On Wednesday, Michigan defensive backs coach Lamar Morgan’s press conference took an interesting detour as he took a moment to list his favorite desserts.
“I’m not a big chocolate cake guy, but I do like gelato,” Morgan said. “I have kids at home, so I’m a white cake guy. Cupcakes, you know, Molly’s downtown, stuff like that.”
Although Morgan ended up on a tangent, his dessert talk started as a football analogy. When discussing how the game plan changes with star junior cornerback Will Johnson off the field — as he was for most of Saturday’s matchup against Illinois — Morgan emphasized the importance of maximizing his players’ strengths.
“If you love chocolate cake, but your wife’s not really good at chocolate cake, you’re probably not going to ask her to make that,” Morgan said. “But if she makes a really good banana pudding, which is just as good, she probably makes that.”
Essentially, Morgan is saying that the plays Johnson can make are like chocolate cake, and the Wolverines love to run specific concepts for him because he’s so good at them. But if Johnson isn’t there to make the chocolate cake, it’s best to let the players replacing him bake their own specialty, which may be something different like banana pudding.
The game plan doesn’t change too much if Johnson is unavailable. In fact, Morgan maintained it didn’t change at all against the Fighting Illini when Johnson exited with an apparent injury. But Morgan also noted that there are some things Johnson does “better than anyone in America.” Therefore, Michigan has to adjust without him.
Against Illinois, part of that adjustment included two freshmen defensive backs taking their first defensive snaps of the season, as Mason Curtis and Jo’Ziah Edmond bolstered the Wolverines’ secondary. They didn’t necessarily enter the game just because Johnson exited, though. Rather, they’ve been steadily progressing in practice to earn their first opportunities.
“To me, if you get on the bus, you have to be ready to play,” Morgan said. “We talked about (Curtis and Edmond) as really good young players, just trying to work them in to try to continue to have this long stretch of a season. I think there’s a lot of injuries that happen in college football, … and I think those guys get a lot of reps of practice. And I thought it was really good for those guys to be able to get in the game in a conference game on the road to get their feet wet.”
It’s not uncommon for Michigan to get its freshmen defensive backs more involved in the second half of the season. Johnson himself made his first career start against Rutgers in the ninth game of his freshman season, though he had played in every game up to that point in some capacity.
Using Johnson and other well-known Wolverine defensive backs like Rod Moore and Charles Woodson as examples, Morgan noted that “all of our best players here play young.” Curtis and Edmond have yet to prove themselves, but making their debuts early is an encouraging sign for their future involvement at Michigan.
Right now, they’re getting plenty of reps in practice and are part of the game plan, according to Morgan. And especially with Johnson’s availability in question, the young players behind him on the depth chart are likely to continue receiving playing time.
Even if Johnson isn’t around to make his signature chocolate cake, the Wolverines are starting to like the taste of the banana pudding its depth pieces are making — as long as it’s done well.
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