I'm bringing back this preview feature from before my time off; the exercise is to rank Michigan's opponents, as well as the Wolverines themselves, in each position group. This is particularly useful to do in a year when roster turnover and late-offseason changes (laaaaaaaaaaaaaate-offseason changes) are so prevalent; I'll do my best in these posts to highlight significant opt-outs, opt-ins, and the like.

We start, as is tradition, with quarterback. We start there, as is tradition, with the enemy of enemies. Presumed starter is listed in bold, others are in italics.

TIER I: F*** YOU, KIRBY SMART

1. Ohio State

Justin Fields is back. Nothing else needs to be said to justify OSU's placement in a tier of their own. He's a Heisman candidate (again) and potential top-five pick after this season.

If you're searching for a glimmer of hope, the backup situation is dicey. Senior Gunner Hoak was an emergency transfer addition when he couldn't win the job at Kentucky and Ohio State needed a body at QB in 2019. Freshmen CJ Stroud and Jack Miller are talented early enrollees but both are fresh out of high school. If Fields is unavailable, the dropoff may be massive.

TIER II: ALL-CONFERENCE CONTENDERS

2. Minnesota

While Tanner Morgan is often overlooked because of Minnesota's talent at receiver, he plays his role in PJ Fleck's offense extremely well. Morgan led the Big Ten at 10.2 yards per attempt, threw 30 TDs against only seven picks, and completed two-thirds of his passes. Yes, it helps to have Rashod Bateman and Tyler Johnson, but you still have to put those playmakers in good spots position, and Morgan tosses accurate, catchable passes at all levels. He gets Bateman back, too.

The Gophers get the slight edge over the next team on the list because they have a backup with starting experience. Before Morgan emerged last season, Zack Annexstad was the returning starter coming off a passable year given he was thrown into the fire as a freshman. Annexstad got hurt and Morgan took full control of the job, but should the starter go down, Minnesota will be in a better position than most programs to keep their offense from imploding.

3. Indiana

Based on starter talent alone, Indiana has a strong argument for the #2 spot. Michael Penix Jr. isn't a big name outside of Indiana because he's been injured for much of the last two seasons. When healthy, though, he's been electric, and he chased a solid Big Ten starter (Peyton Ramsey) out of town. Penix averaged 8.7 yards per attempt and 5.4 yards per carry (not adjusted for sacks) in 2019 but only made it through three of his six starts before succumbing to a shoulder injury.

Penix has more upside than Morgan, particularly in the running game. He's yet to prove he can produce against the upper tier of the Big Ten, though, and his injury history is concerning for a player who relies so much on his legs. While the Hoosiers have former four-star recruit Jack Tuttle as a backup, he's another transfer who's had to start fresh following a short stint at Utah.

[Hit THE JUMP for a pretty strong group of signal-callers until you reach the ass end of the conference.]

TIER III: SOLID, PROBABLY NOT SPECTACULAR

PSU's Sean Clifford isn't short on big-game experience. [Patrick Barron]

4. Wisconsin

Jack Coan isn't going to wow you, and that's fine by Paul Chryst, who's perfectly content to roll with a game manager-type and lean on the running game. With Jonathan Taylor setting all sorts of records during Coan's first season as a full-time starter, the junior signal-caller could focus on making high-percentage throws and avoiding mistakes; he did both at a high level, completing nearly 70% of his passes at 8.0 YPA with 18 TDs and only five INTs. The volume was low; the efficiency was excellent.

Coan isn't guaranteed the job, which in this case is good news for the Badgers. He represents the floor for the position. The ceiling is redshirt freshman Graham Mertz, the class of 2019's third-ranked pro-style QB recruit in the country. Mertz has the physical ability to add a more vertical dimension to the offense, which may help alleviate the loss of Taylor. Given how well Coan performed last year, however, including against high-level opponents, the transition to the Next Big Thing is probably still a year away.

5. Penn State

I had the same opinion as the pseudonymous Thicc Stauskas, who recently broke down every Big Ten quarterback situation in detail, heading into this offseason:

I went into this thinking that I was going to use this space to slander senior starter Sean Clifford. ... I thought I would say that his numbers look fine over all but when you break it down vs. Quality opponents, they’re Actually Bad.

This is not the case. Clifford had really good numbers on the year that didn’t fall off that much against elite competition (besides Ohio State). He had an inauspicious start against Idaho, but immediately improved the next week and really didn’t have a “bad” game all year until his offensive line simply couldn’t protect him against Chase Young and friends. His overall numbers finished at 2,600 YDS on 8.3 YPA, 59% completion, 23 TD, and 7 INT. He was also a legitimate threat as a runner with 5 TD and several long runs to his name. The completion percentage leaves a bit to be desired, but the YPA makes up for it, as Penn State’s offense was largely a boom or bust affair.

James Franklin poached PJ Fleck's right-hand man, Kirk Ciarrocca, to bring some fresh ideas as co-offensive coordinator, a move I believe will help Clifford—Ciarrocca's coming from a quarterback-friendly offense.

Clifford is slightly more high-risk, high-reward than Coan, and I might take him straight up. It's close enough that the backups matter, though, and I like Mertz more than PSU's duo of juniors Will Levis and Ta'Quan Roberson. Levis is Just A Guy, while Roberson is an undersized dual-threat who's running out of time to deliver on four-star hype.

TIER IV: COULD EXPLODE IN ANY DIRECTION

Joe Milton could finish the season way higher on this list. [Barron]

6. Michigan

Could Joe Milton end up better than everyone on this list save Fields? Absolutely.

Is that the likely outcome this season? Ask again later.

Still, Milton beat out Shea Patterson's presumed successor, Dylan McCaffrey, by a clear enough margin for McCaffrey to opt out and seek a transfer. When Milton came in as a high-ceiling, low-floor four-star recruit, the prospect of him emerging in year three was an exciting one to this very blog [emphasis mine]:

Guru Reliability: High. Heavily scouted player and industry-wide agreement.

Variance: Vast. Sub-50% completion rate QBs often fade away entirely. On the other hand...

Ceiling: Vast. Hope you like 70 yard touchdowns with no YAC.

General Excitement Level: High. Chatter from inside the program is very encouraging and meaningful; I put stock in Pahokee.

Projection: Redshirt. Then it's up to Patterson. If he goes to the draft it'll be a three-way competition between Milton, Peters, and McCaffrey that Milton might be too raw to win, thus sentencing him to some additional bench time. If Patterson stays for a senior year a third-year Milton should be ready to go, if he's ever going to be ready to go, and if he's a strike then ain't nobody on this campus or any other keeping him from the field.

He's emerging in year three.

There's still a chance Milton isn't a recruiting hit; McCaffrey left before pads came on, after all. He's seen the field before, though, and his potential is apparent even when you get beyond him passing the first-off-the-bus test with flying colors. Beating out McCaffrey is a sign he is, indeed, better than McCaffrey, and we'd seen enough of McCaffrey to expect at least a decent season out of him—and likely an upgrade on Patterson's uneven play.

Backup Cade McNamara was the opposite kind of four-star as Milton: likely to develop into a decent player, less likely to blow up into a superstar. His emergence has been by necessity, which is always reason to worry, though he's at least getting some practice praise.

7. Maryland

The Terps have one of the more recognizable names on this list as their presumed new starter: Taulia Tagovailoa, Alabama transfer and younger brother of Tua. While the comparisons to his brother are inevitable, Taulia wasn't expected to have quite the same top-of-the-draft potential as Tua—or Milton, for that matter, though he likely has a sturdier floor.

Tagovailoa's transfer from Bama was prompted by a lack of opportunity; he wasn't close to unseating Mac Jones as a backup last year and didn't see much chance at starting over him in 2020. He's still competing for the Maryland job with four-star redshirt freshman Lance LeGendre, who's much more of a running threat. Taulia appears to be the odds-on favorite to start but LeGendre could see time either way and he'd give the offense a different look if called upon for extended time.

TIER VI: BLEAK

8. Rutgers

Rutgers defied my expectations and stayed out of last place because Noah Vedral, who's bounced from UCF to Nebraska and now Piscataway, had great mop-up numbers as a freshman while stuck behind a national award contender in McKenzie Milton, then posted a solid 34-for-52, 8.0 YPA season behind Adrien Martinez last year, playing particularly well in a narrow loss to Indiana. He's finally picked a school where he's expected to start.

Greg Schiano needs that to be the case because the other options are Johnny Langan, who posted abysmal numbers as a freshman in 2019, and Artur Sitkowski, who posted even more abysmal numbers as a freshman in 2018 before ceding most of the snaps to Langan last year. Vedral should be better than those two even if his numbers take a hit from playing with Rutgers-level talent.

9. Michigan State

The Spartans really could've used spring ball. They have a wide open race headlined by senior Rocky Lombardi, who's attempted 175 passes in two seasons as the primary backup to Brian Lewerke, completing 43% of them with a 3:5 TD-to-INT ratio. In his two most extensive stretches on the field in 2019, Lombardi went a combined 6/20 for 71 yards and two picks against OSU and PSU. He looks overwhelmed against decent defenses.

MSU fans are probably hoping redshirt sophomore Theo Day, a former four-star recruit, passes Lombardi to win the job. Day barely saw the field last year, attempting three passes, despite Lombardi's obvious struggles. That could've been the product of youth; he'll still have to make a major leap to be an average starter. The third player in the competition is redshirt freshman Payton Thorne, the #1096 overall recruit in the 2019 class who Mark Dantonio flipped from Western Michigan just prior to the December signing day.

Meanwhile, everyone has to learn a new system, one put in place by Mel Tucker's coaching staff, which oversaw a disappointing senior year from three-year starter Steven Montez at Colorado. Good luck!