Michigan Wolverines surprisingly in mix to land their next Will Johnson as official visits and his commitment date approaches
The Michigan Wolverines defense was not the problem when it came to the success of last season for Sherrone Moore and his staff in their first full year following Jim Harbaugh's departure. The offense was the nightmare. However, now that cornerback Will Johnson and the two first round defensive tackle prospects Mason Graham and Kenneth […]
The Michigan Wolverines defense was not the problem when it came to the success of last season for Sherrone Moore and his staff in their first full year following Jim Harbaugh's departure. The offense was the nightmare. However, now that cornerback Will Johnson and the two first round defensive tackle prospects Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant are gone there certainly may be questions in the near future on that side of the ball.
Coach Moore and his staff recognize this, but fully believe the defense will still be in a good spot this season. They're also pushing hard in recruiting to make sure the defense remains their strength. In fact, Michigan is surprisingly in the mix to land their next Will Johnson here soon if the official visit goes well.
Dorian Barney, Four Star CB Recruit
Dorian Barney is a ball-hawking four star cornerback who Michigan has been targeting for a year now and he's finally down to his top four schools with visits scheduled throughout the month of June. He announced this week that he's down to Michigan, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, and Penn State and will be making his commitment announcement on July 5th in partnership with 247Sports.
Michigan was quite late to the party in offering Barney, a player who has been a consensus four star for quite some time. Yet somehow the Wolverines find themselves in the mix here to actually shock the college football recruiting community and land him here in July.
This shouldn't shock people too much given how successful Michigan has been with sending defensive backs on to the NFL to be drafted (extremely early in most cases), but it's important to note that all of the finalists in on Barney offered and visited with him far before Michigan did. However, it seems the scales began to tip more towards the Wolverines following the spring visit in March.
Dorian Barney spent significant time with Georgia Tech as early as June of 2023 following what was an absolutely wildly productive freshman season where he snagged eight interceptions, defending several other passes too. Since then he's transferred, had plenty more success and has slowly been rising up recruiting rankings boards as one of the best cornerbacks in the nation with offers from most every major program around the country.
Hopefully Sherrone Moore can sell Barney on Michigan's cornerback development of ball hawks like him and seal the deal. The Wolverines have posted four NFL Drafts in a row with a defensive back selected inside the first 60 picks. They've also just recently developed two off-ball man coverage artists in Will Johnson and Mike Sainristil who fit well as stylistic comparisons to Barney (although the two played different roles at Michigan).
Barney will visit Michigan as his final visit on the weekend of June 20th and 21st, then make his commitment decision just two weeks later. If he commits to Michigan, that will lock down the secondary and get the Wolverines back on track for a top ten recruiting class in 2026.
We'll be back with more Michigan Wolverines coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
If you want to see why Dorian Barney is such a great comparable player to Will Johnson just check out some of the highlights from his junior season in the video below. He's a fun prospect to watch.
