Previously:  The Story. Podcast 12.4A, 12.4B, 12.4C. Quarterback.

[Bolded player rules: not necessarily returning starter, but someone we've seen enough of that I'm no longer talking about their recruiting profile (much, anyway). Extant contributor.]

FEATURE BACK	Yr.	SHORT YARDAGE	Yr.	3RD DOWN	YR.
Zach Charbonnet	So.	Hassan Haskins	So.*	Zach Charbonnet	So.
Hassan Haskins	So.*	Zach Charbonnet	So.	Chris Evans	Sr.*
Chris Evans	Sr.*	Blake Corum	Fr.	Giles Jackson	So.
Blake Corum	Fr.	Christian Turner	So.*	Blake Corum	Fr.

Michigan entered last season choosing between a walk-on and a true freshman at the top of the depth chart. The walk-on seemed pretty all right and the freshman was a dude, but there was some trepidation. Then came a spate of fumbles that caused us to once again relitigate the nature of high-impact, low-frequency events with little year to year correlation:

We had the Mathlete run the numbers on Michigan's fumble rate and ahyup this is an absurd outlier. Here's a graph of fumbles lost on run plays during his D-1 college career (ie, Stanford and Michigan):

Over the years in his database the average teams fumble on 2.2% of plays and lose those 1.1% of the time; Harbaugh has been at 1.8% and 0.9%; this year it's 4.5% and 2.2%. So: Harbaugh teams generally fumble a little less than average and while that's probably just luck it is also luck, of the very bad and hair-pulling variety, that Michigan's losing fumbles at double the rate of an average team out of nowhere.

The running backs immediately stopped fumbling and Michigan's rate fell back to normal levels. When that dust had cleared, a previously obscure fellow had established himself and the dude absorbed the walk-on's spooky pass protection powers. Now they're all back. So is the outstanding jitterbug who missed last season. This is the deepest spot on the team.

[After THE JUMP: two different Mike Hart comparisons]

RUNNING BACK: MECHA-MIKE

if Charbonnet can do this more he's got it all [Patrick Barron]

RATING: 5

Last year this space went to bat for walk-on Tru Wilson because Wilson was the best pass protector at Michigan since Mike Hart, defying any of the other guys to match him:

Listen to me now and believe me later: I'd rather have an elite pass protector who runs a 4.8 than a home run threat who can't pick up a ham sandwich. Assuming Zach Charbonnet dodges the Curse of Fred Jackson's Beverages, this year will be an acid test of that assertion.

It was not an acid test of that assertion because Wilson was injured at the beginning of the season and ZACH CHARBONNET [recruiting profile] instantly matched Wilson's best skill while also being a five-star, more or less. A pad-popping pickup in the opener drew an "oh nice" from Matt Millen…

RB #24

…and the door slammed shut on Wilson.

Key quote on Charbonnet: "I’ve been around pro backs that don’t understand protections the way the freshman back did. "

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) September 2, 2019

Charbonnet was perfect on pickups with multiple regaps against MTSU and maintained that level of production over the course of the season. That section of the running back to-do list has a giant checkmark.

By midseason, though, something felt a little off. Charbonnet settled into his role as a big back who found the holes and fell forward.

He did not deliver on the recruiting hype, which was considerable because he was a big back who found the holes and fell forward while also doing this on a semi-regular basis:

The youths have an emoji for this:

For much of the season the eyes remained unpopped in Ann Arbor. Charbonnet had a winding 41-yarder against MTSU in the opener, but the next week against Army he scraped into triple digits only because he ran the ball 33 times. Michigan's ground game was downright moribund until the extremely porous Illinois defense arrived, and remained sort of moribund the rest of the season, Notre Dame excepted.

This space believes much of the problem had nothing to do with Charbonnet or his blocking, but a combination of a rookie offensive coordinator finding his feet and Shea Patterson refusing to keep the ball. Despite that 3.3 YPC against Army this site reviewed him positively, and PFF put him on their weekly All Big Ten team. The UFR went into how this was possible:

… [this was] the most boggling decision of the game. End turns his shoulders; there's no scrape; Eubanks will arc out to the overhanging safety, and Bell is available for a pitch:

Michigan gets some yards because Charbonnet breaks a tackle at the LOS; OL had little chance to deal with that because everyone's slanting playside and the end crashing means there's no backside gap. A pull there has a very good chance to be a giant play. That was the first time they reversed Bell's momentum on orbit, too: if anything you should be biasing towards a pull so your new play gets run.

Not pulling on these plays not only robs you of the yards you were going to get but sets up further runs down the road where your lack of threat on the pull strips yards out of even your successful interior runs. The weird camera angle Fox used when Michigan was backed up was perfect for this on this Charbonnet run Michigan blocks to the secondary. Yeah, Army has a shuffle end nominally on the QB. He's able to react so fast after the mesh point that he makes a tackle on a play multiple gaps away from him:

Army DE to the right

That end has no indecision in his mind. His weight is always poised to flow to the back. So yeah, maybe that's a by-the-book give. But if you let this be a by-the-book give every time you let Army have it both ways. The end knows it's a give as long as he gives you token resistance, and he gets to make plays on the back too.

Zone read goes from an asset to a liability when your quarterback all but refuses to keep the ball. This hypothesis seemingly had an experiment custom designed for it in the Rutgers game, which was an ugly slog on the ground where Charbonnet had to deal with safeties trying to tackle him two yards downfield on second and twelve…

…until Joe Milton entered. Faced with a quarterback who was even hypothetically a threat to keep the Rutgers rush defense immediately melted, as detailed by Seth in a Neck Sharpies.

Things got better late in the year when Michigan started stretching the field horizontally and Charbonnet had fewer safeties teeing off on him. He had some nice chunks against Penn State, one of the better defenses on the schedule, en route to averaging 5.4 yards a carry:

There was also Notre Dame, of course. His big chunk run was more playcall and blocking than anything he had to do, but he had a couple other opportunities to go at a safety who started flat-footed at ten yards instead of hauling ass at six. There he looked a bit like the annihilator he was in high school. Here he's able to mostly dodge the safety and finish him with a stiffarm:

And he racked up 84 yards on 13 carries in the bowl game. Since that is against Alabama—please ignore the recent Ole Miss game, last year's Bama defense was #7 in SP+ after the regular season—it's worth revisiting in whole:

Charbonnet was productive in the back half of the season despite the lack of QB run game. But even after things turned around there was a lingering issue. The Alabama game column:

Need some lightning. Hassan Haskins and Zach Charbonnet both had quality days against the Bama defense. … But Michigan again struggled to pop chunk runs. Michigan's long on the day was 12 yards. This has been a season-long issue, one that didn't really go away even as the offense started living up to the "speed in space" offseason chatter. A large part of this seemed to fall on the backs. Michigan presented a thunder and thunder approach.

The Maryland UFR made similar noises ("Charbonnet hasn't made a ton of capital-p Plays this season"). With limited exceptions, Charbonnet's 2019 was spent dodging guys close to the line of scrimmage.

The hope here is both grand and modest. Charbonnet doesn't have to change much. He's a great pass protector. He's got good, maybe great, vision—last year's UFRs barely bitched about missed opportunities. There was a season-long subplot about how I didn't hate the running backs:

You keep handing out nothing but positives for the RB platoon. Have you been kidnapped? Blink twice if yes.

He got earholed on his fumble against Illinois—a missed targeting call—and was otherwise secure with the ball. Charbonnet doesn't have to change anything. He just has to rip off 30 yard runs a lot. No problem.

Talk from inside the program is encouraging in this regard. Gattis:

…he came in a little banged up, needed to get cleaned up. He battled through a number of different injuries last year. … He’s been able to spend this offseason focusing on his body. … now he reminds you of the player that he was in high school. … He’s been a totally different player.

Sam Webb echoed this as he relayed takes from inside the program. Charbonnet had another surgery this offseason and is "a totally different player right now."

The injury stuff isn't a jammed finger. After using him as a workhorse against Army (33 carries) Charbonnet got the ball just twice against Wisconsin. That game featured a total of 13 running back carries against a defense that looked like its weakness was defending runs up the gut. He had to have been seriously damaged. Webb asserts he was "never 100%" after the Wisconsin game; despite that he steadily increased his efficiency.

We know from last year that Charbonnet is the kind of guy who gloms onto the fullback and becomes best friend muscle bros with him:

He started hanging around with Ben Mason, who once had to explain to Charbonnet’s mother why her son had so little time for socializing.

“We went out to dinner one time and she was like, ‘What do you guys do for fun? Do you guys go to the movies? What do you do?’” said [Ben] Mason, known as Michigan’s weight-room warrior. “I was like, ‘Pretty much we just work out.’ That’s the God’s honest truth. That’s what we do for fun.”

The pass protection alone is enough evidence to declare that fact. Take that approach with an offseason to get right and Gattis's last six or seven gameplans and this should be an arrow straight up. If half the talk is true he's the best back in the league. If it all is the main thing separating him from All America status is Michigan's depth here. (And Travis Etienne.)

ALSO KEITH JACKSON APPROVED

facemask/off [Bryan Fuller]

Fellow hoss HASSAN HASKINS [recruiting profile] did not draw mention until the very end of last year's preview because he'd spent time at viper as a freshman and missed spring practice after moving back to offense. He only came up in the kind of coach quotes where everyone at a position draws a mention. He was set to be used sparingly, and for a while he was. His most notable contribution in the first half of the season was getting Shea Patterson plastered when he got beat in pass protection.

Then literally everyone in front of him on the depth chart fumbled and Michigan stuck him in against Illinois, seemingly more out of exasperation than hope. Haskins ripped off some long runs against a defense that flat-out refused to set an edge. Also he did not fumble, landing him in the Known Friends and Trusted Agents section in the aftermath:

#3 Hassan Haskins. Is this solely because he's the only Michigan ballcarrier who did not fumble? No, he also broke a tackle to score on Michigan's first drive and showed some nice patience. Is it mostly because he's the only Michigan ballcarrier to not fumble? YES. YES IT IS.

Your author was a little slow to warm up to him. In the Illinois UFR I said "I kind of think he's just a guy," but did note his "decisive slam" into the interior on his opening-drive touchdown:

In the Penn State game Haskins started an ascent from Just A Guy to a Guy:

Haskins opinions?

Haskins is growing on me a little. There were multiple times in this game where he was able to bull downfield for 3-4 improbable yards after contact, and he showed a little jump in the hole when Michigan gave him room. I like little decisive cuts to get through the line since they tend to put linebackers on the wrong side of blocks:

He did get chopped down for 0 YAC on that early third and one, and that's frustrating.

He arrived against Notre Dame. During Michigan's ground blitz of the Irish Haskins impressively stiffarmed a Notre Dame corner into oblivion. This was just a warmup for the main event, when DE Khalid Kareem met the hand of fate:

Afterwards it was toot toot all aboard:

Okay, all aboard the Haskins train. … Haskins has an uncanny ability to stay upright amongst a pile of tacklers; more than once he's turned a two-yard TFL into a yard despite having little momentum. It's not that hard to grab some YAC when you're hammering at full speed four yards downfield. Being able to do so before you've even gotten started is unusual, and Haskins appears to have it.

And then he set all that goodwill on fire by cutting away from a near-certain touchdown in the Ohio State game. Because that's the way it works. The nice things: we cannot have them. Like Ronnie Bell we're going to have to move on from the big, bad outlier and try to refocus on the down-to-down assets.

The clips above are a pretty good indicator of how Haskins operates. He is a lot like Brandon Minor, another big, upright back who knew his strength was putting a foot in the ground and attempting to clobber anything in front of him.

Before the Event mentioned just above Haskins had impressed because he was patient and let things develop. Freelancing was limited; Haskins followed his blocks and added some oomph at the end of runs. The Notre Dame UFR:

Haskins also has three or four instances where he shows good patience and picks through traffic. This trap doesn't trap the DT—he's wise—and Haskins gets hung up, but he calmly finds a lane and goes to get seven yards:

I summed him up after Maryland as a back who is "tough to bring down, has good balance, and picks through holes well." He doesn't have the upside Charbonnet has because his feet aren't as quick and his long speed isn't as appealing. He has most of the other assets you look for in a back. That stiff-arm is elite. You may have been drunk and/or drunk when this happened, but it did:

Even if he's likely to be outpaced by Charbonnet and fall back to #2 (or #3), Haskins does have some more upside left to explore. As mentioned, he spent time on defense as a freshman; not only was he injured for spring practice but his lack of early playing time was also because he wasn't entirely healthy:

Everyone saw Hassan come on in the Illinois game last year, probably game five. Leading up to that, he was dinged up. He wasn’t available.

He is reputed to be full-go now. He will get a healthy number of carries as a platoon option and should do well with them. Just follow the guard please.

AND REINTRODUCING

zip zap! zap zip! [Bryan Fuller]

Your author is pleased that CHRIS EVANS has returned the team for many reasons. High amongst them is that I can now deploy this Drake Johnson quote legitimately once gain:

"He's like butter smooth, we're just like 'ooh, wow.' He's like *sound effects* someone flips to the side, like he had no chance. Like, I'm sorry you could've tried but it sucks to suck."

Evans spent a year in the wilderness trying to earn his way back onto the team and successfully did so. Before that it seemed like he might be headed for a breakout season when he pulled up lame in the midst of a coulda-shoulda 80-yard touchdown against SMU. He missed the next three games and didn't seem quite right for a few weeks after, with just a total of eight carries against Wisconsin and Michigan State. It's been a while since we've seen a fully armed and operational Evans.

You probably remember what happens when Evans pops loose and someone tries to tackle him. WOOP:

You probably remember that he's got electric speed. This looks like high school film as Evans pulls away from Big Ten secondary members:

You may not remember that the Speed In Space guy is also able to work in tight quarters. I projected Evans would move to the secondary because he is very fast and historically Michigan running backs like him have been misused and/or buried. Evans defied that prediction because he has some of the best phonebooth jujutsu I've seen. His ability to run between the tackles defies his stature:

Attempting to grade Evans is tough because you get stuck on certain runs, wondering exactly how he got out of that predicament:

[This is] really good job of making the most of meh blocking and a blitz that coulda shoulda created a TFL:

That little shift 1) holds the unblocked DE charging at him, 2) freezes a linebacker trying to decide if he should run at Evans's face, and 3) gives Kugler a little bit more time to widen his guy. His acceleration out of it causes the unblocked guy to unsuccessfully dive at his feet and allows him to shoot through a forest of arm tackles to the endzone. That is a Good Ass Run.

That defensive end could only think "man, it does suck to suck." Evans is capable of being a feature back and a star, but the jammed depth chart means he's probably going to have to settle for a particular role. About that role…

And now for the not-quite-fifth annual plea to throw this man the ball. Evans caught eighty passes over the course of his final two years in high school because he spent half his time in the slot. There has been a constant drumbeat about how Michigan was going to take advantage of that ability. They have not. Evans caught a total of 34 passes in 2017 and 2018, and close to none of those moved him out of the backfield. I've got one example:

I'm not sure Evans has had another target while lined up at WR. The rest of his work has been out of the backfield. This has been enticing and effective:

Every time this happens my ears perk up and I spit out a bullet titled "Evans: space weapon" or "Evans in space". And then it doesn't quite happen. In another world he's the guy who won the 2017 Ohio State game. In this one he's the guy who saw the 2017 Ohio State game thrown over his head.

It sounds like they're finally going to take advantage of this ability. Harbaugh was specific about how the offense might adapt now that they've got a suite of RB/WR hybrid sorts:

"Comparing to last year, I would say lot of times a guy would get out on checkdowns where they weren’t really a factor in the quarterback’s thought process or progression. A guy like Chris who can beat the majority of linebackers or safeties he runs a route on and can make the play and catch the ball, he adds a little bit different element where you can start including the running back in a progression for the quarterback of having the ball go to him first or second.

"That part’s different."

However, I've said "it looks like they're going to take advantage of this ability" since 1956; Michigan rarely has. The combination of the above Harbaugh quote and Josh Gattis's offensive philosophy is enough for Charlie Brown to run at this football one more time.

Evans should be Michigan's go-to when they want a running back in a route; he should get as many catches as he does carries. He's going to annihilate a few ankles, and leave everyone wondering what if.

While we're talking about Evans we should mention that Michigan has two underclassmen who are also WR/RB hybrids and may see some running back snaps. GILES JACKSON had several runs from the backfield last year and looks to get up to a couple dozen as his role expands in year two. AJ HENNING will fill the spread H slot in garbage time. Both are addressed in-depth as slots.

MAYBE NEXT YEAR?

Michigan has two more guys this space has gone to bat for, but it's hard to see either getting many carries with the logjam in front of them.

man has a knack for keeping his feet in bounds [Bryan Fuller]

Redshirt sophomore CHRISTIAN TURNER [recruiting profile] flashed some talent in sporadic carries as a freshman and seemed likely to emerge into a rotation option as a sophomore; instead he had to fight to get off the bench for much of the season. It started so well. Turner was 1B to Charbonnet's 1A in the opener, delivering a truck stick to members of the MTSU secondary…

…and generally building on those promising early carries. This space has been enthused about him whenever he gets an opportunity:

He's consistently slippery, low to the ground and tough to tackle. And he finishes with pop. He picked up a first down by trucking a DB who tried to fill, landing on him, and then getting up for a slow-motion pile push. He was in fact down, but the important thing there is not whether his knee brushed the turf but his ability to make yards after contact.

Turner was also able to tightrope the sideline a couple times, turning what looked like modest gains into substantial ones. He's a player.

Turner was able to turn his leg churn and contact balance into yards that counted a few games later.

Pretty good!

Unfortunately, there were hiccups. Many hiccups. Turner had two pass protection errors against Army, both of them critical. He was directly responsible for not one but two sack-strips that terminated Michigan drives. He disappeared for a game and was limited to garbage time in the next two outings (if we stipulate that all time against Rutgers is garbage time). When he got in against Illinois he immediately put the ball on the deck. His knee turned out to be down on review, but barely not fumbling didn't endear him to the coaching staff. He got put on the shelf again.

But he keeps getting put back in, and demonstrating why. He got a few carries late against Notre Dame and turned in another slaloming interior run. On this one he jukes two DL in tight spaces:

He can play.

Turner's story thus far is like a thousand other young running backs who have talent but can't go more than a quarter or two without turning his coach into Yosemite Sam. If pass protection, fumbles, and his competition didn't exist he could be a thousand yard back tomorrow. Since all three do his 2020 will be about finding a handful of carries a game to build trust.

mighty mouse

Finally, freshman BLAKE CORUM [recruiting profile] was given the kiss of death by yours truly in his recruiting profile: I compared him to Mike Hart. But fast! In my defense, it was a man named Biff who did it first:

[St Frances head coach Biff] Poggi frequently referred to Corum as the “complete player” and likened him to former Michigan back Mike Hart, the program’s all-time leading rusher from 2004-07.

Corum warranted this because he is a 5'8", 200+ pound interior runner who checks all the boxes and consistently runs in the 4.4 range. He's battle tested after St Frances played a national schedule and Corum blazed through the defenses of IMG and Mater Dei. He's reputed to be a plus pass protector. Watch an individual game of his and you'll see a whole lot of patiently waiting for holes to develop and a relative paucity of High School Crappe that needs to be eliminated.

If Corum walked onto Michigan's roster at the same time Hart did he'd probably do the same thing Hart did: start in game two and never look back. He did not. He's going to have to scrap for every carry he gets this year.

He's going to scrap. He was infamously maniacal at St. Frances—Poggi called him a "lunatic" because he'd show up at 5:30 AM and Corum would be stretching in the parking lot—and hasn't changed since. The first words out of Gattis's mouth about him were "phenomenal worker."

Like Turner, Corum will be in tough for meaningful snaps in year one. He should get a few dozen carries to demonstrate what he can do in anticipation of taking over Evans's snaps in 2021.