'Those guys are part of the game plan': Expect to see more of these two Michigan freshman defenders

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Two new faces saw time on defense in Michigan Wolverines football‘s 21-7 loss to Illinois last Saturday. Both safety Mason Curtis and cornerback Jo’Ziah Edmond — freshman defensive backs — made their debuts on defense, after seeing some time on special teams earlier in the season.

Curtis, a 6-foot-5, 200-pounder who joined the program as a linebacker before moving back to the defensive backfield, saw time early and throughout the game. He logged 22 defensive snaps, the 15th-most on the team, and made 2 tackles.

Edmond, meanwhile, saw six defensive snaps later on in the outing. Michigan was shorthanded at cornerback without junior Will Johnson, who left in the first quarter with an apparent toe injury. Graduate Aamir Hall and sophomore Jyaire Hill took the bulk of the snaps at the position.

“Really for us, if you get on the bus, you have to be ready to play — or you get on the plane,” defensive backs coach LaMar Morgan said. “Those guys, we’ve talked about them as really good young players. Just trying to work them in to try to continue to have this long stretch of a season. There are a lot of injuries that happen in college football — I know y’all follow it all over the place — it happens.

“Those guys get a lot of reps at practice, and I thought it was really good for those guys to be able to get in the game in a conference game on the road. Trying to get their feet wet.

“Mason and both of them have been playing special teams, but that was the first game that those guys played on defense, and I thought they did a good job. We just gotta continue to get them better at practice. They’re both smart kids, they both want to be right, they just gotta get experience.”

Edmond and Curtis have both participated in three contests, meaning they can compete in one more in the regular season without burning their redshirts. From the sounds of it, though, Michigan is willing to lose the redshirts because of how impressive the duo has been.

Morgan was pleased with what he saw from the two Michigan freshmen, and he believes they’ll see more time going forward.

“True freshmen, best conference in the world, Saturday night — it’s a lot of pressure on those guys to want to perform, and I thought they did a good job,” Morgan remarked. “But moving forward, of course those guys are a part of the game plan. They’re getting tons of reps. We roll a lot of guys at practice, try to roll a lot of guys in the games but I’m excited about those two guys.”

Morgan was asked if there’s been a clear directive to the younger Michigan players that competition is open and opportunities are there for the taking.

“I wouldn’t say it’s clear that way, I just think here all of our best players here play young,” Morgan said. “Will Johnson played young, [senior safety] Rod Moore played young, Makari Paige played young. 

“Will didn’t start his first game as a true freshman. That’s the progression of a program: When you have a lot of really good players, you have some young guys that are going to continue to get better throughout the course of a year.

“I think it’s different when you go to a place like Michigan, just getting a feel for how everything is with academics, with school, winning and losing and just trying to figure all of those different things out. It’s a little bit of a process for young guys.

“If you’re a young player here and you come as a true freshman and you start the very first game, I think that kid’s really special. I don’t know the stats with that, but think of a guy that started their very first year in the secondary, the very first game.”

Michigan communications director Dave Ablauf chimed in that even Charles Woodson — the only primarily defensive player to win the Heisman Memorial Trophy — didn’t start his first game as a freshman.

“I would say he’s the best DB that’s probably ever played in college football, and you saw what he did in the pros,” Morgan continued. “It’s just a progression you have at that position, especially now when you’ve got guys in fifth and sixth and seventh years playing. You talk about an 18-year-old going against a 22-year-old, sometimes in previous years those guys would be in the NFL already.”