DJ Turner predicts two Michigan cornerbacks will break out, 'make some noise' in 2023
Michigan Wolverines football lost two starting cornerbacks to the NFL Draft in DJ Turner and Gemon Green, but between freshman All-American Will Johnson, now a sophomore, and other emerging players, the Maize and Blue appear to be in good enough hands at the position.
Johnson, a 6-foot-2, 194-pound former five-star recruit out of Detroit, is expected to take a leap this season.
“Big. I knew he would do it, though,” Turner said of Johnson impacting right away last season. “As soon as he got here, I was like, ‘You’re gonna play, so we’re gonna figure it out. Get the playbook. Do releases, all that.’ We knew. It wasn’t a surprise.”
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He’s Michigan’s only returning cornerback with starting experience, but senior Mike Sainristil, a former wideout who switched to defense and played nickel last season, can also see time on the outside.
“He was gonna do that last year,” Turner explained. “Me and Mikey were rotating between corner and nickel. It was working so well where we was going, it was like, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s exactly what we did. But the TCU game, we did a lot of rotating. I would go to nickel, he would go to nickel, safety. He was doing a whole bunch of other stuff. So it was definitely a plan.”
In that case, junior safety Rod Moore could move over to nickel. But Michigan has other cornerback options if it wants to keep Sainristil at the nickel spot he thrived in a year ago, when he logged 58 tackles, 6.5 stops for loss, 2 sacks, 1 interception and 8 pass breakups.
“Definitely [junior] Ja’Den McBurrows,” Turner said when asked which cornerback will “surprise people” this coming season. “I would say that. Freshman year, he got injured, but now he’s back. He rehabbed last year. He’s back this year. He’s definitely going to make some noise.
“He can do it all. He can play both corner and nickel, he has really good ball skills, aggressive, can tackle. He’s definitely somebody that I think is going to make a noise going into this year.”
McBurrows saw time in four games in 2021, registering 2 tackles and 1 pass breakup, before suffering a season-ending knee injury in November of that year. He got back healthy toward the end of the 2022 campaign but was re-injured by MSU players’ assaults after Michigan blew out the Spartans, 29-7.
Sophomore Amorion Walker came into the program as a wide receiver but took reps at cornerback, too, last season and is playing there full time this spring. Turner wasn’t surprised to hear of Walker’s move.
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“That’s going to be another one who makes some noise going into next year,” Turner said. “That’s another one that, I knew that, too. He was taking corner reps last year, so it wasn’t a surprise when they called me and said, ‘Yeah, we just moved Amorion.’ I was like, ‘Alright.’ It wasn’t like I was like, ‘What y’all doing?’ I knew that …
“He’s going to be another name that’s going to make some noise.”
Turner was Michigan’s fastest player last season, and proved it at the NFL Combine, when he ran a 4.26-second official 40-yard dash, the fourth-fastest in combine history. He says Walker is the speediest on the roster now.
“Maybe Amorion. Probably Amorion. Definitely,” Turner said with a smile.
DJ Turner called his shot at the combine
Turner’s phone was “on fire” after his 40-yard dash run at the NFL Combine. While he impressed the NFL world, the former Michigan cornerback wasn’t surprised. He had run faster during training, he said.
“I knew I was going to run what I ran, for sure,” Turner said.
He didn’t go through drills at the combine but did so at Michigan’s pro day. His performance back in Indianapolis boosted his draft stock.
“It definitely helped. There was talk that I was fast, but it was definitely good to broadcast that at the combine,” he said.
During last two seasons at Michigan, Turner often spoke highly about co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Steve Clinkscale. He’s reaping the benefits of playing under Clinkscale during meetings with NFL teams, too.
“So much,” Turner said of how Clinkscale helped prepare him for the pre-draft process. “A lot. All the interviews I’m having, drawing plays on the board and stuff like that, I’ve been on point, and it’s from him. A lot, honestly, with his knowledge of the game. It took it to another level.”
