Michigan Football: What we learned about the offensive line this spring

Michigan football has won back-to-back Big Ten championships in large part due to elite offensive line play. Wil that continue in 2023? 

The past two seasons for Michigan football have been a return to the glory days. The Wolverines finally found a formula for beating Ohio State and winning the Big Ten.

It wasn’t speed-in-space that did it either. It was old-fashioned bully ball and no one has been better at it than Michigan football the past two seasons.

The Joe Moore Award has gone to Michigan for the past two years and there’s reason to think the Wolverines can be a contender once again in 2023.

Yes, losing Ryan Hayes and Olu Oluwatimi is going to hurt this offense but those are the only two starters gone and they have solid replacements from the transfer portal in LaDarius Henderson and also Drake Nugent, a former starting center at Stanford.

Henderson started at multiple spots for Arizona State. Michigan football also added Myles Hinton, adding three starting-caliber transfers to a room that was still loaded.

So what did it all look like this spring and what did we learn about the offensive line? We break it down.

What we learned about Michigan football O-line this spring

Michigan football has a bunch of guys capable of being starters, that’s one thing that we learned. Nugent and Henderson weren’t able to take part in spring ball due to injuries but both are expected to be fully in the mix for starting jobs next season.

Henderson still feels like he’s going to be the guy at left tackle. Raheem Anderson isn’t going to make it easy for Nugent to win the starting center job and Anderson is probably already one of the best centers in the Big Ten. That’s how good U-M is up front.

Zak Zinter, Karsen Barnhart, and Trevor Keegan are each coming back. But other names such as Greg Crippen, Giovanni El-Hadi, Hinton, and Jeff Persi all have played like starters when they have gotten the opportunity. Trente Jones has too.

So in terms of the offensive line, it might be the deepest position on the team. Michigan football’s second starting five would easily be one of the best units in the Big Ten and in terms of starting-caliber players, I firmly believe that number will be in the double-digits come this fall.