Michigan football: How Donaven McCulley's quarterback experience shaped his wide receiver skillset

The Michigan Wolverines brought in their potential top wide receiver this season via the transfer portal in Donaven McCulley, who spent the last four years at Indiana. Entering the room as its most experienced and productive high-major player, expectations are high.

McCulley will be relied upon as a top target for freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood, assuming he wins the job this fall. Standing at 6-5, he addresses one of Michigan’s biggest needs as a jump-ball receiver in a system under new coordinator Chip Lindsey that should take some more shots down the field.

 ”Ann Arbor has been great,” McCulley told Jon Jansen on the In The Trenches podcast, hosted by Michigan Athletics. “Just a lot of work that comes with the game, and I’m loving it right now. I’m, I feel like I’m adapting pretty well. I had redshirted my senior year and  I’m a little familiar with his type of offense. I’ve seen a lot of his clips from his previous schools and things like that.

“It’s not really too much of a curve or anything. Just getting adapted to my environment. Just being out, like being away from home, it’s not too much of a jump. I’m just looking for a better opportunity here. Coach [Sherrone] Moore and Coach [Ron] Bellamy were great in the recruiting process, and that helped me decide on coming up to Michigan.”

McCulley enters Michigan with 66 career catches for 837 yards and 8 touchdowns. However, he started his career at quarterback for the Indiana Hoosiers. He always felt it was in the stars that he wound up playing wide receiver, though.

“In high school, I used to practice at receiver sometimes,” the Indianapolis native said. “My high school coach would let me practice receiver sometimes because he knew that I always wanted to play receiver. That was just my dream a little bit. But I was just really good at quarterback.

“And then after my freshman year [at Indiana], I decided to make the transition to receiver and it’s been smooth ever since… I grew up playing quarterback and that was just how I was raised. I wanted to be the quarterback, but as I got older, I started to grow a little more get taller and stuff. And I just noticed I had like really good hands and. That was just something that I really wanted to do was play receiver.”

McCulley says that his experience playing quarterback has helped his development as a wideout and honed his talents.

“It helped me a lot like with understanding where the quarterback wants me to be,” the Michigan wideout said. “Coming to college, I feel like I didn’t get to experience that next level of the quarterback position because I switched so early. But just playing it like really my whole life, I just kind of understand like how the quarterback’s gonna throw this football or where he’s gonna be looking like when he scrambles out or something like that. And I think that just kind of helps build chemistry.”

McCulley not only enters the Michigan program as a veteran wideout. He also brings natural leadership qualities that his coaches have raved about this offseason.

However, he felt he needed to come in and prove it before taking full ownership in the group.

 ”You can’t come in and just expect guys to listen to you,” McCulley said. “You gotta come in and prove yourself, make plays and just help them take the room to the next level. There’s other guys in the room that have helped me do that, and I’m helping them with certain parts of their game and stuff like that.

“ It’s been great. I think we’ve got a lot of dogs in there that people don’t really know about, and that’s what I’m excited about.”