jeshaun jones

Michigan heads out on the road for the final time in the 2023 season on Saturday, heading to College Park to take on the Maryland Terrapins. The crowd will presumably be filled with Michigan fans as the Terps haven't given their side a ton to cheer about this season. The team is 6-4 and bowl eligible, which is nice, but hopes for a 9 or even 10 win season (with an upset or bowl win) have crumbled to pieces due to disappointing losses against Illinois and Northwestern. Does Maryland's offense have much left in the tank to threaten the Wolverines this weekend? Let us find out: 

The Film: The two best defenses Maryland has played this season are Penn State and Ohio State. While the PSU game was more recent, I opted for OSU because 1) The Game is next week and we need to continue to compile advance scouting and 2) Maryland's showing was much better against the Buckeyes than the Nittany Lions and I am a firm believer in scouting teams at their best, not their worst.  

Personnel: Click for big.

Michigan will face Taulia Tagovailoa for the third straight season, the only opposing QB this season to accomplish that feat. Taulia is back and is more or less the same for the Terps, still capable of excellent, NFL-level throws and also terrible decisions. He's still scrambly and mobile, though he has seemed to regress back to his 2021 form somewhat, running backwards into more egregious sacks than he did last season. He is far from a perfect QB, but he's the best Michigan has seen this season by a country mile (not a high bar), which earns him the star. Last year we saw Tagovailoa come out of the game due to injury and that backup, Billy Edwards Jr., is still around. He has been used on wildcat short yardage packages this year, as an FYI. 

The running back position features the same characters as last year, with Roman Hemby still around as the starter and joined in the backfield by Antwain Littleton II and Colby McDonald in the rotation. I was a fan of Hemby's last year but I didn't see too much from him in this game to earn that status. He's not bad, just fine in my viewings this season. Blitz pickups have been an issue for him this season but he's still a speedy straight-line runner who also catches a fair number of balls out of the backfield. McDonald's 6.7 YPC clip is best on the team, though Littleton leads him in carries with 61. At 232, Littleton is the heavy back, while Hemby and McDonald are slimmer and quicker. 

After a few years of incredibly deep wide receiver rooms, this year's Maryland team is a bit thinner on the outside. They did return their statistical best receiver from last year, Jeshaun Jones, and have two other 500+ receiving yard receivers in Tai Felton and Kaiden Prather. The raw talent isn't as dynamic as years past when you had the likes of Rakim Jarrett and Dontay Demus, but these are three of the most prolific receivers in the conference, largely because Maryland is one of the only teams that attempts to throw the ball with regularity. I think Jones is the best of this group, not really a true star but pretty close to it. All three WRs are 6'1" or taller, so this week will give Michigan's pass defense some solid reps. Those three players get most of the snaps at wideout, but slot Octavian Smith and outside WR Tyrese Chambers mix in occasionally too. 

Maryland mostly plays with one TE, Corey Dyches. He has 42 catches, second on the team and only a nose behind Jones, acting as Tagovailoa's security blanket. Dyches is not a dynamic threat nor a leaper with size to be confused with Colston Loveland (Dyches is only 6'2), but he's rock solid at running a 5-10 yard route and sitting down in the zone for a quick completion. The other TE of note is Preston Howard, only 10 catches on the season as more of a blocking option. Most of his snaps come in Maryland's occasional 12 personnel sets. Neither Howard nor Dyches are particularly great blockers. 

My biggest concern with the Terrapin offense coming into the season was the offensive line after losing four starters off last year's squad and planning to fill them with low-level up transfers. Surprisingly, my fears have not quite come to pass. Let's be clear, the resulting OL has not been good, but it also hasn't been terrible, which was my baseline expectation. Delmar Glaze, last year's RT, is the lone returning starter and has shifted over to left. He's been alright, pretty good in the game I charted against OSU but very poor against the elite rush threats of PSU. 

The story of the Maryland OL has been rotation, as eight different linemen have played at least 290 snaps and started at least three games. Glaze at LT is the only player to start every game at the same spot, while the rest has been moving around. At C it's either Aric Harris or Teddy Purcell, but Harris is definitely the better of the two (Purcell started against OSU and was very poor). The RT is normally Gottleib Ayedze, a transfer from D2 Frostburg State who I had grave concerns about in the preseason. He's been better than I expected but is a long way from being good. Sometimes Ayedze slides to G when Andre Roye Jr. or Connor Fagan come in at tackle, both of whom are not ready for primetime.

The G spots have most frequently been NC Central transfer Corey Bullock (has played both LG/RG) and Amelio Moran, the latter of whom has been a weak spot for the "starting line". Another G in the mix is Kyle Long, who got extensive work against OSU and was bad. In other words, this line is a hodgepodge, rotating quite a bit but the best five linemen can generally hang in there. The more the dig into the depth, the worse it gets. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: the clips]

Previously: Quarterback, Running Back

Part III of our series is unveiled today, covering the receivers for the teams on Michigan Football's 2023 schedule. As it did last year, this piece covers both wide receivers and tight ends, though it does not cover receiving running backs who catch passes (that was discussed last time). Maybe some day in the future when positionless football fully takes over we'll have to amend the format for the piece, but for now, this is what we're running with. So here we go, counting down receiver rooms from 12 to 1: 

12. East Carolina

As they are at QB and RB, ECU is rebuilding at the receiver position this upcoming season after losing their top three passcatchers from 2022. It will be up to the returners who spent last year low on the depth chart, as well as the P5 transfers that ECU brought in, to pick up the slack. In the returner category is deep threat Jsi Hatfield, who dealt with injuries last season and caught only eleven passes. Hatfield has caught at least one pass in four straight seasons for the Pirates, so he brings with him a glut of years in the program to draw from, but the team will need him to stay healthy. Jaylen Johnson is the leading returner after bringing in 26 balls for 340 yards and 4 TDs last season, a former Georgia transfer who started the year strong but tailed off due to injury. He too, will need to stay healthy. 

In case of injury and to round out the WR group as a whole, the Pirates brought in four P5 transfers, the most notable of which are Kelan Robinson from Kansas and Chase Sowell from Colorado. Neither player has much of anything in the way of production to their name but are hoping that a drop down to a lower level will help pick things up. At TE Mike Houston does have a returner coming back in Shane Calhoun, but he too was a reserve behind '22 starter Ryan Jones. Calhoun did catch 25 passes, but will obviously be in line for a large step up in responsibility. As a unit, the receivers for ECU are seeing a high degree of turnover and will be filling in the cracks with unproven down-transfers and the promise of existing players on the roster, some of whom dealt with injury last year. That's a bit of a creaky situation and it's why they take the cellar of the list. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: the next ten teams before OSU]