blake frazier

The system for depth charting:

And if his name's in red they plan to redshirt him.

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Quarterback

Can your friends pull this out their little haaaat? [Bryan Fuller]

The question we're asking is: Would Orji be really mad if we look in the portal?

But they're acting like it's: How cool does Orji look in pads?

What are we hearing? Orji has some wow moments, and the next moment he'll throw another pick. Devin Gardner went to a practice then went on with Sam. Orji:

he looks like a GI Joe… like an action figure (with) a Michigan uniform on, and obviously a bigger version. This dude is built like a rock. When you say hey, what do I want the athlete to look like? That's exactly what it should look like. … The thing for Orji is he's got all the talent in the world, man. (But) you see some opportunities in practice where he missed some throws that… man… you want him to make that throw.

GI Joe like he's shooting blue lasers?

He has some things where his feet aren't always in the right place. His feet aren't as clean as you want them to be. Sometimes you lose accuracy, and you lose timing.

Then Semaj Morgan joined them.

I feel like every quarterback has their unique quality. Orji he just a freak athlete; anything you can think about in a football player he probably can do. Then we got Davis Warren like strong powerful arm, and he's really fast; he be running 22 miles per hour when we run Sprints. Then we got Jayden Denegal; he can throw the ball real accurate. And he big; he can run you over—he's gonna get that first down when we need it. Then we got Jaydyn Davis although very young he's very well-rounded. And I will tell you he's not scared to throw the ball, and that's that's something that I love about a quarterback. I don't care what the coverage is; I don't care who's on me; if you feel like the person in front of me's not better than me, throw me that ball! Jayden Davis understands that.

In the aftermath, Sam devoted a 3R Report($) that said they've been focusing on dropback passing with Orji, and also that Jayden Denegal's struggles didn't continue past the first four practices.

There was clear separation between Orji and him at that point, but not as much since then. He's closed the gap in recent practices with his improved accuracy and has shown better skills on the move than outside observers might expect at first glance.

Davis Warren has a cannon that can't hit the broad side of NCAA hypocrisy, and Jadyn Davis is not going to be put in a position to jeopardize his future, but his accuracy is excellent, especially on the run. From a practice insider, Orji is still in the driver's seat but there's going to be a major drop-off from McCarthy. Botched snaps, interceptions, and plays where the QB doesn't see anything and starts to panic are things that happen to teams that don't have JJ under center, in case you've forgotten, but they've been jarring to some of the used-to-JJ the people seeing them in practice.

Tuttle's still hurt, but Michigan is expected to poke around the portal, which opened this week, and wherein Chris Hummer thinks Michigan will have their pick of the litter. 247's Matt Zenitz adds that UCLA and Northwestern are the only schools currently desperate($) for a starter, but USC and Auburn might provide competition if an elite name enters. Henschke thinks Michigan will be in the market ($).

What it means? Michigan probably does want to add some competition from the portal, but going about it without triggering a tampering investigation or losing one of their own is tricky, and probably only worth the risk for a game-changer. Odds are just as good they stick with Orji and put Jadyn Davis, who could use a season to gain weight before facing Big Ten linemen, on the McCarthy plan.

Depth Chart? I'm still expecting them to redshirt Jadyn Davis unless he passes Denegal.

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[After THE JUMP: Let's talk about 4th tight end and 9th OL.]

Michigan picked up their fourth OL commitment of the 2024 class this past weekend and it was the least surprising one, Blake Frazier of Austin, TX, and Vandegrift HS. The son of former Michigan OL Steve Frazier, the legacy connection to the school and the fact that Frazier is an OL and Michigan is an OL factory always made this one seem like a slam dunk. The kid acknowledged as much in his commitment post saying "I guess we all knew this was coming", so it seems like we were all in the know on this one. Let's give Frazier a hello: 

GURU RATINGS

Quite a bit of a range here, a 4 star in our composite but with lots of variability. Rivals is on one end of the spectrum, rating Frazier on the verge of 5* territory, while 247 is very meh, down in ho-hum 3* territory. ESPN doesn't bother and didn't even have a ranking for Frazier until a couple weeks ago, so take that one with a major grain of salt. On3 splits the difference between 247 and Rivals, and the consensus generally lands right around those two outlets. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: a lean, mean blocking machine]

I mean, yeah, Mr. Frazier. Yeah:

I guess we all knew this was coming… Go Blue 〽️ @Coach_SMoore @AKarsch_UM @UMichFootball @VHSFootball @RecruitVandyFB @Rivals @samspiegs @EJHollandOn3 @SWiltfong247 @Hayesfawcett3 pic.twitter.com/OmnCgKLUFY

— Blake Frazier (@_BlakeFrazier) April 16, 2023

Blake is of course the son of Steve Frazier, who was a Michigan OL in the late 90s. That plus back-to-back Joe Moore awards made this particular recruitment seem like a foregone conclusion; lo, it has come to pass. Frazier is #206 on the composite and was also being heavily recruited by Texas, Clemson, and USC.

Frazier joins Luke Hamilton, Ben Roebuck, and Andrew Sprague as OL in the class. With the likely commitment of C Jake Guarnera in the near future—Wiltfong and Webb have both ball'd him to Michigan and he's announcing on the 28th—that would give Michigan a full offensive line in the class. There has been talk that Michigan could add a sixth guy if the right dude wants in but nothing else is imminent.

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