Michigan Player Chart Week 2

The improvement curve for a first-year coach is always a mystery. There is an adage that states that the biggest improvement occurs between the first and second game of year one. There is also an adage that states that the biggest improvement occurs between the first and second year. If the second adage is true, then the improvement between game one and game two of year one can't be that big—and, it wasn’t. Michigan clearly did some things better but it’s difficult to know how much that had to do with Miami (OH) being much worse than Utah. Even with improvements in the first-half defense and running game, Michigan still did many things that can only be described as atrocious. As a result, there wasn’t a whole lot of movement on the player chart. The top 10 is still dominated by the defense. It’s actually a pretty tall task to come up with 25 players worthy of being ranked at this point. It is my hope that by mid-season, I won’t cringe when I dare to look outside of the top ten. Hopefully, I’ll have a reason to include Carlos Brown next week.

Top 25 Michigan Player Chart (cumulative)

Rank	Player	Comments	Movement
1	Brandon Graham, DE	Destroyed Miami (OH)’s O-line. Forced fumble that was erroneously ruled incomplete. Leads team with 5.5 TFLs and two sacks.	1
2	Obi Ezeh, MLB	Solid effort against Miami (OH) after Big Ten D-Player of Week in week one. 5 tackles, a pass break up and a fumble recovery.	1
3	Brandon Harrison, S	Michigan’s defensive MVP in game two. Saved a touchdown, broke up another pass, pressured the QB and made solid tackles.	6
4	Morgan Trent, CB	Stellar other than getting beat on a deep ball and committing a bad P.I. penalty.
5	Donovan Warren, CB	Excellent game. Could’ve had two picks. Punt returns need work.	5
6	Tim Jamison, DE	Good pressure on QB, made solid tackles, and saved a TD by forcing an early throw.	1
7	Will Johnson, DT	Not as spectacular as game one but was otherwise solid.	4
8	Sam McGuffie, RB	Spent game alternating sweet runs with getting annihilated at the line of scrimmage. Led team with 106 total yards. Sweet YPC until last drive.	3
9	Terrance Taylor, DT	I think his best is yet to come. Played pretty well in first two games.	2
10	Greg Mathews, WR	DNP. First game was a very good all-around effort.	4
11	Michael Shaw, RB	Left game after two splendid carries for 45 yards in the first quarter.	2
12	Montavious Odoms, WR	Started off game with a brilliant catch and run for 50 yards.	2
13	John Thompson, LB	Noble effort in first start of season. Led the team in tackles and had a TFL. Aggressive tackles. Upgrade over Panter.	N/A
14	Jonas Mouton, LB	Very quick to the ball against Miami (OH). Noticeably better than Marell Evans.	7
15	Mike Martin, DT	Very good in limited action. Quicker than most DTs. Picked up a TFL in second straight game.	4
16	Zoltan Mesko, P	Solid for second straight game. Although, it would be nice if he outperformed the other team’s punter every once in a while.
17	Brandon Minor, RB	Spectacular TD run on only carry against Miami (OH).
18	Junior Hemingway, WR	Zero catches to go along with some nice downfield blocking against Miami (OH)	10
19	Steven Threet, QB	Terrible passer but ran for 36 yards in roughly a quarter. Would’ve benefited from more QB-run plays.	3
20	Carson Butler, TE	Zero catches. I feel bad for him. It’s disappointing that ‘M’ coaches aren't looking to him more considering inept passing game.	5
21	K.C. Lopata, K	Missed extra-point and missed 41 yard field goal are unacceptable.	9
22	Ryan Van Bergen, DE	Solid again in limited action.	2
23	Steve Schilling, OT	Best O-lineman. Running game was better against Miami (OH) for what that’s worth.	N/A
24	Charles Stewart, S	Slightly better than Stevie Brown so far.	N/A
25	Stevie Brown, S	Plays too much not to be in the top 25. Needs to start making reads and plays.	N/A