Newsstand: Former U-M football player joins Ohio State out of transfer portal
The Michigan Wolverines lost linebacker Joey Velazquez to the transfer portal just before the Rose Bowl. Now, he is heading to the rival Ohio State Buckeyes. According to a photo posted Sunday night, Velazquez will be joining the program as a walk-on.
Velazquez, a Columbus, Ohio native, did not appear in a game this season for the Wolverines. During his Michigan career, he appeared in 20 games primarily as a special teams contributor. He was recruited to Ann Arbor to play the VIPER position in former coordinator Don Brown’s system. He was a three-star prospect and the No. 1,076 player in the country in the 2019 class, per the On3 Industry Ranking.
Velazquez was also a member of the Michigan baseball team that has the distinction of winning Big Ten Championships in each sport. Last season on the diamond, he appeared in 48 games with 38 starts, hitting four home runs with 36 hits on the year.
“We liked how versatile he was, and our first thought was how he was a better version of Jordan Glasgow from what we saw athletically,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said after he joined the program. “And Glasgow has made himself a heck of a special teams player and viper.
“Joey came to our camp and competed like the dickens, and was also at our Cincinnati satellite camp. He had a double-header in baseball that day, had the game-winning hit and came back to the camp and won the MVP of the defensive backs. I love two-sport athletes.”
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Michigan quote of the day
“I know some of the more scheme fanatics who follow me weren’t as enthused as I was, but I think it’s a home run, to be honest. The people who aren’t as excited about it are looking at it through the same lens that they looked at a lot of the other coaching hires. They said a lot of the same things about Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter, that they weren’t excited for … they come up with reasons why.
“To me, I was corrected that he was not the official architect of the defense, but in the Ravens and what they were running and how they were running it, he was the one who was running it, right? It was under his tutelage that Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter learned the version of the defense that they brought to Michigan to run. It’s funny, because I remember talking to [Chris] Balas about it a month ago like, who are they going to get? Both of us settled in on ‘Wink’ Martindale, but more as like a joke, like that would be hilarious and amazing, but we know that’s not going to happe. He’s an NFL guy who’s been around forever. There’s no way he lowers himself [by coming to Michigan]. You know how they think of themselves in NFL circles. No way he lowers himself to come back to college after not having been in college for 20 years.”
– WolverinesWire’s Isaiah Hole on Michigan hiring Wink Martindale as defensive coordinator
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