Tariq Boney came to Michigan with the kind of frame that turns heads, but his job was never going to be about the weight room numbers. He says he’s squatting somewhere around 590 pounds, at least according to what the Michigan staff has told him, though the exact figure isn’t really the point.
The Wolverines didn’t recruit him to be a powerlifting novelty. They brought him in to chase quarterbacks.
So far, he’s done enough to make that sound like a pretty good investment.
“I expect the best,” Boney told reporters Tuesday night. “I know that I will go in and put my best foot forward and just see what happens next.”
A four-star prospect out of high school and one of the top five recruits from Washington D.C., Boney entered the season facing a crowded path to snaps. Michigan’s edge room was stacked, with John Henry Daley, Dom Nichols, Cam Brandt, Nate Marshall, and fellow true freshman Carter Meadows all in the mix. For a first-year player, that’s a tough room to crack.
Boney has still found a way in. He has appeared in five games, starting with the UTEP game on Sep. 19, and has logged nine tackles along with the first two sacks of his career.
His size jumps out immediately, but so does the burst. He can explode off the line, beat blindside protectors, and wreck a play before it has a chance to settle into anything.
Boney points to Nichols and Daley as major reasons his game has moved forward.
“It’s been monumental,” Boney said. “Monumental to me because they’ve seen a lot of things, played a lot of snaps. I just learned from them and seeing them inside of the game.”
He also gave credit to Michigan defensive coordinator Jay Hill for helping speed up his learning curve.
“I’ve learned the most football I’ve ever learned in my life these last couple months,” Boney said. “And just him calling players for us and me seeing things differently.”
Hill’s scheme has helped put Boney in position to make plays. With an extra defensive back on the field, the coverage can disguise where pressure is coming from and leave a running back or scrambling quarterback exposed. In the traditional four-man front, double teams get split up, and that gives Boney cleaner paths to attack.
Whatever the mix is - size, scheme, or the veterans around him - Boney is making it work. A freshman who once might have expected to wait his turn is already earning real snaps in one of the country’s deepest pass-rush rotations. And if the way he’s trending is any indication, his role may only keep growing.
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