Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Taylor Lewan — Offensive Line — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations

Posted at 7:45am — 5/30/2012

Michigan Football: Coach’s Corner — Taylor Lewan — Offensive Line — Wolverine’s Spring Football — GBMWolverine Evaluations

GBMWolverine Football Spring Evaluations: Position-by-Position — Player Profile.

GBMWolverine readers: Here is a brief overview of Taylor Lewan and GBMWolverine’s analysis concerning his progress this spring in our opinion.

Note: We will not evaluate every player on the team and with this position group (Offensive Line) we will not evaluate #61 Graham Glasgow and #70 Kristian Mateus. If you would like to chat about this player bring them up on the message board or send us an e-mail request.

Reminder: Also noted that we didn’t attend every practice and realize things happen during those fifteen practices, but our evaluations are based on what we seen first hand and in our opinion and not what we hear like just about every other site out there that relies on second, third hand information to make their evaluations of the players during the spring.

Losing from 2011 (Team #132) on scholarship: David Molk, Rocko Khoury, and Mark Huyge.

Coming in for 2012 (Team #133) on scholarship: Kyle Kalis, Blake Bars, Erik Magnuson, Ben Braden, and A.J. Williams (TE/OL).

Commit for 2013 (Team #134) on scholarship: Patrick Kugler, Logan Tuley-Tillman, David Dawson, Chris Fox, and Kyle Bosch.

Taylor Lewan
Height: 6’8
Weight: 302
Number: 77
Position: Left Tackle
Year: Red-shirt Junior
City/State: Scottsdale, Arizona
High School: Chaparral
High School Coach: Charlie Ragle

While some may argue, and that is all right, we hold the position that Taylor has the most talent among the current offensive linemen on the Michigan roster.

Taylor, a past athlete in other sports when smaller, moves very well for his size and has gained enough weight and strength to be a little more than just solid in the power running game.

Taylor excels in pass protection because of his long arms and quick feet.

However, the best part of his game, in GBMWolverine’s opinion, is the nasty edge he displays. Once in a while that edge has yielded some problems.

Continuing with the above thought, our staff would like to see Taylor show a bit more discipline and eliminate some of the costly and unnecessary personal foul penalties. This spring we observed the coaches clearly were not happy with Taylor’s mental aspect on the field. Several times throughout the spring he played the role of the “jokester” on the field when the coaches wanted him to be more serious and work on taking his game to the next level.

We believe the coaches see the dreaded “potential” tag in Taylor, and along with all the media talk about him being a high draft choice possibly next season; Taylor possibly being the next great offensive linemen at Michigan, especially wearing the #77 jersey. However, it may be correctly concluded that he needs to devote more time on and off the field and take this opportunity more seriously. Taylor is putting the time and effort in at an ordinary level. But to fulfill his potential and get to the next level, Taylor needs to understand the old adage “the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the extra.”

One instance, as stated back in the spring, occurred when Denard scrambled around and ran for about 40 yards (close to being a touchdown) the ref threw a flag on Taylor for holding and it happened to be right by the defensive players on the sidelines. The defenders were getting after Taylor about being called for a penalty and he started chirping back and going towards them. Let’s just say Coach Funk wasn’t very happy, yelling at Lewan several times to get back in the huddle. He finally did but was in there for one more snap before Coach Funk took him out and did not allow him back in for the remainder of the scrimmage.

Let us end with this thought: Taylor Lewan can be the next great lineman at Michigan. It may come down to luck or injury, but the biggest factor will probably be his work effort and intensity. He still can get bigger and stronger. And it is time to assume leadership and join the “get it club.”

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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