Michigan Player Board Week 5 (on a diet)

For the benefit of my sanity—one of my more valuable commodities—I am suspending the 25 player board in favor of a 15 player board. Those of you who have seen all five Michigan games surely know that this team has been a disaster save for roughly four quarters. Surprisingly, four good quarters out of 20 have produced two wins and one near win. Not surprisingly, there have not been many players worth writing about. The massacre at the hands of Illinois was the worst performance of the season and as a result, I needed to chop off 40% of the board just to avoid having to see in writing just how poor the performances have been. Michigan should pick up a win against Toledo this week to pull to 3-3. That would mean Michigan would have to go 4-2 over its last six games to make a bowl. Ohio State and Penn State are guaranteed losses bloodbaths which means Michigan would have to be perfect against Purdue, Michigan St., Minnesota, and Northwestern. The two worst teams of the bunch (Purdue and Minnesota) are road games and the two best teams (MSU and Northwestern) are home games. So, with the double bonus of playing those four games at the right places and not playing a particularly difficult team in the bunch, Michigan still has a decent shot at a bowl game. The problem is that all four of those games are losable.

Top 25 Michigan Player Chart (cumulative)

Rank	Player	Comments	Movement
1	Brandon Graham, DE	By far Michigan’s best player this season. Leads ‘M’ in TFLs and sacks and it’s not close.
2	Sam McGuffie, RB	McGuffie has taken a pounding this year. He has been the most reliable player on offense. Someone needs to get him an OL for Christmas.
3	Zoltan Mesko, P	You don’t want your punter at #3 but he has been phenomenal. Nobody in country has more punts with a better average.	7
4	Montavious Odoms, WR	Odoms is a player. He is the caliber of receiver that would flourish on any team in the country. Plus, it looks like ‘M’ found its kick returner.	10
5	Greg Mathews, WR	Mathews is one of the best receivers in the Big Ten. It’s too bad nobody knows it because ‘M’ can’t get him the ball. He averages 15 yards per catch.	4
6	Donovan Warren, CB	Compared to players around the country, Warren has been average to decent. Compared to players on Michigan’s defense, Warren has been very good.	3
7	Obi Ezeh, LB	It’s rare that a guy tallies 4.5 TFLs in one game and has a bad game. After Saturday, it’s a little less rare.	2
8	Brandon Harrison, S	Harrison might want to check his body for a “Juice” tattoo. He got burnt bad enough that one might have just showed up somewhere.	4
9	Morgan Trent, CB	Ditto. Trent has been disappointing this year. Still, I think he’ll join the long line of disappointing ‘M’ DBs who make it in the NFL.	2
10	Terrance Taylor, DT	There was no chance that the Illinois game was going to be a good game for TT. The good news is that he probably won’t need any Vitamin C for a least a year. “Juice” took care of that for him.	2
11	Tim Jamison, DE	Ditto. Illinois was a terrible matchup for the ‘M’ defense. The offense didn’t do these guys any favors either.	5
12	Mike Martin, DT	Martin was one of Michigan’s better options against Illinois along with Jonas Mouton. They were the two ‘M’ defenders best equipped to handle the spread.	4
13	Jonas Mouton, LB	Mouton is going to be good by the time he’s done at Michigan.	1
14	Mark Moundros, FB	Moundros does what he’s supposed to do and he does it well.	N/A
15	Brandon Minor, RB	It’s interesting that Minor and Shaw only have 143 combined rushing yards yet they average 6.6 and 8.1 yards per carry respectively. More carries surely equal fewer YPC but these guys could stand to get a few more carries.	2