Previously: Last year. The Story. Podcast 12.4A, 12.4B, 12.4C. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL. Offensive Tackle. Defensive End. Defensive Tackle. Linebacker. Cornerback. Safety.

Depth Chart

Kicker	Yr	Punter	Yr	Kickoffs	Yr	Punt return	Yr	Kick return	Yr
Quinn Nordin	Sr.*	Will Hart	Sr.*	Jake Moody	Jr.	Ronnie Bell	Jr.	Giles Jackson	So.
Jake Moody	Jr.	Brad Robbins	Jr.*	Quinn Nordin	Sr.*	Giles Jackson	So.	AJ Henning	Fr.

When Jim Harbaugh arrived in 2015 he hired three new assistants who raised some eyebrows. One was his son Jay, whose non-genetic credentials were three years as an Oregon State GA, and three as an offensive quality coach for his Uncle John's Baltimore Ravens. The second was Chris Partridge, the high school coach who was expected to go back in a year to collect #1 national recruit Rashan Gary. Not waiting to see if Partridge had any coaching value beyond his connection to 5-stars, the NCAA passed a "Partridge" rule to ban programs from hiring high school coaches whose players they recruit.

The third was John Baxter, a special teams savant responsible for USC's consistently excellent third phase. Michigan special teams shot up in Baxter's first season in Ann Arbor, from 74th the year prior to 11th in Fremeau's special teams efficiency index (FEI). Baxter didn't stick around for another, but left the cheat codes behind for understudy Partridge. FEI rankings since: 3rd, 28th, 12th, 2nd*. Along the way Partridge's special teams forced a kickoffs rule change by moonballing it to the 1 yard line, broke spread punting, broke Alabama's will to cover kickoffs, and broke the FG TARGET LINE stripe for half of a broadcast:

Just gotta get over the 40 guys.

Partridge, it turned out, was indeed more valuable than his connection to immediate blue chips, and took an SEC defensive coordinator job this offseason. The briefcase with the codes now passes to his assistant these last four years, Jay Harbaugh, who's also spent the intervening years proving himself more than worthy of his nepotistic opportunity.

With it comes the leg responsible for the ridiculous line above, the reason Alabama was pooching it up to the 30, a pair of senior specialists and their experienced backups, and the first wave of Josh Gattis's toys to play with. It'll probably be fine, plus or minus the vagaries of the most variable acts in football.

* [Those numbers are a little goofy because they include opponent field goal efficiency, which isn't really something you control. In 2018 they were 127th (second to last) in opponent field goal efficiency and last year they were 6th. #CollegeKickers happens]

[After the JUMP: Giles Jackson is not down]

KICKER: BETWEEN THE UPRIGHTS

Rating: 5

The "bet" is still on if Nordin kicks two 50-yarders in a game, though it's not as much fun when nobody can go out in public. [Bryan Fuller]

One of the less sensical innovations under Mad Doctors Partridge and Harbaugh was a complicated rotation that was meant to give QUINN NORDIN and JAKE MOODY equal playing time. They were supposed to trade kicks, but if one guy got three extra points that was a kick, or something--it was never clear, and abandoned. Their career histories suggest a more job-specific platoon would have been more effective, but Moody's range is at least close enough to Nordin's legendary leg that the idea wasn't totally insane.

Player	Long	20-29	30-39	40-49	50+	XP/Att
Quinn Nordin	57	12/12	15/20	9/12	4/9	108/113
Jake Moody	48	6/6	8/10	2/2	0/2	23/23

The stats above are a love triangle. Our first suitor is roguish, macho, blessed with uncanny ability, doesn't want to talk about a thing from his past. The second is younger, quieter--so quiet when he committed that people thought he was a walk-on--not as talented but much more than you think. And he's steady. He does things right. He doesn't get as much screen time but when you need him he's right there and won't let you down (except that one scene so you'll go back to the bad guy).

Nordin lost his job midway through 2018 after a string of those 30-39 misses, Moody went 10/11 as a true freshman to close the year, and we called that a pipping. Last year's spring game, which halftime treated us to an epic game of kicker horse from incrementally more ludicrous distances, restored some confidence in Nordin and added to the distance legends, and proved Moody's range goes at least 50 yards or more. Inside that, we trusted the kid.

Then Moody missed three of his first nine attempts in 2019, including a 34-yarder against Iowa that would have made it a two-score game in the 4th quarter. Up to that point QUINN NORDIN had two attempts on the year, both from 55+ at the end of halves against Army and Iowa. Neither missed by that much. His next attempt was a 34-yarder in the wind against Illinois that also missed. All of it was understandable, and small consolation to a fanbase starting to wonder if they were in the middle of the kind of #CollegeKickers story you tell the grandkids.

From that point on Nordin was 10/10 from an average distance of 38. Fans told each other his 49-yarders would have been good from 62. His 25-yarders also would have been good from 62. His final attempt of the season was the 57-yarder responsible for the silly chyron that persisted over the second half of the Citrus Bowl. It would have been good from at least 57 and a half.

love that the refs first check if the football's okay before signaling.

True to form he missed another extra point last year, the fifth of his career. It was against Ohio State. Again. In a then-one-point game. It turned out to be superfluous, because the man stays on-brand.

This year there's less ambiguity over who's the starter, for now

Some notes from Jay Harbaugh's presser:
- Christian Turner is back after opting out
- No starter named at kicker or punter but indicated confidence in Quinn Nordin giving them the best chance to win
- Looks like Giles Jackson returning kicks and Ronnie Bell returning punts

— Ethan Sears (@ethan_sears) October 7, 2020

That leg plus an accuracy streak that lasts 90% as long as last year's would mean Nordin is a shoe-in for the Groza, if not the guy they rename the thing for. The ability to send footballs to the Kuiper Belt along with the accuracy to nail the upright from the corner in warmups on 4/4 tries puts no ceiling on his senior campaign but the universe's own. He could also miss his first two attempts and return to Heel Mary duties. The only reasonable prediction is there won't be any doubt. Also that he'll show up to practice on a motorcycle.

If Nordin slips there's still JAKE MOODY, the one your mom was hoping you meant when you said you were bringing home the Michigan kicker. Moody is a regular academic All-American, is a career 16/18 inside 50 yards, and has shown he could probably make one at least that long in theory. When he was benched we all checked our programs to see if he'd participated in few enough games to steal a redshirt, then dismissed the idea because the alternative was Nordin on extra points. Moody took over touchdown ratification duties for four games after Nordin resumed field operations, going 15/15 before oddly ceding that job back to Nordin for the last four games.

Moody was still responsible for all but two of Michigan's kickoffs last year, a job he's held since he took over for legendary James "Doug" Foug at the start of 2018. Kickoff return stats are dramatically warped by whether you gave up a touchdown and Michigan did—a meaningless one to Maryland's Javon Leake—to drop to 51st in Fremeau's kickoff efficiency metric. They were 24th in 2018, and 1st in 2017 before the NCAA created the fair catch rule to stop teams from Fouging it.

Michigan still Fouged around; 56 percent of their kickoffs resulted in a return last year. They were one of just three schools, with Ohio State and Alabama, with the presumed capability to boot it out of the endzone on the regular who were trying to entice bad return decisions and turnovers by dropping it at the 15. It's a good guess that Jay Harbaugh was in favor of, if not masterminding, these attempts to game the kickoff system.

Ideally, Moody is okay with a platoon that gives him the extra points and a few moderate attempts in the soft part of the schedule. The COVID gimme for this season means we could potentially keep him around another two years after this. That makes your author feel a lot more comfortable, because 80% from mid-range is an All-Big Ten-level. If Nordin goes wild, having a Moody to fall back on is about as much as you can ask in a world of #CollegeKickers.

PUNTING: PLEASE BE SAFE

Rating: 3

That is a reassuringly tall M. [Bryan Fuller]

WILL HART will not be defined. He assumed the top punter job as a redshirt freshman in 2017 over a touted scholarship freshman, then lost it to the freshman in the storm of shanks that was the 2017 season. Because the freshman continued a the doink-a-thon, Hart was back for the bowl game, and the season ended with a gnawing concern that a promising 2018 would be undermined if the offense didn't get in field goal Nordin range.

And then Hart took off like…well like a football off Will Hart's foot in 2018. In the frightening 2018 Northwestern game Hart was a secret reason Michigan was able to pin the Wildcats away from the endzone while effecting that long, slow comeback. He earned what has to be an unprecedented spot in this site's version of the game's three stars, as it was predicted:

#3 Will Hart. Last week: "Will Hart is gonna get on the board if Michigan ever punts six times in a game." This week: Michigan punts six times. Hart averages 51 yards a kick. Here you go, Will Hart.

These were not your Zoltan Mesko moon shots that could hit any Alumni Association club's marker. Hart uncorked, the ball went up, and everyone would have to scramble to figure out where it would land and adjust accordingly. When asked to punt inside the 50 he put it in the endzone as often as not. He was still a second team All-American, 1st team all-Big Ten, and a Ray Guy semifinalist. It didn't look like it because many of those long zooms were returnable line drives. It was so many miles from expectations nobody dared complain.

The national hardware made it hard for us to talk about Hart's improvement in 2019, but it showed in the Fremeau stats: Michigan was 50th in FEI punt efficiency in 2018, and shot up to 24th last year. To an amateur's eye, what changed was a little more lift exchanged for distance, which cut down return yards by 52 yards despite 13 more punts. That's a significant margin in a world where nobody returns punts anymore. He also debuted a little backspin punt against MTSU.

The bloops suddenly returned last year against Indiana. A 4th and 32 (false start, sack, intentional grounding) punt against Indiana came down a yard short of the first down marker and bounced back another 5 yards. His second punt of the game came down in a crowd of his own players just 24 yards downfield. No pressure, no hands nearby, just bloop. The next one went 39 yards, but was kicked from the IU 43, bounced at the 1, and died at the 4, so that was fine, but the one after that went just 31 yards and was fair caught. This was a week after a pair of 53-yarders that garnered national punter of the week honors against Maryland, and two weeks after everything went okay in the Notre Dame game's conditions.

BRAD ROBBINS, the afore-mentioned 2017 true freshman, stepped back in against Ohio State, averaging a steady 43 yards that appeared to be aimed. He also got one attempt against Alabama, from the Michigan 42. It was blocked. It also might have been a sign that Michigan would like to explore his platooning potential. Some stats Mathlete and I put together for HTTV showed a difference in leg but not much of one in the short-distance category:

SLAP is the average Starting Location After Punt, and both came out above average (14.1) nationally. Hart's career net from distance is decent, while Robbins's is meh. On the other hand, half of Hart's punts are getting returned. That's of course due to Michigan's insistence on running a pro-style punt formation. It's odd that there's that great a difference.

A substantial uptick in either's punt efficiency this year would be a surprise but it was interesting to see Hart develop a sort of backspin last year on his short punts. Surviving a season that goes deep into December in the Midwest without mishandling the ball is more important than marginal SLAP gains. Competition arrives next spring.

I should mention here that long-snapper Camaran Cheeseman opted out of the season to prepare for the NFL. Grad transfer Trey Harper, who came and went without Brian noticing he existed, has also graduated. True freshman GREG TARR out of Romeo, MI, got a 5-star ranking from Rubio Long Snapping, and was the #6 snapper in his class. He probably has levers.

RETURN UNITS: NEUTRON TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION

Rating: 4.5

Compact Breaston [Patrick Barron]

One of the reasons we people from the Lloyd era all fall over at mentions of Steve Breaston were the years of LeSuers, Crosses, and Brackinses escorting kickoffs to the 20 yard line that preceded him. We groused whenever someone slightly older bragged about where they were sitting when Desmond came their direction.

Desmond, by the way, is the only Wolverine in the 1952+ database with more than one career kickoff return TD. He got his first his junior year against MSU. His second was at the start of the 2nd half of the 1991 opener. Those with one: Tony Boles, Gil Chapman, Ty Wheatley, Darryl Stonum, Ambry Thomas, Dave Raimey, Jehu Chesson, Dennis Fitzgerald, Seth Smith, Steve Breaston, and GILES JACKSON.

The latter nearly got there on literally the first play of his career.

He made a little shimmy against Army and was one block from rescuing us all.

And then nearly escaped on another:

 

Two games into his career, Jackson was Noticed.

Kickoffs: interesting? Giles Jackson busted a kick return out to Army territory before a penalty brought it back. He almost had another long jaunt before being chopped down at the 30. He looks like he might be the rare difference-maker as a kick returner.

One negative on his day: he got a jet sweep that was blocked for a chunk of yards. Like Michigan always seems to, he ran outside of a kickout block and set most of those yards on fire. If you see your teammate's back please do not bounce to the sideline. It is bizarre how frequent this is. Ben VanSumeren did it in the opener. When your 240-pound not-a-fullback guy is bouncing I start to suspect brain worms.

Jackson finally broke through on the opening kickoff against Maryland, weaving through Terps with the alacrity of a preschooler dodging bedtime.

Later that game he fielded a punt on the bounce at the one and nearly broke a second. MSU tried to pooch it to the upback but it sailed into the Jackson zone, he reversed field near the sideline, looped around a gritty safety and hurdled another. Then came this.

For a moment against Indiana they let the most ridiculous call of the decade stand, but when they got it sorted out it was still this:

The pre-tackle portion of the kickoff returns also went well. Jackson's "touchdown" ended up getting called back but only to the 37 since he'd slalomed through some gates and nearly broke it; a second return ended up down at the 20 when the last guy between Jackson and 20-80 yards got in a diving ankle tackle. It's not too hard to imagine Jackson blowing up as a return specialist next year if DPJ goes and Jackson gets the punt return job, which you'd think he would.

Alabama tried the kick-to-the-corner thing, got Jackson to catch it in his own endzone AND slip, but he still found an inch to slither up the sideline and escape out the 30, getting chased out at midfield.

THIS is Giles Jackson. pic.twitter.com/UngLoT9QQ6

— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) June 24, 2020

After another close call when Jackson dodged one gunner and slipped through an arm tackle, the Tide decided to call off the five-stars and pooch to the tight ends.

Might want to keep The Pose around this year.

As for punts, these days if you want to increase your efficiency on opponent punts it's not by trying to return them—nobody lets you do that except…sigh---but not letting them drop. A returner with range and ball skills can save you 20 hidden yards a game, especially against the Aussie-style pooch-punters who are aiming it away from the returner. Jabrill Peppers was the Dude at this, and Michigan was 15th and 3rd in punt return efficiency because of him. They dropped to 39th in 2017, were back at 10th in 2018 when Donovan Peoples-Jones got dialed in, and 38th last year with Ronnie Bell chipping in the first third of the season.

A lot of that was on DPJ; his yards per return dropped from 10 to 7 on the same number of attempts. Their rate of fair catches (from 50+) dropped 7 points while the rate of downed punts rose the same, but a good chunk of that is explained by the Notre Dame monsoon, when Michigan decided fielding a punt wasn't worth the risk. There were another four downed punts in the Illinois wind game. Michigan's punt return unit was not bad last year. It wasn't electric though, either, and since they got back Peoples-Jones that was disappointing.

RONNIE BELL is being billed as the comparably safe, Lloyd Carr upperclassman option. His eight returns averaged a fair enough 8.4 yards, but much of that is from a 27-yarder in the opener when MTSU punted a line drive from their own 1 and there was nobody in 20 yards.

He also was not that safe of an option a year ago:

Where art thou, Peppers? I have some sympathy for Ronnie Bell's punt return follies in this game because Army's first punt went 30 yards in the air, and then the second one went 45 yards to a sideline. Still: failing to field three punts and fumbling the one you do field is less than ideal. Hopefully Peoples-Jones is back for Wisconsin and we can forget the first two games of punt returns ever happened.

Bell settled down some against Wisconsin and then DPJ returned. Marquise Walker this is not. He's also expected to lead the receivers without DPJ and Nico siphoning off heat. So maybe one of the jet smurfs is worth training up.

First among them should be GILES JACKSON but this could also be a good way to get some on-field opportunities for all the speed they've stockpiled. Jay Harbaugh mentioned some of them by names this fall:

“It’s really the same guys in terms of punt return,” Harbaugh said. “It’s still a good competition. Ronnie (Bell) probably is the guy right now. He’s got a lot of reps and everything. Giles has been working at that. Blake Corum is a natural punt catcher. Eamonn Dennis for us is a guy who’s dangerous with the ball in his hands. We like what he does. Mike Sainristil has a good amount of reps stacked from last year.

Corum returned punts for St. Frances last year (start at 0:56). Bell is probably a decent floor with a moderate ceiling. But if a Corum or a Dennis or a Jackson or Henning or Wilson proves to be a natural center-fielder, watch out.

Michigan's success in special teams has also been their punt blocking game. Khaleke Hudson was the best punt blocker at Michigan since Ed Frutig, but Sam mentioned on the WTKA pod yesterday that MICHAEL BARRETT has more acceleration and natural athleticism, and ANTHONY SOLOMON has some tantalizing bend they wanted to use in blitzing, which is what this is. DAX HILL also exists. Yearly reminder of how they do it:

The guards decide they have to block down, and the guys getting blocked (Kinnel and Harris) duly take their blockers in man-to-man. This leaves Jordan Glasgow and Khaleke Hudson, who have just 2 or 3 yards of horizontal to make up with nobody kicking them out, coming at the flanks of the shield. And the shield can’t break out and get those guys because there’s two dudes coming into either gap between them.

Michigan’s attackers are playing option: if the guy across from you blocks you, he’s yours, and if he doesn’t you get upfield. No wasted guys.

Michigan also tried putting two returners back last year against teams that angle-punted and snuck in a two-point conversion on a swinging gate right before the OSU game. I'd like to see the tinkering continue, if only to confirm my suspicions that it's been Jay cooking up crazy schemes all along.