Jim Harbaugh reveals entire Michigan football 2022 depth chart
In a shocking twist of events, the head coach who hasn’t released a depth chart since 2016 is now telling everyone who to expect to see on the field, and what to expect from Michigan football in 2022.
Appearing on the ‘In the Trenches’ podcast with Jon Jansen, Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh not only shared how the quarterback situation is going to be handled this season, but he shared every single starter and backup as it stands with the season opener just one week away. Cade McNamara will start Week 1 under center for the maize and blue, J.J. McCarthy in Week 2, and an official starter will be named in Week 3.
But, beyond that, we learned the starting right tackle, the edge rushers, the defensive line, the third running back, and so much more. Here is everything he had to say.
The 2022 team
Yeah, really, really excited about it on a lot of levels. Probably the biggest thing I’m most excited about is this team has been ready to play a game now for about a week. And everything now is focused on the opener, Colorado State, and preparing the game plan for that. But roster-wise, it’s been an extremely healthy roster, great camp. So many guys have put themselves in a great position to start the season.
The quarterbacks
We’ve made a decision. Both quarterbacks have played great, done everything they could in every way to win the starting job. Coming out of camp, I just feel like we have to two quarterbacks, Cade McNamara and J.J. McCarthy that we feel very confident we can win a championship with either of those two quarterbacks behind center. And great, great thing for our team. But there’s only one ball so can only be one quarterback out there at a time.
So we’re not ready to say who that starting quarterback is. But the decision we made is Cade McNamara will start the opener against Colorado State, J.J. McCarthy will start the second ball game against Hawaii. And then after Week 2, we’ll make a decision going into Week 3 — starter, backup.
How will he continue to evaluate them?
Yeah, great, great question. And the way I’ve been evaluating them is, them being able to be a passer, by passer or arm talent, who can make all the throws. Both of them have the arm talent to make all the throws and it comes down to accuracy, timing, decision-making. Taking what the defense gives you as a passer. Cade’s a little bit ahead there at this point.
Then the next category is playmaker. A guy that can turn water into wine, his athleticism, his speed, arm talent. A runner, a scrambler. Plays smart, makes a play when there’s no play to be made. Running ability, moves the chains as a runner, augments the running game. The risk-reward, turn a one yard loss into a positive play. But doesn’t make the bad play worse, avoids the fumbles, the interceptions, the sacks. I have J.J. ahead in that category
And then field general, coach on the field, facilitator to the other playmakers and the offensive line. You trust them to handle the ball and every plays, he’s a ball protector, fix the calls, the formation, the protections, gets the checks right, leads the unit drive-by-drive and points-per–possession really is what you’re looking for. A lot of that is — they’re both pretty even there in that category. Maybe Cade the slight advantage there. But in totality, it’s neck and neck as far as what they’ve done in practice, so you need to see it in the game, because that’s where it really separates. Points-per-drive is the thing that you look to the closest at, but the situation’s — red-zone efficiency, two-minute efficiency, third-down efficiency. And that really needs, in my opinion, to be played out in the ball games — who is the best, who is the quarterback that’s gonna give us the best opportunity?
By the time we get that third game, fourth game, both are considered starters here. And that’s it. The only motive, the only intent is what’s best for the 2022 Michigan football team.
Does McNamara being a captain complicate things?
No, there’s no motive or intent in any way. In the end, he’s a deserving captain, respected by everybody. So is Mazi Smith, Erick All, and Mike Sainristil and Ronnie Bell. Those guys are respected by everybody. I always think the captain vote is, the team is saying which guys on this team are going to give it their very all for the team. And that’s it’s a great honor and also a great responsibility.
Now, I remember when I was elected captain, that was, ‘Wow, these guys think that of me. So I’m not going to disappoint. I’m gonna give everything I have for the team.’ But yes, when it comes to the depth chart, that’s not something that’s elected by the players. and it’s similar — Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker. I mean they’re, they’re both starting tight ends on our football team. Mike Sainristil elected captain, but he’s a starter, along with DJ Turner and Gemon Green at the corner position and the nickel position. So, no, it doesn’t complicate things.
Defensive line/edge rushers
We’d have to go position by position there. The outside backers right now, starting outside backers: Jaylen Harrell, Mike Morris and Taylor Upshaw, those three have had a heck of a camp and there’ll be a rotation there. Braiden McGregor, TJ Guy, Eyabi Anoma’s doing some really good things. Derrick Moore has been fantastic, we’ve talked about there before, but when that motor becomes like Chase Winovich and Aidan Hutchinson and then he learns a countermove or two, I think he’s gonna be close to unblockable. Now as soon as that happens, may take some time, but he’s ready to play and he’ll be in there.
Inside, interior defensive line, Kris Jenkins, starter in the base package. Mason Graham will come out of camp as a starter, true freshman. Mazi Smith, starter at nose. Cam Goode is somebody that is now really surging. He’s backing up Mazi at nose tackle. Kenneth Grant is right there as well at nose tackle. George Rooks at end, backing up Kris Jenkins, has had a tremendous camp. Dom Giudice has done some really good things. And we got a true freshman, Charlie Lovell, who walked on, just turned 18 about a week ago. His dad played at Michigan, was a kicker here. He’s been great as well and he’ll be really good in the future.
So really been happy with the interior defensive line and the guy I gotta mention is Rayshuan Benny. Rayshaun Benny is surging. He and Mason Graham are playing the tackle position in base. But he’s just coming on like gangbusters, every practice is better and better. So I’m really excited about Rayshaun
Inside linebackers
Yeah, the inside backer position is really, really good. Again, it’s like saying you’ve got multiple starters where there should just be one starter there, because there’s going to be a rotation.
Kalel Mullings has really surged. Junior Colson — we knew what his talents were as a starter. Mike Barrett. They’re all three will interchange, whether it’s base, whether it’s nickel, whether it’s dime. And Nikhai Hill-Green — we’ll see, we’ll see. He had a soft tissue thing that he’s working through, whether it’s game one that he plays or game two. But he’s also a starter along with Kalel. We’ll see who plays there.
Jimmy Rolder, Micah Pollard — who moved from outside backer to inside backer — it’s been a tremendous, tremendous position move there. And Deuce Spurlock — those three young guys are going to play a lot of football, as well.
Secondary
I feel good that everything settled like and we have a plan moving forward. Take corner for example. DJ Turner, Gemon Green, Mike Sainristil — those are your starting corners. And there’s two in base, but there’s three when you go to nickel.
Mikey is our starting nickel, but they can also interchange in base as well. I mean, they got three starters that — Will Johnson is right there, as well, coming out of camp. Tremendous, maybe our best freshman that’s on the roster. He just looks great at corner. So those four will be, the corners will be — consider them all really first team players.
At safety, RJ Moten, Rod Moore, Makari Paige — those are the starting safeties. Because we do different packages — there’s a base where there’s only two safeties, but you go to a stronger nickel package and you want a third safety in there. We’ve had that. Makari Paige has had a really good camp, coming off of a really good spring, so he’s good and ready to go. Caden Kolesar is the fourth safety and our No. 1 special teams player. So we’re in good shape, good shape there, knowing who’s lining up and where they’re lining up on defense.
Wide receiver
Yeah, the top five is Roman, Cornelius Johnson, Ronnie Bell. No receiver ‘one’ — they’re all ones, along with Andre. Anthony and A.J. Henning. Those five will be strong in a rotation as starters. Another guy who’s surged is Peyton O’Leary. So, Peyton O’Leary is backing up Cornelius Johnson right now at the X-position. And he’s had a Cooper Cupp-like training camp. I mean, he’s almost got that nickname around here right now. So that’s been tremendous.
And then also Tyler Morris, Darrius Clemons, Amorion Walker — and Cristian Dixon is surging at the receiver position. So, where we said we had like really six really good receivers coming into camp, call that 10 now. There’s 10 really, really good receivers. And it’s a strong group.
Running backs and tight ends
Let’s talk about the running backs. All right, I want to go through Hey, leaving people out you know, okay, running backs.
Yeah, Blake quorum Donovan Edwards are, they’re your two No. 1s And they will, as we had foreseen, they’ll be getting most of the carries. I would call the number, the third back right now C.J. Stokes for purely getting in there and running the football. And as he continues to learn the offense in terms of the third down and the protections, probably lean more towards Tavi Dunlap as the third guy. But they’re very close. And also the third guy — Isaiah Gash, because he’s tremendous, tremendous in the short yardage running right now and being the third down back. So feel really strong with those five backs going into the beginning of the season.
And the tight ends, we talked about two starters: Schoonmaker and Erick All. Joe Honigford will play a lot, Max Bredeson has surged into that two-deep, along with Carter Seltzer and Matt Hibner. Situationally, Hibner, him and Max are kind of interchangeable there as well. Colston Loveland has surged as a freshman, and Hunter Neff stayed completely healthy coming off of an ACL and he’ll get a lot of playing time. But you’ll see those eight really — eight tight ends all in the mix this fall.
Offensive line
Tremendous, tremendous. Ryan Hayes, starting left tackle, he’s been great. Trevor Keegan, starting left guard, has been great. Olu, starting center with a great backup in Greg Crippen. Zak Zinter’s your right guard. Trente Jones is going to start at right tackle. Karsen Barnhart is the sixth starter. He’s the sixth man. He goes seamlessly in it right tackle or either guard, or if we have an issue at left tackle, Karsen Barnhart is the backup, next guy up. Call him a starter, he sits in the front row in the meetings with the other offensive starters because he can play any of those positions as a backup except center. Then, if it was center, then we would go with Greg Crippen.
Special teams
Really solid. Brad Robbins has been tremendous, another tremendous camp for Brad. Jake Moody. So Brad’s your punter, Jake Moody’s your kicker, Will Wagner is your snapper. William Wagner is backed up by Greg Tarr. Tommy Doman backs up Jake Moody as the kicker and he backs up Brad Robbins as the punter. And we’re ready to roll.
Returners look really good, as well. Punt returner going into the season is going to be A.J. Henning. Kickoff returner is going to be Roman Wilson and Joe Taylor is No. 1 right now as the off-returner.
