Michigan Football 2012: Where Should the Wolverines Use Devin Gardner?

As spring practice is fully underway for most college football teams, this is the time for coaches to get a feel for who will play where and how many minutes they'll see in the upcoming season. Sometimes these decisions are a lot easier than others. And sometimes coaches spend the whole offseason trying to answer some of these questions.

The Michigan Wolverines don't have many questions entering spring, but one that really sticks out is the play of junior quarterback Devin Gardner. We know he's an extremely talented player, but finding out what position he'll end up playing is the hard part. 

"Every time you put together a plan, you got to find a way to factor him in to it somewhere," offensive coordinator Al Borges said. "I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. We’re always looking for opportunities to get him into the game in some way, shape or form, without breaking the rhythm of the quarterback.''

In Gardner's sophomore season, he once again saw limited action, throwing the ball just 23 times and rushing a total of 25 times. Now we know he's not going to play the quarterback position because the Wolverines have Denard Robinson, who's a serious Heisman candidate. He may not be the best passer in the world, but he makes things very difficult for the opposing defense with his running ability.

That means Gardner will have to get his minutes somewhere else, and the place that makes the most sense is at wide receiver. The junior from Detroit has the perfect mold for a wide receiver at 6'4", 210 pounds and runs like the wind. With his size, athleticism and running ability, he'll create mismatches for opposing secondaries and should be able to pick up chunks of yards after the catch.

He would also help fill in a need for the Wolverines' offense considering they just loss three wide receivers, and that doesn't include tight end Kevin Koger. The Wolverines ranked 93rd in the country last season in passing yards, and with the lack of weapons at the receiver position, on paper it doesn't look it'll get much better.

However, Gardner will likely not be used at wide receiver either. When Borges was asked about the experiment, his response: "Practices are closed for a reason."

So if he's not the starting quarterback and likely won't play wide receiver, where is he going to see playing time? He's seen limited action his first two seasons, and by the time Robinson graduates, he may only have one year of eligibility left to become the full-time starter at quarterback. (He's still trying to earn a fifth year of eligibility, but that's something he won't find out until next year, and it's up to the NCAA to decide.)

"We're doing what we did a year ago, pretty much," Borges said. "We're going to play the best 11 guys. Devin's a backup quarterback right now, he's No. 2 and we're going to do what we've got to do to get the best 11 on the field."

Gardner was a 5-star recruit for a reason—he has all of the talent in the world, and isn't exactly helping the team roaming the sidelines. Gardner should see more action this season, but the question still remains, where exactly?