Three Michigan Football Players On ESPN's 25 Most Important Players List

Bill Connelly with ESPN came out with the 25 most important players who could define the College Football Playoff race in 2023 ($).

This list doesn't have players like USC's Caleb Williams or Michigan's Blake Corum -- players who are known commodities -- but as Connelly puts it in the article "My annual Most Important Players list is about those unknowns".

There were three Michigan football players who made the list.

Players 14-17 are tabbed under 'potential starts in need of a breakthrough' and coming in at No. 14 is Michigan WR Cornelius Johnson.

Johnson was the second-leading receiver on the team last year, behind Ronnie Bell. Johnson caught for 499 yards and led the team with six touchdowns. The senior receiver will trot out as the No. 1 option on Sept. 2 but Roman Wilson also has the chance to have a breakout year.

Jim Harbaugh molded Michigan into a two-time CFP team by basically eliminating weaknesses, one at a time. The Wolverines might not have quite the big-play upside of other major contenders, but their floor is immensely high.

The new weakest link to address might be receiver play. It wasn't bad by any means, but among last year's CFP quarterbacks, J.J. McCarthy got far less help than the others when it came to receivers making contested catches.

Passing stats for contested passes, per Sports Info Solutions: Stetson Bennett, Georgia: 42% completion rate, 7.4 yards per dropback; C.J. Stroud, Ohio State: 41%, 6.2 Max Duggan, TCU: 36%, 6.0 McCarthy: 28%, 3.7.

Johnson is Michigan's leading returning wideout, and he was the Wolverines' best contested-catch player a year ago. If he's got an extra gear, so does Michigan.

Players 10-13 are listed under 'most important transfer' and coming in at No. 11 is Edge Josaiah Stewart.

Michigan has four Edge defenders who should all receive heavy doses of playing time: Stewart, Derrick Moore, Jaylen Harrell, and Braiden McGregor. If the Wolverines can receive the production from Stewart that Coastal Carolina had two years ago -- watch out.

For the second straight season, Michigan will be forced to replace its top two pass-rushers; after losing Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo after 2021, they lost Mike Morris(NFL) and Eyabi Okie (transfer) this offseason. No one on the roster made more than 3.5 sacks last season, and no returning end managed a pressure rate higher than 9%. (For reference, Morris' pressure rate was 15%, Hutchinson's 16%.)

Stewart, however, was a star at Coastal Carolina. Over the 2021-22 seasons, he recorded 16 sacks with a 12% pressure rate. His sack total sank from 12.5 to 3.5 last season, but his pressure rate remained the same, suggesting poor fortune as much as anything. If Stewart and a fellow end like Jaylen Harrell or Derrick Moore form a strong enough tandem, Michigan might not have any weaknesses.

Finally, coming in at No. 6 is J.J. McCarthy. The Michigan QB was tabbed under the 'quarterbacks with a potential game-changing leap in them'.

McCarthy is getting plenty of preseason hype and it's well-deserved. He he has the ability and chance to go down as one of the best Michigan quarterbacks before it's all said and done. The single-season passing record is well in reach for McCarthy (3,331 yards by John Navarre).

Jim Harbaugh took a major risk in 2022, benching a known commodity and solid QB in Cade McNamara (who led Michigan to the Big Ten title and CFP in 2021) for a higher-upside but less experienced option in McCarthy. But the former top-25 recruit made the gamble pay off, winning his first 12 starts and finishing 16th in Total QBR.

Sixteenth is good, but is it national-title good? Over the past four seasons, the title-winning quarterback has averaged a 91.4 Total QBR, completing 72% of his passes at 14.2 yards per completion. McCarthy in 2022: 79.1 Total QBR, 65% completion rate, 13.1 yards per completion. He came up big in the last three games of the season (57% completion rate, but at 17.8 yards per completion). Was that a sign of things to come?