Michigan loses sophomore linebacker to transfer portal
By John Buhler
Cornell Wheeler is leaving the Michigan football team by way of the transfer portal.
The Michigan football team has been decimated with linebackers leaving the program by way of the transfer portal with sophomore Cornell Wheeler making it three in the last six months.
Wheeler joins former teammates William Mohan and Osman Savage in their Michigan departures. Mohan followed former Michigan quarterback Joe Milton to Tennessee, while Savage decided to go the HBCU route and commit to Alabama A&M. With Wheeler now announcing he is leaving the program this week, the Wolverines are running out of time to get the middle of their defense right.
What is the reason behind so many former Michigan linebackers leaving the program this year?
Michigan football: LB Cornell Wheeler has decided to enter the transfer portal
The reason players like Mohan, Savage and now Wheeler have left Ann Arbor is because their former defensive coordinator Don Brown got fired after last season. Coaching up the linebacking corps was Brown’s strength. With Mike Macdonald coming over from the Baltimore Ravens, the Michigan defense could look totally different, even more so after Maurice Linguist left for Buffalo.
Wheelers is a former three-star recruit from West Bloomfield, Michigan. He had 12 official offers coming out of high school, including to Indiana, Iowa State, Kentucky and Michigan State. Because this will only be his sophomore year in school, he will have four years of eligibility since last year does not technically count. It will be interesting to see if Wheeler joins another Power 5 team.
The Michigan linebacker mass exodus is troubling, but does not come as much of a surprise here.
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