Michigan Football: Jay Harbaugh’s Tight Ends Impressing
Michigan has a number of options at tight end this year, receiver to blocker, young to old. Position coach Jay Harbaugh said a half dozen could see action this year, and even more are getting snaps in practice.
“We’re really deep, I think 12 people or something,” Harbaugh said. “I couldn’t tell you how many are going to play. I would like for five, six or seven guys to play, but you never know exactly how a game is going to go.
“But there’s a group of five or six all capable of contributing, and as you kind of go down the totem pole a bit, some of the younger guys have specific roles and packages that are a little smaller. It’s all about getting guys in position to do things they’re good at. For a younger guy that might be a four- or five-play set, whereas [senior] Jake Butt knows the whole playbook.”
The three young freshmen have shown “all kinds of good things,” Harbaugh said. Devin Asiasi is as hard a worker as he is talented, Butt said earlier this week, while the others are also in line to play.
“Everything we expected to see has shown up. They all have something they bring to the table that is exceptional, and we’ve kind of seen those things stand out in team settings against the ones,” Harbaugh said. “Nick Eubanks is very fast, has good ball skills. He’s able to play fast, plays at his full speed. He’s long, has a relatively big catch radius. At this juncture, the tools he brings to the table to give us a shot to help us down the field.
“Sean McKeon [has improved] a huge amount. He’s a tremendously hard worker, has the knack that you tell him to do something or work on this and he does it, doesn’t overthink it and just puts in the work. He’s very blue collar in his approach. He’s improved a ton in every way, specifically as a route runner and his ball skills.”
Word emerged from practice earlier this week that redshirt freshman Zach Gentry might be working with the receivers. Harbaugh said he still gets to coach him, adding all of the tight ends will probably split out at one point or another this year.
“There are different things you can do when you put them outside. At one point or another most will be detached from a formation,” Harbaugh said. “A lot of times you can put a 6-5 guy on a 5-11 corner or get to read man vs. zone depending on whether they put a linebacker out there. Someway or another it’s a matchup thing.
“Zach is improving. In certain packages in the game he’s going to play just to try to utilize some of his specific skillsets that give him an advantage over safeties and linebackers. I’ll be excited to actually finally see him out there. We’re excited about it.”
NOTES
• Add Harbaugh to the mix of guys impressed with the entire freshman class.
“In just the first day of practice it was pretty evident, just the amount of speed on the field at different positions,” he said. “Guys running around that are noticeably faster, guys that are big. It’s going to be interesting to see how many young guys get to play.”