elijah collins

Previously: Quarterback

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.

As with quarterback, running back is a position of strength among most of the teams on Michigan's schedule. While there isn't a Jonathan Taylor or JK Dobbins established superstar on the slate, there's plenty of talent ready to break out, along with several backs who've already proven they can produce in the Big Ten. Every team has either a returning starter or a former four-star recruit in the mix to take over.

Projected starter is in bold, backups in italics.

Tier I: High-End Rotations

Journey Brown leads one of the nation's deepest backfields [Barron]

1. Penn State. This might be the most loaded backfield outside of Tuscaloosa. It took a while for PSU to land on their preferred rotation last year, and in cycling through the options they turned up a potential first-round pick at the position and two additional excellent backs.

Redshirt junior Journey Brown, a compact speedster with wiggle that defies the "former track star" label, emerged midseason as the top option, rushing for 890 yards and 12 touchdowns on only 129 carries—a 6.9 YPC average and score nearly every ten rushes despite few stat-padding opportunities against bad competition. He's ranked as high as a top-three prospect at the position for the 2021 NFL Draft; Mel Kiper has him only behind Clemson's Travis Etienne and Oklahoma State's Chuba Hubbard among draft-eligible RBs.

Sophomores Noah Cain and Devyn Ford both easily cracked five YPC in their debut seasons. Cain looked to seize the lead role in the rotation after back-to-back 100-yard performances against Purdue and Iowa before a leg injury suffered a couple weeks later derailed the latter half of his regular season. He bounced back with 92 yards against Memphis in the Cotton Bowl.

Ford, a former top-100 recruit, could be the odd man out; he did a lot of his damage in the opener against Idaho and didn't top seven carries in a game, then got charged with marijuana possession in what sounds like a comical arrest over the offseason:

Three Penn State football players were charged Monday after university police officers said they found marijuana and LSD in the trio’s on-campus apartment.

Officers responded about 3:40 p.m. Aug. 2 to sophomore running back Devyn Ford and redshirt freshman offensive linemen Sal Wormley and Caedan Wallace’s apartment for a fire alarm, Penn State police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause filed Monday.

Police found marijuana “all over the floor” and detected a “very potent” smell of burned weed coming from the apartment, an officer wrote.

The charge itself isn't a big deal but Ford was already behind Brown and Cain before giving the coaches fair reason to doubt his judgment. PSU also added a pair of four-star backs in the 2020 class, Caziah Holmes and Keyvone Lee. Former five-star Ricky Slade transferred in the offseason because he wasn't seeing much opportunity. Again: loaded.

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