WR Andrew Marsh: Expect a More High-Powered Michigan O Under Kyle Whittingham

Andrew Marsh committed to Michigan before Bryce Underwood did, and then went to work on the part of the plan he could actually influence.

"It's kind of funny. I really committed before he was ever committed," Marsh told Rich. "But I always knew he liked it here. So that was kind of one thing I tried to focus on after I committed, was making sure we had a good quarterback."

That is a bold sentence from a receiver who was still a high schooler in Katy, Texas. It also worked. Underwood had been talking about LSU and had gone there before coming home.

"I definitely talked to him, for sure," Marsh said. "Definitely let him know like I'm one of them guys that's going to be here. And I'm really looking forward to just what we could build."

Coming off one of the best freshman receiving seasons Michigan has ever had, Marsh is not interested in reliving it. "Just grinding," he said of his approach to this year. "Just being able to come in and work every day, focus on the task at hand."

The Houston-to-Ann-Arbor pipeline is not a well-worn one, and Marsh admitted he is not entirely sure how it happened. What sold him was the part of the pitch that had nothing to do with football. The community here, he said, "really just opened my eyes to life after ball and all the possibilities outside of football."

He was thinking about that at 17, which is unusual, and he credits his mother for it. Marsh lost his father to cancer when he was seven. His mom hauled him to camps and events and made sure he had what he needed, under a division of labor she made explicit.

"One thing she always said is, you take care of the on the field stuff and I'll take care of the off the field stuff," Marsh said. "So I feel like it's worked out pretty well."

The specifics of his development this offseason are the boring, correct ones. Bigger, stronger, faster, plus more separation, cleaner routes, a wider route tree, and better releases off the line. He studies DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Davante Adams and Justin Jefferson.

Rich, who spent years around Hopkins through the NFL Network, made the case that nobody has ever been better at knowing where his feet are on a sideline catch. Marsh raised it.

"Guys always told me like, oh, one foot is good in college," he said. "But even as a high schooler, I always said, NFL is the goal, so being able to get two feet down all the time is really the goal."

What Michigan fans will want most is his read on the new offense, and Marsh did not do the polite non-answer.

"I feel like it's going to be open. It's going to be explosive," he said. "Guys will be flying around the field and really kind of just have more freedom throughout the offense."

Pressed for what that means compared to last year, he got specific. More ball in the air. More guys touching it. And, he argued, a run game that benefits from all of it.

He never seriously considered leaving when Coach Moore was out. Some guys had to do what was best for them, Marsh said, but the players who stayed wanted the same thing. "We really wanted to keep the team together," he said. "Keeping the tradition the same."

On the new running back joining him, Marsh was short and enthusiastic about Savion Hiter. "He can run the ball. He runs physical. He runs hard. He's a real Big Ten running back."

And on Rich's report that Whittingham had said from that same chair, roughly ten minutes earlier, that Underwood is the guy, Marsh did not blink.

"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "Everybody can see the work that he puts in."