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Michigan football elevates EDGE Josaiah Stewart to captain

clayton-sayfieby:Clayton Sayfie•10/14/24•

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Josaiah Stewart
Michigan Wolverines football EDGE Josaiah Stewart registered a sack at Washington. (Photo by Lon Horwedel / TheWolverine.com)

Michigan Wolverines football elected four captains and two alternates before the season but has made a change. Senior EDGE Josaiah Stewart was voted an alternate captain along with graduate running back Kalel Mullings, but head coach Sherrone Moore has elevated him to be the team’s fifth captain.

Stewart joins senior running back Donovan Edwards, senior fullback / tight end Max Bredeson, senior safety Rod Moore and graduate safety Makari Paige.

Moore said that Michigan’s captains played a key role during the bye last week, helping the coach identify and correct issues.

“The cool thing I see, especially in this bye week, is just watching guys not attack people but attack problems,” Moore said on the ‘Inside Michigan Football’ radio show. “Anything that they see, they point it out. I meet with the captains every week, and there are different things that they’re not afraid to acknowledge, things that are going on. It’s really cool to have a bunch of guys that are leaders on your team. 

“We took the captains to one more. We added Josaiah Stewart as a captain. A guy that we think that, one, is a senior that has really done everything the right way. He plays as good as anybody in the country, but does it all with extreme energy. He’s just such a leader and such a voice, and I want him to use it.”

Moore described the Michigan EDGE’s reaction to being named captain.

“He was pretty surprised, kinda shocked but super happy and excited for the opportunity to be a voice on the team,” Moore said. “And he deserves it.”

Stewart is the FBS’ active leader with 26.5 career sacks. He’s currently tied atop the Big Ten with 5 sacks this season, despite missing a game due to injury. He’s added 8.5 tackles for loss and 18 total tackles.

Stewart rising to captainship at Michigan is particularly impressive since this is only his second year with the program. The 6-foot-1, 245-pounder spent his first two seasons with Coastal Carolina, where he appeared in 24 games with 17 starts and totaled 25.5 tackles for loss and 16 sacks.

Michigan’s defense is allowing 22.3 points per game, which ranks tied 56th in the country. Moore has lamented his team’s tackling, issues that have stemmed from not taking the best angles, and said it was a focus of he and the staff to identify and correct during the bye week. With improvement in that area, the Michigan coach believes the Wolverines can limit big plays from opponents.

“The biggest thing we took away was angles and pursuit of the football,” Moore said of the self scout. “We gotta be better at tackling in space. We gotta be better at just tackling, period. And I think our staff did a really good job of attacking those little details in the off week. 

“The big thing for me: I went around and self-evaluated me, evaluated the coaches, the players. You look at the defense, and it’s not a scheme, it’s not this — it’s really all the little things. And you look at those big plays, it’s really just eyes, it’s hand placement, it’s angles.

“And you do those things, you eliminate them. Now, people are going to make plays because they always do, but for us to eliminate those explosives and eliminate those things that can hurt our defense.”

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