Another look at the cornerback room

In follow-up to the diary I posted comparing the 2011 and 2021 starters, I am going to take another crack at trying to convince my fellow mgobloggers that Coach Clinkscale has some talent at cornerback to work with, and by the late October,  we both may be surprised by who is starting amf the quality of their play.

In 2011, Brian was confident we were likely to see significant improvement from our cornerbacks.   That was largely dependent upon a return of Troy Woolfolk.

“Unless something very depressing happens in the near future I will not need any power tools this year. Troy Woolfolk is healthy, and while he's probably not going to be All Big Ten he's fast and steady enough to get good reviews a couple of years ago when he split time between safety and corner.”

“Opposite Woolfolk the battle is on between sophomore Courtney Avery and redshirt junior JT Floyd. The bet here is that Avery wins that battle. Avery drew into the starting lineup last year when Floyd exited with yet another injury and seemed to outplay the guy he was replacing.”

With regards to backups, Brian noted, “If there are injuries, options past the top three are dicey. With Floyd and Woolfolk held out of spring practice the starting cornerbacks were Avery and Tony Anderson, who's one of many walk-ons threatening for playing time….Beyond Talbott it's true freshmen, but at least there's a horde of them. Maryland's Blake Countess arrives with the most hype and should be the biggest threat to play.”

Turns out that Brian picked the starters for week one, but by week two, Floyd had earned his starting spot back and by week 8, true freshman Blake Countess was the #2 cornerback.  Avery was the nickel and Woolfolk was playing safety, but there is no doubt, the corners were much improved from 2010.

In his 2012 preview, Brian explained, “Michigan's secondary woes didn't start with Rich Rodriguez, who merely carved out a crevasse of hopeless abyssal despair previously unknown to man from a moderately deep trench of hopeless abyssal despair. The secondary has not been good for a long, long time.  But it was last year.”

About the corners specifically, he noted, “Michigan returns their top three corners from a year ago, all of whom were pretty good. The depth has been whittled down by the departures of Terry Talbott and Tamani Carter, but they've got a couple sophomores and a touted freshman and should be okay unless they get a flood of injuries. Give them a year and it'll be time to forget Never Forget.

JT Floyd is the headliner in so many ways. After the Penn State game pictured above I said he'd run "three of the worst coverages I've ever seen," and time has done nothing to change that opinion. He got yanked after that game; his last two games UFRed in 2010 were a –8.5 against Iowa ("oh my God the slants") and the –9 against PSU ("awful, awful, awful"). Everyone was openly petrified that he would play; this space predicted Courtney Avery would start and Countess would usurp Floyd's spot posthaste. Instead Countess usurped Avery's spot and Floyd developed into a pretty good Big Ten corner.”

A 2021 preview might not look too different.   Substitute, Gemon Green for Troy Woolfolk and the combination of Vincent Gray and D.J. Turner for the Floyd/Avery battle.

Woolfolk was composite ranked 771, was returning from injury and had 12 starts going into 2011, six were at cornerback and six at safety.  That compares to Green, ranked 382.   J.T Floyd was ranked 815 and had started 10 games, Gray was ranked 771 and has 7 starts.   Both are athletically challenged (for division 1 corners).   As noted above, prior to 2011, Floyd was Mgoblog’s punching bag as one of our worst starting corners ever.   Unfortunately, 2020 Vincent Gray has since taken the title.   

Can a new coaching staff squeeze more out of Gray, like Mattison and company did in 2011?   Fixing the second cornerback problem is going to be one of several big challenges for Mike Macdonald as he inherits a group of players not ideally suited for his presumed, prefered system.    How he handles that challenge is going to go a long way in determining how this season turns out.

Challenging Gray is D.J. Turner.   Turner was ranked 400, and in his first two seasons has played mostly special teams.   While less experienced than Gray, he brings more athleticism to the position.   His hello post praised him as being versatile and smart and in high school played as much free safety as he did corner.  His 2011 doppleganger, Courtney Avery, was an unranked 3 star.   Avery was also athletic and smart (with a Standard offer).  He has the edge in experience with 5 starts.

On both the 2011 and 2021 teams, there were questions about who was next on the depth chart.   In 2011, the remaining depth consisted of, Terrance Talbot, a 988 ranked true sophomore, walkon senior Tony Anderson and 163rd ranked Blake Countess and a host of other lower rated freshmen: Raymon Traylor (610), Delonte Hollowell (955) and unranked Tamari Carter.

2021 includes sophomores Andre Seldon (161) and Darion Green-Warren (190), freshman Ja’den McBurrows (554).   Beyond that, we have a bunch of guys who have switched positions.  While we have not heard much about Seldon and Green-Warren, true freshman were probably more impacted by the covid craziness than others.   This is particularly true of Seldon who missed time with Covid.   Can Coach Clinkscale turn one of these options into a viable number 2 corner?   I am cautiously optimistic that with the options the coaching staff has to work with, cornerback is going to turn out better than most think.