Michigan Football's WR3 Battle Takes Major Turn Ahead of Week 1

The WR3 isn't who many fans would've thought.

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After 28 dropped passes a season ago, Michigan made it a priority to shore up its pass-catchers for the new season. The Wolverines opted to bring in Jaime Ffrench from Texas, along with JJ Buchanan from Utah.

Michigan also landed a pair of freshmen: five-star Salesi Moa and four-star Travis Johnson.

Entering fall camp, Andrew Marsh and Buchanan were locked in as the top two WRs on the team, and the expectation was that both Ffrench and Moa were battling for WR3, while the other would be WR4 for the Western Michigan game.

But that's not how it's going to work. On Monday night, during 'Inside Michigan Football', Kyle Whittingham told Jon Jansen that Channing Goodwin earned the WR3 job coming out of fall camp.

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“Well, we feel our wide receiver No. 1, Andrew Marsh, and wide receiver No. 2, JJ Buchanan, are really potent weapons," Whittingham told Jansen. "Bryce has developed a great rapport with both those guys, has a great deal of confidence in them, and those guys can really make some spectacular catches. I mean, they're two outstanding receivers.

"Channing Goodwin is a guy that really made progress and made strides in the fall, and right now is our No. 3 guy, and you're going to see Channing out there as well. But Bryce has a great deal of confidence in Andrew and JJ. They're big targets, JJ 6'3, close to 220, and Andrew is over 6 and just about 200 pounds.

"So good size receivers, big play capability, and they both really do a great job with a contested ball up the field, that 50-50 ball that you put up there and let them go make a play.”

Similar story, different ending?

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Goodwin has been one of the few standouts of fall camp. We didn't hear much about him during spring ball, but Goodwin has put together his second consecutive standout fall camp in order to earn a starting nod.

It was a similar story last season. Goodwin was a starter next to Donaven McCulley and Semaj Morgan to start the season, but the sure-handed Goodwin began to have a drop issue. In 2025, Morgan led the team with eight dropped passes, and Goodwin was behind him with four. After starting the first four games, Sherrone Moore opted to make a change and Goodwin played sparingly.

But 2026 is a new season and Goodwin can use last year as experience heading into the new year. It's quite telling that he beat out both Moa and Ffrench for the job, two playmakers who were expected to be the next two in line.

Michigan has seven WRs it can trust, and with Jason Beck using more 11 personnel, expect some rotation. Goodwin will have to prove it in each and every game, and if he continues to shine, that only bodes well for the Wolverines in 2026.

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