The Michigan Wolverines' football program is bringing in several outstanding freshmen in 2020, with a pair of offensive skill players in running back Blake Corum and wideout A.J. Henning arguably the two that fans are the most intrigued by.
Is Corum slated to step into U-M's running back room and provide the biggest impact of any Wolverine freshman next year? Or will that title belong to someone else, perhaps Henning or even a defensive player?
TheWolverine's Austin Fox and Clayton Sayfie debate below:
Austin Fox — Buy
Freshmen contributions should be few and far between for Michigan in 2020 — not because the crop that's coming in isn’t good, but because proven contributors are expected to remain ahead of the freshmen on basically every spot on the roster.
No rookies are expected to start, but a few could at least crack the rotation at a handful of positions and provide productive contributions this fall. Corum appears to have the best chance of doing so, despite likely being behind sophomore Zach Charbonnet, redshirt sophomore Hassan Haskins and fifth-year senior Chris Evans on the depth chart.
At 5-8, Corum is known for his breakaway speed and the shiftiness he possesses, attributes that Charbonnet and Haskins don’t have and an element that Evans may not own any more either following his year away from football.
Jim Harbaugh has more often than not relied on a steady running back rotation during his five years at Michigan, meaning there should be carries available for Corum right from the get-go.
Henning could have also been the answer here, especially when considering how often offensive coordinator Josh Gattis put receivers Giles Jackson and Mike Sainristil on the field last year as freshmen.
Henning possesses the same body type and speedy qualities that Jackson and Sainristil do, and will likely play a similar role that the now-sophomore tandem had last season.
Potential freshmen contributions appear to be minimal after Corum and Henning, with nickelback being the next most likely spot a freshman could see the field. Andre Seldon and Darion Green-Warren are the top two candidates there, though they’ll have to fend off some older players like redshirt freshman D.J. Turner and redshirt sophomore Gemon Green if they expect to serve as U-M’s third corner alongside senior Ambry Thomas and redshirt sophomore Vincent Gray.
It’s also worth noting there are no clear frontrunners for the position, with the Michigan coaching staff having told Seldon — an early enrollee — playing time is and will be available at the spot come the start of the season.
The trio of starting linebackers are set with redshirt junior Josh Ross, and redshirt sophomores Cam McGrone and Mike Barrett, but it’s fair to expect one or two of the freshmen — Kalel Mullings and Cornell Wheeler, for example — to crack the two-deep there and even see playing time if first-year position coach Brian Jean-Mary subs more than his predecessors did.
Corum and Henning, however, remain the two most likely freshmen to make a significant impact from day one, with a slight edge given to the former. Freshmen running backs have made notable contributions on a handful of occasions in the past under Harbaugh (Charbonnet’s 726 yards and 11 touchdowns last season, Evans’ 614 yards in 2016, etc.), and it’s fair to expect Corum to be the next to do so in 2020.
Clayton Sayfie — Sell
Even with how difficult it is balancing everything a brand new college athlete has to balance, somebody, and likely multiple people, are going to make an impact. The question is, whose will be the biggest?
Will it be Corum at the same position both Chris Evans and Zach Charbonnet have made huge early impacts under Jim Harbaugh? Let’s start with candidates on defense. Last season, stud former five-star safety Dax Hill improved each week, but didn’t start a game until late in the season, and even then, it was because Brad Hawkins was out with injury.
Defensive tackle Chris Hinton, just like Hill, played more as the year wore on and flashed some of his five-star talent. Linebacker Anthony Solomon was the only other defensive true freshman in 2019 who played more than four games (enough to burn his redshirt), with the vast majority of his playing time coming on special teams.
Much of what will determine which defensive true freshman will make the biggest impact is going to come down to depth at their respective position. There’s reason to believe freshman defensive back Andre Seldon can, at least, split time as the team’s primary nickel corner (with redshirt freshman D.J. Turner), so he’d have to be at the top of the list on defense, especially since he enrolled early in January and has his feet wet in terms of being a Wolverine student-athlete.
That being said, we’ll say the impact freshman comes on offense once again. That is, after all, the side of the ball where multiple true freshmen shined last season under coordinator Josh Gattis, and it’s reasonable to believe that will be the case once again in 2020.
Charbonnet started six games and was the team’s leading rusher. Wideouts Giles Jackson and Mike Sainristil, and to a lesser extent, Cornelius Johnson, all were able to see time in the back end of the receiver rotation.
The knock against Corum’s case for biggest impact isn’t his talent. It’s that he’s likely to be fourth in the rotation, behind the aforementioned Charbonnet, redshirt sophomore Hassan Haskins and fifth-year senior Chris Evans.
The 5-8, 193-pounder will get carries and be a change of pace, but we’ll say here that his impact won’t move the needle as much as another rookie on offense, especially considering the logjam at the running back position.
A.J. Henning — a four-star wide receiver out of Chicago — embodies Gattis’ “Speed In Space” mantra. With the departures of receivers Donovan Peoples-Jones (NFL) and Tarik Black (transfer to Texas), the door is wide open for Henning to play the same role as the previously mentioned trio of freshmen wideouts did last season.
He won’t start, but he will see time, and often. He’s simply too fast, quick and elusive to keep off the field, even as a frosh, and even as one that didn’t enroll early. Look for him to be in the thick of the rotation in a corps where Gattis seems to favor a heavy dose of platooning.
Add in the fact that the Wolverines had three wideouts on the field more than 50 percent of the time last season, and you’ve got a great case for Henning to be one of those three quite a bit.
And once he is on the field, he’s shown what he can do. He’ll get open and the ball will find him.
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