dawand jones

Previously: Quarterback, Running Backs, Receivers 

Welcome to Opponent Preview week! Next week is the real preview week of Michigan Football, but this week will be mostly about the opponents, as I've got four more The Enemy pieces lined up, and I believe we should have the conclusion to Opponent Watch as well. If you like reading about Michigan's opponents, this is the week for you.

We are now on to the offensive line, which is a little bit longer of a piece because there are more names to talk about. I provide the depth chart below each team, showing the starters and a couple reserves who may see the field or are of note. Ideally, these are the first up at guard or tackle. A quick note about the format: bold refers to a returning starter while italics refers to a starter at another school who has transferred in. For this piece, I lean heavily on PFF grades for the non-conference teams because traditional stats don't exist for OL and I didn't really watch any of these teams last year. Then we transition to using my own charting from FFFF last year once we get into the B1G slate. 

12. Connecticut 

The Huskies rank last on our list due to an offensive line that is in the process of being rebuilt without a ton of talent or experience. They do return two starters from last season, both of them at guard, and both posted solid PFF grades. However, we must point out a pretty important caveat with UCONN's PFF grades: PFF does not curve based on quality of opponent and the Huskies played a dreadful schedule last season, with 1/3 of the games being UMass, Holy Cross, Yale, and Vandy. So take both those scores with a grain of salt. UCONN imports a transfer center with plenty of experience, Jake Guidone, but he is coming from Dartmouth, which makes him not the most fit to block teams like Michigan. Canadian Chris Fortin slides in at RT after playing some last season, but he received poor marks in those outings, and Austrian LT Valentin Senn transfers in from Colorado, boasting little experience. 

This is a group with a couple decent returning players (but ones who were decent against a horrendous schedule), a transfer center from the Ivy League, and tackles with little experience and recruiting rankings outside the top 1,800 national players in their respective years. The depth doesn't offer much of anything to note either, so this is pretty much the same story for what UCONN has been in this series so far, an untalented positional group offering little experience or depth. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: OLs with fewer Ivy League transfers]

‘Tis the season for in-home visits and the subsequent flood of photos of coaches with their arms around recruits and their families to hit twitter. The coaching staff has spent a fair amount of time checking in on already-committed prospects—Jim McElwain visited phenomenal tweeter CA slot bug Giles Jackson, Al Washington had dinner with OH SDE Gabe Newburg, Jim Harbaugh and Don Brown visited the home of FL ATH George Johnson III, Sherron Moore checked in on OH TE Erick All Jr., and so on—while also jetting around the country to see a select few prospects that would fill out a class that, at 25 current commits, is close to full.

Tight ends coach Sherrone Moore went to Texas to visit TX WR Jaylen Ellis, who took a Michigan official in early September. Ellis has been committed to Baylor since summer 2017, has a crystal ball that is currently 100% Texas, and still plans to take official visits to Baylor, Houston, and Tennessee (he officially visited Arizona in late September). Crootin’! Ellis is coveted for his speed in a class that apparently lacks that. He runs a verified 4.59 40 but has been given the “plays faster than his time” scouting note, so he’ll be worth checking out at the All-American Bowl.

Jim Harbaugh and linebackers coach Al Washington visited the home of GA LB Kalen DeLoach yesterday. You may remember an earlier recruiting roundup in which his father more or less told Sam Webb that he asked Michigan to continue recruiting his son despite being verbally committed to Florida State; Webb said on The Michigan Insider’s recruiting roundup segment that DeLoach is thinking of decommitting from Florida State not because of their record this year but because they haven’t recruited him very hard post-verbal. Contrast that with Harbaugh, who visited DeLoach’s father and mother at work yesterday. DeLoach was a composite top-300 recruit when he pledged to Florida State, got a bit of a bump with his July verbal, got a nearly 50-spot preseason bump, and has hung just inside the top 250 since.

He may not be getting an in-home visit, but one seemingly out-of-nowhere flip candidate has set an official visit date. FL LB Anthony Solomon will take an official to Miami, the school to which he verbally committed in April, on December 7th before heading to Ann Arbor for a December 14th official. That’s good news if you’re a fan of the “he who goes last wins” theory of recruiting. This is something of a shock, as the last 11 events on Solomon’s 247 timeline are all Miami-related. 247’s Andrew Ivins checked in after Miami HC Mark Richt and DC Manny Diaz visited Solomon, and the sentiment seems to be that Solomon-to-Michigan has legs and that Solomon wants to get out of South Florida.

[Things get cloudy after THE JUMP]

This week saw the release of a new Top247 in which most of Michigan’s commits stayed near their prior ranking. There were two moves worth discussing, though, as GA OL Trente Jones (pictured above) shot up and CA RB Zach Charbonnet entered rarified, dangerous territory. Charbonnet moved up from #41 to #26 in 247’s rankings, which puts him six spots over the five-star threshold. Michigan’s recent history with five-star running backs is woeful enough that an Angry Michigan Five-Star Running Back-Hating God may have been invoked at some point, but how can you watch Charbonnet’s highlights and not give him a fifth star?

I also recommend watching this video for the runs at 3:05 and 3:27. There’s a very useful every-touch/block video that someone cut up from the second half of Charbonnet’s playoff game two weeks ago, and that shows that he’s a pretty good blocker as well.

247’s Greg Biggins wrote about Charbonnet in the aftermath of Oaks Christian’s playoff victory last weekend and there are so many pull quotes you should just read the whole article.

His ability to make something out of nothing, take a pounding but not flinch and look even stronger in the 4th quarter than he did in the 1st really makes him special. His game translates really well to the college level and there is no question he has the ability to see the field as soon as next year at Michigan.

Biggins goes on to say that Charbonnet should be considered one of the best backs to come out of Southern California in the last decade and will eventually play in the NFL barring injury, so that seems good. Whereas TN RB Eric Gray’s visit this weekend was probably necessary for Michigan to keep him in the class (more on that after the jump), Charbonnet’s visit be this Saturday is the opposite. Steve Lorenz notes that Charbonnet spoke with 247 a few weeks ago and said he wasn’t sure whether other schools were pursuing him because he doesn’t respond to his texts and doesn’t check his phone much these days.

Jones may not have ended up as high in the rankings as Charbonnet but he did jet up 266 spots (!), earning a fourth star in the process. He also is reportedly his high school’s highest-graded lineman this season, which is very much worth noting as he is teammates with #9 overall prospect Wanya Morris. You may remember Morris from last week’s roundup; he’s the player who was taken first overall in the UA All-America Game draft, one spot ahead of Charbonnet.

[Hit THE JUMP for the longest 2019 update in a while]