ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Saturday’s game against Michigan State marked the first for Michigan football in 2025 where it didn’t net an interception. Yes, the Wolverines opened up the game forcing a fumble, so it still managed to get a turnover, but interceptions, in particular, have been something of a staple for the Wolverines this season.
For the second straight game, junior cornerback Jyaire Hill had a ball thrown directly to him and he didn’t come up with the ball. Though in the moment, no harm, no foul, his position coach, LaMar Morgan, says that he needs to come up with those plays if he truly wants to be great.
“The thing with Sug is, I always tell guys the opportunities that you have to change the narrative and the rankings, accolades that you get, you got to catch the ones that they throw to you,” Morgan said. “Sometimes in a season, if you’re a corner or safety, you only get four or five opportunities where they actually throw the ball to you and you can get your hands on it. He has been fortunate this year, he has his hands on a lot of them. We just got to continue to work on catching them, right?
“So we’re doing jugs in the open field, doing them up close like the receivers. But we’ve been doing that a lot the last couple weeks — every day just trying to get focused of just seeing it through. But you’re right, he has a lot of opportunities. And that’s the difference between being a first-team All-American and just being an honorable mention to me. So you got to catch the ones because stats that they do — five Hail Marys and you catch all five Hail Marys at the end of the game, you still finish with five INTs in a year, right? There’s no asterisks of how many or how you got the INT. So this is something that we’re trying to work on as a unit, trying to get the ball back to our offense, especially across the 50. So they can have a short field. And I think if we do that one or two times a game, that there should be points with our offense.”
Even though the interception streak is done (Michigan was the only team to get a pick in each game up until Week 9 in all of college football), as noted, the Wolverines are exemplary in forcing turnovers in general. They’re eighth in the country in turnover margin, averaging 1.13 on the plus side per game, and 12th overall with 15 forced turnovers.
Morgan says that getting the football away from the opposing offense and back to theirs is one of the key staples that the coaching staff drills into the players, and it’s more than just the defensive backs who have been getting in on it.
“We always talk about the pillars here. And one of the ones is ball destruction,” Morgan said. “So we try to show the guys good and bad opportunities that they missed the ones that they did. And I just think takeaways and turnovers and all that is just contagious. Once a couple of them get in a game, usually we get two or three a game, not just one. But, I think the games that we do get turnovers, we have a great chance to at least give us an opportunity to win.
“But I just think every position group can get one, right? You know, the D-lineman — TJ with the one hand he had early in the year. Linebackers have done a heck of a job there. Safeties and stuff like that have been doing really well. But I do think in the secondary, we got to continue whenever we get our opportunities to come up with those.”
Hill had one interception last year, but has yet to record one this season. He is tied for the lead, with Zeke Berry, in pass breakups with five this season.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan DB coach LaMar Morgan urges Jyaire Hill, secondary to seize interception opportunities
Reporting by Isaiah Hole, Wolverines Wire / Wolverines Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
