The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/629217
We had the No. 4 total defense in the country, and that is with some im- portant players on the defensive line banged up and with linebacker play that was pretty average. We had the No. 1 pass efficiency defense, so we were making quar- terbacks look pedestrian. We should have an elite defense and then we have the pieces in place offensively coming back that we can be good. The question mark will be quarter- back, but I think fans have reason to be optimistic about who our quarterback is, whether it's [junior] John O'Korn, [current commitment] Brandon Peters or [junior] Shane Morris. If our quarterback play progresses the way it did this year, and that's al- most a given with Harbaugh, I think we can be a playoff team. Van Bergen: Their name is in the hat. I don't know that they'd be in my top four right now. You have to see how they come back, who will step up at quarterback. There are enough ques- tion marks for me to be able to say they're not a top-four team at this mo- ment, but they have the talent, the abil- ity and the coaching to make a push for the playoffs. The Wolverine: What is your biggest question mark going into the offsea- son? Skene: Who is going to play center? Graham Glasgow was very good and the importance of a solid center cannot be understated. [Redshirt sophomore] Patrick Kugler, you are now expected to step up. Harbaugh will have a QB ready to go, we can expect that after what he did with Rudock. [Offensive line] coach Tim Drevno has to establish reliability in the middle of the offensive line. Copenhaver: Quarterback is the big- gest question mark and also the line- backers. Even though we only had OK linebacker play, we lose everyone. We don't have anyone that has significant playing time under his belt besides [junior] Ben Gedeon. You have to get some play out of freshman Devin Bush. He's an early enrollee, so he'll have a full spring ball and training camp to get bigger and stronger, but the biggest question will be quarterback. Van Bergen: Linebackers. We lose Joe Bolden, James Ross, Desmond Mor- gan, Royce Jenkins-Stone and Mario Ojemudia. We return a lot of starters defensively, but linebackers have to start from scratch. The linebackers are the quarterbacks of the defense, and to have a success- ful defense, they have to find some guys that can perform right away that haven't played a lot. Ray: The biggest question mark is the linebacker corps. It's not like those se- niors we're losing were world-beaters, but they were starters and played de- cent at times. Normally linebackers are the leaders of a defense, but Michigan's defensive front and secondary are stout enough to possibly overcome the lack of line- backer leadership. Michigan will have to defend vari- ous forms of the spread in 2016 and opposing offenses are going to try to exploit the linebacker position in both the run and pass game. ❏