Michigan football: Eight players crack Senior Bowl watchlist ahead of 2022 season
Michigan football has a historic pedigree of cranking out professional football talent. The 2022 season figures to be no different with eight Wolverines catching the eye of the Senior Bowl ahead of the new year.
The Senior Bowl put out its watch list on Wednesday morning with college football set to get underway this weekend. Michigan is represented by wide receivers Ronnie Bell and Cornelius Johnson, tight ends Erick All and Luke Schoonmaker, offensive tackle Ryan Hayes, interior offensive lineman Olu Oluwatimi, defensive lineman Julius Welschof, EDGE Taylor Upshaw and defensive back Mike Sainristil.
The Senior Bowl is a week-long showcase event where prospects from across college football can work out and meet with NFL teams, unofficially kicking off the draft process for many. The players are divided into two teams and coached by NFL staffs of the bowl’s choosing. Last year, the Detroit Lions and New York Jets ran the week of practice.
There are great cases to be made for each of the Michigan players on the list, but a few stick out. Welschof has been mainly a rotational player in his career, but his back on the EDGE and has turned heads in fall camp. Sainristil switched to defensive back from wideout this offseason and the transition has been mostly seamless. Both are worth keeping a close eye on as pleasant 2022 surprises.
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler put out his initial top-50 board for the 2023 draft without a Michigan player on the list. It would not be a surprise to see a Wolverine or two crack it before the year is up given the rate it has sent players to the NFL. A Senior Bowl invite for any of the above players would do wonders for showcasing their skillset.
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Why Michigan players are popular Senior Bowl picks
Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy, a Michigan alum, heads the event and runs it like one would run an NFL front office. They have a full scouting staff that travels to games and gets to know prospective players. Nagy has seen a lot of football and gotten to know many up close. Even without his ties to Ann Arbor, he has been impressed with the type of men head coach Jim Harbaugh sends to the league.
“They are very mature guys. They’re grown-ups. And it’s not just because I’m a Michigan grad. All the guys in our office staff say the same thing,” Nagy said told SB Nation’s Maize n Brew in 2020. “The Michigan guys, and the Notre Dame guys, have been off the charts [in my time running the Senior Bowl]. We’ve had some of Ann Arbor’s finest. There are certain schools that when you get them down here, you realize the type of program they’re coming from.
“They’re responsive to texts [and] calls, easy to communicate with, on time for everything. And it just speaks to the program that they’ve built in Ann Arbor. And that’s why these guys have become good pros, because they hit the ground running. The NFL is very impatient. It used to be where you’d give a guy three or four years to kind of get his bearings and learn how to be a pro. You better come to the league knowing how to be a pro these days and these Michigan guys have all shown they can do that.”
Michigan sent two players to the Senior Bowl last year in running back Hassan Haskins and offensive lineman Andrew Stueber. Haskins pulled out due to an injury suffered in the Orange Bowl.
