Roman Wilson Described As Special, Complete, Most Dynamic
Everyone knows that Michigan wants to run the ball. The offensive line won the Joe Moore Award both of the last two seasons and backs Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards might be the two best runners in the conference. Simply put, the Wolverines are a lot to handle on the ground. if JJ McCarthy can find a little more accuracy on his deep ball in 2023, look out. One player who would benefit greatly from that, is Roman Wilson.
The Hawaiian native has speed to burn and a complete skill set per wide receivers coach Ron Bellamy. At 6-0, 185 pounds, Wilson isn't the biggest receiver in the world but there's nothing he can't do. Bellamy recently spoke about Wilson on the In The Trenches Podcast and he made it seem like 2023 could be special for The Flyin' Hawaiian.
"[We want Roman to] be the most dynamic playmaker that he can be," Bellamy said. "For Roman, we talked about some of those things. When you watch his skillset — just going back and watching this past season and making some cut-ups for the receivers and whatnot. You watch Roman and say, man, this guy, you watch his game and you can watch how it's hard for guys to cover him. He can beat you on a shallow route and go eight, he can catch a slant, he can run a post, he can go dig. He can go end-around. He's proven all that."
We've all seen it. Wilson can take a bubble screen to the house from 60 yards out like he did for Michigan's first touchdown of the 2022 season or he can get behind the defense for a big play like he did against Hawaii and TCU (that should've been a touchdown). He also scored on a reverse against Hawaii. However it happens, it's exciting because of Wilson's abilities in the open field and long speed. Bellamy is aware of it, quarterback JJ McCarthy is aware of it and, perhaps most importantly, Wilson himself is aware of it.
"Roman has a complete skillset, just being able to utilize that," Bellamy said. "Roman is a big believer. Roman knows that he's a special football player. Now, just challenge him to be the most dynamic football player in America. That's something that he's chasing every day."
Wilson caught 25 balls for 376 yards and four scores last year as Michigan's No. 3 wide receiver, which is pretty modest. In 2023, look for Wilson to be more involved as the "new Ronnie Bell" so to speak. If Wilson can approach Bell's 2022 season of 62 catches and 889 yards, that would be a best-case scenario. If not, he should at least be able to improve on all of his own numbers from a season ago.
