Saturday afternoon at the corner of Stadium and Main will mark the start of a new era in Ann Arbor.
That’s where Michigan football’s Team 145 will host its annual maize vs. blue spring game (noon, Fox) under first year head coach Sherrone Moore. The Wolverines saw 18 key players from last year’s national championship team walk out the door and set a new NFL record for invites to last month’s NFL combine in Indianapolis — a notable accomplishment that has now left holes across the roster.
Saturday represents the public’s first look at how that process is coming along with the development of the 2024 team. Here are five storylines we’ll be watching:
1. Quarterback competition
Michigan quarterback Alex Orji runs the ball in the second quarter of the College Football Playoff national championship game against Washington at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024.
It doesn’t matter if it’s obvious: There’s no singular position on a football field as important as the signal caller, and the best one who has ever played at Michigan just walked out the door. J.J. McCarthy and is projected as a top-five pick when next week’s NFL draft begins in downtown Detroit.
Currently, there are five players on the roster as options to replace him — Jack Tuttle (seventh-year), Davis Warren (senior), Alex Orji (junior), Jayden Denegal (junior), and Jadyn Davis (freshman) — and by all accounts, it has been a truly open competition.
Orji, the 6-foot-3, 235-pounder from Texas, is the most dynamic, while Tuttle is the most experienced and Davis is thought to have the highest upside. It’s worth watching how trusted Orji is to make throws after rushing the ball 21 times the past two years, while throwing it just once in nine career games.
That means real throws: From the hash marks to the boundary, on the run, downfield; plays that…
..
