last year he played in 11 games and had 5 tackles
How do you expect someone to get significant action when they've been behind Brandon Graham for so long on the depth chart? He didn't get playing time because he was playing behind a future first round draft pick. I'm not saying he's going to be a star player, I just think he's more developed and refined than Big Will.
if the guy couldn't get on the field during two years of the worst defenses michigan has ever produced, what makes you think he would be able to contribute more than Big Will this year? Maybe he'll prove me wrong, but I'd much rather see a RVB-Campbell-Martin starting lineup than a RVB-Martin-Banks
Well, he was behind Brandon Graham (a 1st round pick) in 2007 and 2008. Then in 2009 he was behind Ryan Van Bergen, a pretty solid player in his own right.
But hey, Ryan Mallett was Chad Henne's backup at one point, so Mallett must not be very good, either...
that's an entirely different situation. Obviously a true freashman isn't going to beat out a four-year starter. Greg Banks has been in the program for four years without showing any real evidence that he'd be a productive starter. I don't think he's a terrible player, but if Greg Banks is starting next year then doesn't that say more about Big Will than it does about him?
last year as being as good as the regulars for two plays, but then his performance would drop off for the next two or so. He just wasn't consistent enough to regularly play. I don't think anyone was calling him the next BG, but they were saying that he held up well when he was in and wasn't a liability. Of course, with the way our linebackers were playing last year, who was trying to attack the edge? I think he's going to look a lot like Biggs or Roy Manning did earlier in the decade. He's got one year to make his mark after a truly special player left. If he can give us that, Will Campbell gets a chance to learn without being there every down. I think RVB Martin Banks isn't going to hurt us as much as RVB (still raw WC) (out of position) MM does.
Banks was getting a lot of buzzlast year as being as good as the regulars for two plays, but then his performance would drop off for the next two or so.
Sounds like a John Hankins type of player.
if Banks was a back-up DB.
Is this supposed to be a case for Will Campbell? Because he could be described in virtually the exact same way. Campbell played in 9 games and made 4 tackles.
Campbell has much more talent in my opinion then Greg Banks. Banks was only a 3 star out of high school compared to Big Will being a blue chip. I'm just saying I highly doubt Banks is going to be a big contributer. He'll be alright but not a big contributor.