Blake Countess, Michigan’s #2 cornerback, tore his ACL in the 1st quarter of the embarrassing game against Alabama (a game I’m not quite ready to talk about, but will have a write-up for later this week). The good news is that Countess will get a Medical Redshirt and will still have three years to play after this year. Unfortunately, this team now is without their best cover cornerback, a costly casualty to say the least.
Right now, I expect Courtney Avery (Junior) to come in and take over the #2 spot, opposite JT Floyd (Redshirt Senior). The only problem with this is the simple fact that Avery is not good in man coverage (to put it nicely), and is more of a zone coverage, nickel cornerback. His lack of man coverage ability, will mean that Raymon Taylor (Sophomore) will either get put into a starting role opposite Floyd so that Avery isn’t a liability, or it means that there will be more zone coverage defense. Unfortunately the latter is more likely; zone coverage defense will now be a mainstay, and maybe even the base strategy. The defense has just been significantly downgraded, and the secondary had been the most experienced group on the defense going into this season, and this is a huge hit. We all saw how well the zone defense worked against Alabama, and unfortunately there could be a lot of the same upcoming. That all being said, I trust Greg Mattison to come up with a good scheme each week and to get the defense put back together.
