Inside The Fort (ITF): Michigan Spring Football Practice Intel, More
The latest edition of Inside The Fort brings you plenty of intel on the Michigan Wolverines' spring football practice, including a look at how the defense is performing, which early enrollees are impressing and more. Then, we go behind the scenes on five-star cornerback Will Johnson's commitment, share what we're hearing on basketball freshman Hunter Dickinson's future and much more.
Read an excerpt below and / or CLICK HERE to read the entire Inside The Fort.
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CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE INSIDE THE FORT
It’s early in practice and they’ve only had a few practices in pads, but as expected, the offense is way ahead of the defense right now. There are talented players on both sides of the ball, but new coordinator Mike Macdonald’s defense is not easy to pick up, and it’s markedly different than what they did under Don Brown (obviously).
“The defense looks bad right now,” one observer said … but again, with everything changing, that’s to be expected.
The big question … where will the vipers go? We’ve heard redshirt sophomore Michael Barrett is working inside next to redshirt junior Josh Ross, and he’d be the favorite to start there. Freshmen Nikhai Hill-Green and Kalel Mullings are behind them and battling for the No. 2 spot for now, but it’s wide open.
Ross has been banged up a bit, so he’s limited.
The players are still getting to know their position coach, George Helow. Macdonald is doing most of the barking in practice while the coaches are also learning the defense, too, so that’s also expected.
The cornerbacks love coach Mo Linguist and his approach. He’s a “players’ coach” per the folks close to it, whereas Mike Zordich was more of the hard-ass type (not that there was anything wrong with that, either. He had some really good success here). We haven’t heard a lot about the group other than this, other than some who contributed mightily last year and were thinking about potentially transferring seem more content now and more likely to stick around.
One in particular was thinking about leaving for Houston. It doesn’t appear that will happen now.
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