Everything Ron Bellamy said to the media about fall camp
On what he saw from Ronnie Bell during the rehab process and what he brings to camp
Energy, competitiveness. He’s a leader. We call him the ‘alpha’ in our room. He’s played a lot of football and obviously, having a position coach that played the same position and played at the same school, a lot of things that he does, it kind of resonates to me. I’ve seen a lot of football, a lot of great wide receivers at Michigan, and he definitely fits that mould.
On how Michigan's offense changed with Bell going down last season
I was on a different side of the ball. So I don’t I didn’t know too much about who and what. I had an idea because I started off at receivers and moved to defense. But it was by committee, and obviously, you lose a player of Ronnie’s caliber, it definitely hurts. And this is one of those things, what happened the first game of the season, just trying to move some pieces, but that room’s loaded, the room was loaded last year. So it was great to see those guys step up last year and have success.
On Andrel Anthony
I’ve known about Andrel in high school. I’ve been following him since he was in high school to where he is today, and one of the biggest things with Andrel, is his understanding of the game of football. He challenges himself to do everything right, from not only just being a vertical threat or a guy that just flashes athleticism. He wants to know the ins and outs of the game. Andrel wants to know, how can he be a more dominant blocker. He looked in my room, I have my six pictures, and it’s Steve Breaston, Jason Avant, it’s Marquise Walker, David Terrell, and Braylon Edwards. Those were the core guys I played with at Michigan and, just a history lesson for the boys, any time they come in the office, we talk about the legacy of Michigan football and the great tradition of wide receiver play. Andrel, one of the guys that he wants to emulate is Braylon, the things that Braylon’s done on the field and if you look at it they’re very similar, body structure and—I can obviously share stories because I played with Braylon for two years and just how brilliant he attacked the game and Andrel wants to add that to his game.
On who Steve Breaston would be on this team
There’s a few guys. Ronnie has a little Steve Breaston in him. Very slippery, deceiving. I tease him, Steve had that awkward running, but he always runs away from you, and he’s hard to tackle and Ronnie’s the same way. Steve’s probably a little taller than Ronnie but very, very, very savvy football players that are deceptive with their speed and elusiveness.
On how he plans to keep the receivers happy in a loaded room
We compete. What I know about Michigan football and the wide receivers, is we’ve always been loaded. This has been a position that has like I mentioned, great history, great tradition. And, one of the things is, you compete, and not necessarily—you don’t have to be the starter to compete, right? You want to get on the football field? Whatever you have to do. If your role is blocking, if you are a deep ball guy, if you are gonna move the chains, whatever it may be, you compete your butt off and you try to get the opportunity to play on the football field. But our guys have that understanding that the best players will play and the guys who do things well get an opportunity to showcase what they can do.
On what Cornelius Johnson needs to do to raise his game against higher competition
Just going back, some of those teams identified him as the No. 1 guy so what do you do with the No. 1 guy? You try to take them out of the game plan by doubling him. So, I think from a schematic standpoint, C.J. saw some of those things, people running the coverage his way or he’s going against the top corner on each team. But having a guy like Ronnie back kind of eliminates that. You have a plethora of guys, a plethora of options, and it’s almost, from a defensive standpoint, like pick your poison. The guys have really responded and we challenged them. In my mind and their minds, they’re all No. 1s, and we go out there every day and we compete that way.
On Roman Wilson's growth
Roman has a great understanding of football. What I love about the guys, I love about the room, the fact that a guy like Roman and it’s his third year here in the system, he has to be the composition of flexibility. You can move him around and I think that really helps us. You can’t just key on the guy and say, ‘Hey, this guy plays this position.’ Our guys are all over the football field playing multiple positions. And I think that’s what you need to ascend to being one of the best position groups and I think you’ll put defenses in more conflicts than not.
On NIL impacting recruiting
The thing is, you want to recruit kids that want to come to Michigan, and that has to be the No. 1 option, No. 1 thing and if it’s not, we're probably recruiting the wrong kid. NIL is real, it’s something that we know about, but you have to want to come to Michigan. And, really that’s what we focus on, guys that talk about the growing at Michigan, how can they grow as a student-athlete. How can they grow as a person on and off the field? And if those things aren’t the top criteria for a kid, then this probably isn’t the place for them.
On how many can be in the receiver rotation and whether the freshmen are catching the older players
The freshmen, this has been a pretty good group. There’s Darrius Clemons, Tyler Morris, Amorion Walker. Those guys have been great. They’re gonna have great careers here at the University of Michigan. As far as the numbers, no, I mean, that’s something that we haven’t talked about. What’s rare is that as great as our receivers are, so are our tight ends, and so are our running backs. We’re blessed with an abundance of talent. And it’s just one of those things where special teams—I heard Grant talking about Coach Jay and how great of a job he does, which he does, he’s the best in the nation to my eyes. But those guys know they separate themselves by playing special teams. And you’re going to see a lot of talented guys playing on special teams on Saturdays.
On how he describes the offense to recruits
It’s a pro-style offense, we marry the two. You have your college, where it’s high tempo, different tempos, and then you got your NFL concepts. You look at a guy like Coach Matt Weiss, who came from the Baltimore Ravens for a long time. And now, even myself being in the league and Coach Harbaugh playing the league. You’ve got an NFL background, so you have NFL understanding NFL lingo, NFL terminology, and you marry it with the college game, and you kind of get the best of both worlds. So, for high school kids, you talk about that, that’s your selling point, you’re playing a pro-style offense.
On the key from changing one unit to the other and the fluidity of the staff
It’s been awesome. I can speak for myself going from defense to offense is, obviously, I’m most comfortable at receivers, it’s the position that I played for a long time, and being on the defensive side of the ball, yes, you know coverages and different things to that. But learning what the fronts are doing, learning with the linebackers and doing, the edge mechanics, and now being no offense and seeing it and giving input in meetings and, like, ‘Hey, they’re doing this because of this,’ or think the way I see it, it’s definitely opened my eyes, in the game. Some of the things that I had an idea that I thought I knew, that I was great at understanding, but I really have a better understanding of things. And I think from a coaching standpoint, having some success last year, coach moved Jay over there to the defensive side of the ball, and it’s been great for him. He’s just kind of going through the same transition that I went through last year. But it’s been great. Our coaching staff, we have a strong brotherhood, a great camaraderie with one another. I tease Coach Elston, I said, ‘Man, you took this age thing, man, we all got a year older.’ You know, we moved, like myself went from 39 to 40. I go, ‘Mike, man, you just made the age go up a little bit more!’ But, Mike’s been great. Mike’s a Michigan man through and through and we just have, it’s great. It’s great to be around these guys every day.
On wide receiver blocking
It’s a mentality. I played for Lloyd Carr, man. If you don’t block and you don’t take care of your teammates, you don’t play. And that’s the mentality in our room and everyone knows that. We’re going to carry that every Saturday. You’re gonna see that style of football and Mikey definitely sets the standard in the room. And now, you just take Mikey and you multiply by however many guys we have in our room. And that’s the attitude that we bring into our room. We’re gonna not just be pass catchers, but we’re going to be tough and physical in the run game as well. We got to take care of our brothers.
On how to utilize AJ Henning and Donovan Edwards
I think if you look at it, obviously I had Donovan in high school, we used him out as a receiver. So that trade is carried on into college. And then you go back and look at A.J.s high school film, he played a lot of running back. A.J. moved all over the field, played a little quarterback. So those two guys, they can do a multitude of things. And you don’t miss a beat. And like I said, they both are explosive, both great, but with the ball in their hands. And the thing is, they both have a high-level understanding of football. And you could do a lot of creative things when you have guys with that skill set.
On how much he worked with Edwards as a receiver in high school
One of the things when I had him in high school, he had a bad injury his sophomore year. And one of the things I knew how talented he was, I knew he was a guy that’s going to be a high-level college recruit. And I vowed to him that we’re going to protect them. And we just found various ways to get him to football, everything didn’t have to be inside to tackle box. So, we trained him up as a receiver. And we thought that he can be a top 10 receiver in the nation, just as well as he was as a running back. And I think, he took to that and here he is today. He has that skill set.
On who the Jason Avant is of the receiver room
That’s a great question. Darrius Clemons right now, the young buck. Now he’s not as polished as Jason, but he will be. He will be. But he’s the guy that, ‘Coach, watch this.’ He’s that guy, he’s a bigger guy, 210, and now he’s strong as an ox, is explosive and he loves contact. Jason was like that. Jason and I played together here and as Jason was learning how to be a receiver before he was catching passes and running routes, Jason was the guy that would dig the safeties out, go block linebackers, kind of do the dirty work, per se. And Darrius is that guy that says, ‘Coach put me in, I don’t care if it’s to block, put me in.’ No, he’s that guy right now that kind of carries that torch and it’s pretty cool for a young guy to kind of carry that torch, and the guys know about Jason, as well. He spoke to the team and they’ve seen videos of Jason, so D.C. is that guy right now.
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