NFL Draft stock rising for Michigan football's Mike Morris, Eyabi Okie
Michigan football’s pass rush is starting to find its stride as we head toward the second half of the season. Senior Mike Morris and graduate Eyabi Okie are major reasons for that and are starting to draw the eyes of the NFL Draft community.
Each week, On3’s Matt Zenitz chats with Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy to discuss players that are drawing NFL Draft attention. This week, the pair of Wolverines got the nod for the way they have stepped up this season.
From Nagy:
Michigan faced a huge challenge this offseason having to replace the pass rush of Aidan Hutchinson, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and second-rounder David Ojabo. Two seniors are starting to emerge along the defensive line for the Wolverines – E Mike Morris and EDGE Eyabi Okie. Both had sacks in Saturday’s 31-10 road win at Indiana, and Morris added a key blocked field goal in the first half when the game was competitive. Morris, who has 7.0 TFL and 5.0 sacks this season, is a big (listed at 6-6, 292) edge player with nifty feet and a good closing burst for a man his size.
Okie is a more traditional-sized outsider linebacker (the school lists him at 6-5, 244), and has one of the best first steps we’ve seen in this draft class. He’s been extremely disruptive with 4.0 TFL and 2.5 sacks considering his low snap count so far this season. Both have been graded as “arrow-up” players by our Midwest scout. [Note: Okie used to be known as Eyabi Anoma and was a five-star signee in the 2018 class for Alabama.]
More on the Michigan EDGE rushers
Morris has been Michigan’s best defensive player this season, grading out as an 89.1 performer through the first 6 games of the season. He leads the Wolverines in quarterback pressures with 26 and has a team-high 6 sacks so far this season. Morris had not been on a ton of draft analyst radars coming into the year, but will continue to get a longer look with Michigan playing bigger games down the stretch.
Okie is an athletic and physical EDGE prospect that has flashed at times but just was not on the field consistently enough before last season at UT Martin. He did enough last season with the Skyhawks to warrant a shoutout from Pro Football Focus, who ranked him as the No. 10 EDGE rusher in next season’s draft class before transferring to Michigan. The Athletic’s Dane Bruger had a top-20 senior prospect grade on him at EDGE.
This season at Michigan, Okie has 11 quarterback pressures and 2 sacks. His playing time has increased over the last few weeks, playing in a season-high 32 snaps in the 31-10 win over Indiana in Week 6.
What’s next for U-M
Michigan’s game with Penn State kicks off at 12 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon with the broadcast set for FOX’s Big Noon Saturday coverage. It will be the 4th-consecutive game that the Wolverines play in the noon slot on the FOX broadcast. Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft will once again be on the television call.
