The Wolverine

May 2017 Issue

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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MAY 2017 THE WOLVERINE 29 "You come in, and you have the op- portunity to play here," Partridge said. "The best players, the best young men, the best teammates, will play. He'll have plenty of opportunity to step in and show what he can do when he gets here in the summer. "I got to see him for about two hours … it was raining, it was cold and he was just focusing in on his work, doing what he had to do. He is extremely athletic with a extremely active leg. I just felt like he was a competitor, right off the bat." He'll be competing with no one who punted for the Wolverines in 2016. Al- len handled all 54 of Michigan's punts last season. In the spring game, walk-on fresh- man Will Hart out of Hunting Valley, Ohio, served as the designated punter for both the Maize and Blue squads. He punted four times for each team, averaging 41.0 yards per boot for the Maize, with one ball placed inside the Blue's 20-yard line, while he aver- aged 38.0 yards per punt for the Blue. Overall, his eight punts produced an average of 39.5 yards per attempt. He enjoyed a long punt of 49 yards on the afternoon. Kickoff duties for the Blue squad went to redshirt sophomore walk-on Ryan Tice and redshirt junior walk-on Kyle Seychel out of Brighton, Mich. Seychel demonstrated plenty of leg, averaging 65.0 yards per boot with three touchbacks on his only three at- tempts. Tice recorded one touchback on his two kickoffs, averaging 57.5 yards for the pair. Junior walk-on James Foug led the way for the Maize kickoff men, av- eraging 58.3 yards per kick on three attempts, with a pair of touchbacks. Redshirt freshman Quinn Nordin kicked off twice, averaging 50.0 yards per attempt with one touchback. Nordin enjoyed one of the two highlight kicking moments of the day, slamming home a 48-yard field goal on his only attempt. Kicking with the wind, Nordin hammered one that would have been good from 70 yards out, showing off the powerful leg that made him a highly coveted prep place- kicker. Seychel enjoyed his moment as well, sending the Maize squad into celebra- tion. He booted the game-winner, a 31-yard field goal as time ran out in the spring contest, boosting his team to a two-point win. The competition continues into the late spring, summer and fall, but cer- tainly the scholarship standouts Nor- din and Robbins figure to get a very long look for the field goal and punt- ing jobs. Seychel could wind up han- dling kickoffs and perhaps more, and Tice has performed solidly, although he barely missed his one field goal attempt last year, a 40-yarder versus Wisconsin. The return situation could remain up for grabs until the fall. Assistant coaches remained non-committal in talking about individuals there, and for a reason — a final decision didn't have to be made in the spring, and wasn't. ❏ Specialists Continue Toward Fall Michigan assistant coach Jay Harbaugh switched from guiding tight ends to deal- ing with the running backs this year. He remains a special teams coach, and assures that the Wolverines don't lack talent in that area. One example involves the return game, where the contestants are seemingly end- less. "There are a lot of people," Harbaugh noted. "It's way too soon. There's no telling at this point." He then began going over the checklist in his head. "We've had DPJ [early enrollee freshman wideout Donovan Peoples-Jones], [red- shirt junior receiver Maurice] Ways, [sophomore wide receiver Kekoa] Crawford, [junior running back] Karan Higdon, [redshirt freshman running back] Kareem Walker, [fifth-year senior running back] Ty Isaac, [sophomore defensive back] Lavert Hill, [early enrollee freshman defensive back] Ben St-Juste, [junior defensive back] Tyree [Kinnel]." There are more, and they're not all limited to either punt returns or kickoff returns. "Most of them cross-train," Harbaugh said. "[Sophomore viper] Khaleke Hudson has done it. We've got a lot of guys who have done things like that in the past. The only way to really find out who can do it is let everybody try, and the guys who aren't re- ally very good, we slowly start weeding them out. We're getting there." There's far less doubt about who gets the call when the Wolverines need to win a game with a field goal. While walk-on Kyle Seychel provided the 31-yard game-winner for his Maize team in the spring game, it was redshirt freshman Quinn Nordin who had U-M fans dreaming of moon shots to come. Nordin's 48-yarder in the spring game rode a breeze that allowed it to scorch through the uprights. It would have easily been good from the longest distance ever on a made Michigan field goal. That would be 57 yards, by Hayden Ep- stein during the 2001 season. Epstein con- nected from 56 yards two years earlier, both of the bombs occurring at Michigan State. The remainder of Michigan's top five longest field goals: Mike Gillette with a 56-yarder at Ohio State in 1988; J.E. Duffy with a 55-yarder versus Cornell in 1891; and Gillette again, with a 53-yarder against Iowa in 1986. Nordin, out of Rockford, Mich., nailed a 51-yard field goal as a high school senior. He certainly demonstrated enough leg to make it into Michigan's top five, and per- haps the top one. The Wolverines are planning to feature enough offense to make such placekicking heroics unnecessary. But spring game attendees know it's an option, if the wind is right. — John Borton Redshirt freshman Quinn Nordin showed promise in the spring game with a boom- ing 48-yard field goal, but he still must earn the placekicking job in August. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN

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