Previously: Podcast 11.0A, Podcast 11.0B, Podcast 11.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End.

Depth Chart

LT	Yr.	LG	Yr.	C	Yr.	RG	Yr.	RT	Yr.
Jon Runyan Jr	Sr.*	Ben Bredeson	Sr.	Cesar Ruiz	Jr.	Mike Onwenu	Sr.	Jalen Mayfield	Fr.*
Ryan Hayes	Fr.*	Chuck Filiaga	So.*	Stephen Spanellis	Jr.*	Andrew Vastardis	Jr.*	Joel Honigford	So.*
Trevor Keegan	Fr.	Karsen Barnhart	Fr.	Zach Carpenter	Fr.	Nolan Rumler	Fr.	Trente Jones	Fr.

Last year at this time this preview surveyed the evidence. The evidence was not encouraging in regards to one Jon Runyan Jr, projected starting left tackle:

I dunno, man. I want to believe but not even the talk is trying to make me, you know? How far can someone come in one year? Can they come from behind Nolan Ulizio and Juwann Bushell-Beatty to become an average Big Ten starter? It seems like the answer is no. But let's hope otherwise.

The one bit of hope offered was that the very messageboard takes about the coaching changeover were reality:

…what you're really banking on is an OL coaching transition from "Tim Drevno was actively sabotaging the program out of spite" to "Ed Warinner is a golden god."

A year later Drevno's OL recruiting class at USC looks like this…

…and Michigan has four returning starters who got some version of All Big Ten recognition. The coaches named Jon Runyan first-team all conference. There was no Drevno/Warinner take hot enough. The craziest, most spittle-flecked barbarian on the least moderated Michigan site on the internet did not bring sufficient Bayless to the table. We have liberated Seth's photoshop from the WR post, because it needs to go here:

​

There. There's the take. Hail Warinner.

[After the JUMP: please enjoy this tackles section that is 100% 90% upbeat]

LEFT TACKLE: GENETICS ARE A THING HUH

RATING: 4.

BIG ANALOGY ENERGY COMING UP [Bryan Fuller]

Not since various Marys rolled up on Jesus's tomb has there been a turnaround like that JON RUNYAN JR authored last year. As detailed above, everyone was panicked about the tackle situation going into the opener against Notre Dame. Every last fear was redeemed in what felt like a season-defining debacle. This space was more willing to defend Runyan than anyone else…

First let me stick up for Runyan a bit, who PFF charged with all three sacks. I do not think two of those are mostly his fault. Both are stunts where the guy looping around is coming from the nose tackle position. On both he has a choice between going and getting the looper and letting a DE slanting inside direct to the QB. … When Runyan actually had the option to pass his guy off on a stunt, he did.

…and he still ended up with 9 pass protection minuses—approximately 4.5 sacks worth—in one game. This was doubly dispiriting because Michigan's offensive approach was laser-focused on not involving the tackles in pass protection against ND's fearsome ends:

Michigan ran a ton of WR screens, quick game, and waggle stuff in a desperate bid to not involve their tackles whatsoever. By halftime I'd charted all of three plays on which Michigan risked enough of a dropback for me to rank protection as out of 2 instead of 1 or 0, and one of those was an 0/3 because multiple guys got pantsed. …when those tackles inevitably got called into action things went about as badly as the gameplan implied they would.

And then it was fine. Better than fine! Runyan improved, and improved, and improved. This led to a season-long UFR theme where I'd sidle up to a positive assertion about Runyan, box it in the ears, and run away. Post-Maryland:

This has a distinct aura of "too good to be true," but Maryland has a legit edge rusher and it's getting easier to believe that Notre Dame was a crazy outlier instead of the truth.

Michigan State and its #1 rush defense nationally rolled into town for a final exam. Runyan passed, and I couldn't quite admit it:

Is Jon Runyan Jr Legitimately Good?

…maybe? It's hard to put images from the first game out of mind. But if you were going just on this game, yes. Runyan survived better against Willekes than JBB and turned in some eye-opening blocks. He got a +3 on the long Higdon run because he not only drove a DT off the LOS on a double but when he popped off on a linebacker that block went one way in a hurry:

#75 LT

Higdon needs all of that room to break off the big run. The next play was a +2 as he got a jarring chip on a DT and then definitively won a linebacker block:

#75 LT to bottom of line

… The worst guy on MSU's front is a thousand times better than the guys Wisconsin was forced to throw out at DE and Runyan got a definitive win, with just one bad pass pro incident on a delayed blitz he didn't read. I am willing to offer a Legitimately Good to Runyan pending the results against Penn State.

After Penn State I had no choice. Just had to say it:

Jon Runyan Jr: legit good. The lack of passing didn't prevent Michigan from racking up 31 pass pro opportunities, 28 of which were positive. JBB has had some issues against guys like Willekes and is probably a half step behind. Runyan seems legitimately good, full stop.

He was. He is. After the dust cleared, Runyan landed on this list:

No B1G offensive tackle allowed a lower rate of pressure than Alaric Jackson. He is joined by teammate Tristan Wirfs, who is T4. pic.twitter.com/cHcUhhIdep

— PFF College (@PFF_College) August 20, 2019

What on Earth. Pass protection is the weakness.

Because on the ground Runyan is more or less Mason Cole. When Michigan did their combine thing a couple years back he dominated the OL portion of the awards, and that translated. Runyan is excellent at flanking DL, and he gets downfield. Sometimes on the same play:

LT #75

Here he pins a DL in for a long time on an end around and then he gets on his horse. Not relevant, but, yeah, Mason Cole in space:

LT #75

As we're about to see this has its limits, as it did with Cole. Big SDE types are hard for Runyan to move. On the other hand, Speed In Space might be a beautiful thing for him.

Runyan does have a hard cap on his upside. He's a guard. He's a guard who Bleacher Report's Matt Miller rates ahead of Bredeson on his 2020 draft list, so that's nice. He is playing tackle, and when he runs into elite rushers it is still less than ideal. Runyan recovered spectacularly from his 9 protection minuses in the opener, with just 5 over the next 10 games. Indiana, of all teams, started chiseling out some chinks in the armor:

He had 5 minuses in that game and 3 against both OSU and Florida. That's a giant improvement from ND; it's not shutting the door, and that's in a context where opponents are liable to point their best rushers at right tackle since that's the weak spot.

If Mayfield comes through quickly and attention gets shifted to Runyan's side he might backslide from his post-ND baseline. There are a ton of scary defensive ends on the schedule. RPOs will help, if there's just one potential weak point Michigan might be able to offer Runyan the TE chips that allowed JBB to survive for much of last season. I don't think Runyan's pass protection is going to be actively bad. Neither is it going to be a set-it-and-forget-it situation. Michigan will have to gameplan for certain deficiencies, sacrifice a bit because of them, and eat some untimely sacks.

Also worth considering are Runyan's issues against top competition. His run blocking was very swingy:

Opponent	+	-	TOT	Notes
Notre Dame	4	3	1	Could have been worse!
WMU	2.5	4	-1.5	Couple of -2s and clear right handed bias for run game.
SMU	6	1	5	Nothing spectacular but not much clearly his issue.
Nebraska	7.5	3	4.5	Consistently turned in the opposition.
Northwestern	3.5	6	-2.5	Gaz was a tough matchup.
Maryland	7.5	9.5	-2	Another tough outing against Cowart.
Wisconsin	9.5		9.5	So it continues like this.
MSU	13.5	4.5	9	Largely insulated from Willekes, who did TE work.
PSU	8	1	7	No pass pro minuses, legitimately good.
Rutgers	3	3	0	No pass pro minuses again. But that's everyone this week.
Indiana	17	1	16	5 pass pro minuses though? Still.
OSU	5.5	6	-0.5	3 pass pro minuses
Florida	3	4	-1	Also 3 pass pro minuses.
	90.5	46	66%

He hit our 2:1 positive ratio on the season but the bolded games were all mediocre to bad; these were also all the games in which Runyan got a top-notch run defender. (As noted above, MSU put Kenny Willekes to the other side of the line.) He crushed PSU's pass-oriented DEs, and Indiana, and a very injured Wisconsin, etc. He's yet to have a clear W against top echelon competition.

So: if you're not a top-flight pass rusher Runyan will stone you. If you're not a top-flight run defender Runyan will control you. If you're top flight in either of those you're probably going to come out with a split decision W. This is a thousand times better than anyone had any right to expect; it still looks like Michigan's left tackle situation tops out as a B.

One additional item: we've heard that Runyan has a minor issue that will hold him out of week one.

RIGHT TACKLE: THE FREY CAMEO PAYS OFF

RATING: 4.

In control [Bryan Fuller]

The lone open spot on the line was the subject of an intense, apparently dead-even battle between Andrew Stueber, a redshirt sophomore who started the last three games and did well for himself, and JALEN MAYFIELD [recruiting profile] a Greg Frey-recruited multi-sport athlete who immediately ascended to the #2 LT job last year. It was so even that Warinner told the assembled press that he was going to split right tackle snaps 60-40. Then Stueber injured his knee, leaving Mayfield the presumed starter.

Practice hype should be taken with a bit of a jaundiced eye, but in this situation all the arrows are pointing in the right direction. Stueber may have legitimately displaced Juwann Bushell-Beatty a year ago, and performed just fine for a redshirt freshman against some heavy hitters. Mayfield being neck-and-neck with that guy is only good news.

There's a difference between Johnny Sears talk, which is vaguely positive without many definitive statements, and the stuff that's been said about the tackle battle. A week into fall camp Gattis said "both guys are good enough to be a starter"; Runyan's repeatedly asserted "we think that up front we have six starters"; Rivals said "these guys are bringing out the best in each other". And then Harbaugh had the capper:

"[Mayfield's] in a battle, but it's so good — you like Steuber a lot, you like Mayfield a lot — if you ever had to put them both in at tackle … (Jon) Runyan’s an All-Big Ten tackle right now, but you wonder."

This is qualitatively different than hopeful talk. This is confident.

In Mayfield's case we also have a quick burst of optimism from last year, when he was supposed to be in a real battle to start, and the fact that most observers gave Mayfield the slight edge in his battle with Stueber. Both Lorenz ("Mayfield has shown major flashes of a potential difference maker") and Webb ("younger, more athletic, more explosive") thought Mayfield was a nose ahead and likely to maintain his lead.

If Mayfield works out he promises to be the first bonafide left tackle Michigan has had since Taylor Lewan. He doesn't have Lewan's end-engulfing stature, but he's got everything else. Runyan's scouting report on Mayfield is interesting:

"Jalen’s a quick twitch athletic guy. When he gets in a bad position, he can escape that using his feet and using his hands. He’s got good eyes. He’s put on a lot of weight this offseason, but you can’t really tell. He’s looking really good. It’s really that athleticism."

Harbaugh's take is similar:

"When I see No. 73 out there and I'm going through the tape, I just like watching him. I’m drawn to him. He's very athletic, and he's gotten stronger, but he moves just like a really good offensive tackle. Good athleticism, good balance, gotten stronger. I just like watching No. 73."

Both of those echo the takes from his recruiting profile:

...  athleticism is immediately evident in his first step.  ...frame is probably about as close to textbook as I've seen since I started doing this. He's athletic, long and most importantly is already pretty stout despite being 18-20 pounds lighter than he will be when he plays his college ball. …

...prototypical Greg Frey tackle. The first thing that stands out on film is how athletic he is. He's quick and so is his footwork; it also happens to be technically sound. His slide step in pass protection is excellent, as is his foot placement when drive or down blocking.

FWIW, the new redshirt rule allowed us a glimpse of Mayfield, and he duly put someone in a distant swimming pool:

So he's better than MAC backups. Check.

There are going to be hiccups with a redshirt freshman starter. In the history of this site only Lewan was able to be an instant dude at tackle, and it's likely Mayfield isn't quite the prospect he was. This site has been all about Mayfield since his commitment and has no plans to stop now: he should have a year that establishes him as one of the biggest rising stars in the league.

BACKUPS

enhealthen this man [Patrick Barron]

Injury now relegates ANDREW STUEBER [recruiting profile] to this section. To be perfectly honest I'd written this up before Harbaugh announced Stueber was done for the year with an ACL tear. I guess you can skip it now, but it does retain some relevance since this is the guy Mayfield was a hair in front of. Also this is going to be a sweet copy and paste directly into next year's preview. Hashtag #efficiency.

Stueber was on a pretty good track himself last year, getting parts of the MSU and Indiana games and starting against OSU and Florida. Seth UFR charted those two games for HTTV purposes. This is a rough, rough sample featuring Jachai Polite, Chase Young, and Kenny Willekes. Also Indiana.

Stueber acquitted himself well in that context, grading out with +19.5 and –12.5 on the ground; that's a 61%, slightly below our desired 2:1 ratio. For a redshirt freshman thrown in at the deep end that's a good start. He did take some Ls in pass protection, with a total of 12 pass pro minuses in his ~3 games worth of snaps. That'll happen against the murder's row above.

Stueber showed a potentially excellent combination of power and smarts in his cameo. He helped seal the MSU game by doing some work against Raequan Williams:

RT #71

This was similarly mansome at the tail end of that game (although the opponent here is 250-pound redshirt freshman DE Jack Camper, not one of the best DTs in the country):

RT #71

When Bushell-Beatty went out of the Indiana game, Stueber came in again. He immediately displayed an ability to read defenses and adjust; here he posts up on a DE and then shoves him out of the way when IU's LB reveals they're exchanging:

RT #71

Stueber keeps his feet moving, finishes his blocks, and has the nastiness everyone except me places a giant premium on:

I place a moderate-to-low premium on nastiness, but it's nice to have. After the Indiana game I was ready to declare him Just Fine:

If Andrew Stueber's the right tackle next year it'll be fine. He did not look out of place. He flashed some advanced understanding and the proverbial nasty streak. Still a long way to go; by midseason 2019 I'd be he's just another mean ol' Michigan OL.

Events since are generally positive for Stueber, who everyone talks about as a player, but reading between the tea leaves may indicate a slightly lower than ideal ceiling. Webb's asserted a couple times that Stueber was "more steady" during spring, and then there's all the stuff above about Mayfield being explosive, mobile, athletic, etc. This is in contrast to someone: Stueber. He's clearly going to be a player and probably a long-term starter, but he might be the right tackle while Mayfield plays on the left. He might even bump inside if one of the other tackles—Hayes, probably—blows up next year. Webb broached that, asserting that Stueber is "he’s nothing if not consistent in his preparation and is said to be very assignment sound".

A year of rehab and Stueber probably steps into the starting lineup somewhere.

Hayes is big but still slender [Patrick Barron]

Stueber's absence makes the top tackle backup RYAN HAYES [recruiting profile]. Hayes was also a Greg Frey recruit with all that entails. Per the latest roster he's filled out to 299 and is now plausible. Runyan Jr in the aftermath of the Stueber injury:

"Ryan is working both sides," Runyan Jr. said. "He'll be the next guy if anything happens on the outside. Ryan is working left and right (tackle) and he's doing a good job. He's put on some weight as well. I'm trying to groom him and I'm shoving food down his throat because he needs to add more (weight)."

This is not ideal. Hayes was regarded as a project, for obvious reasons, and wasn't in the right tackle battle for a reason. He's tracking well, and word from inside the program is positive… but it's positive about next year. 247 ("staff loves [him] … probably one more year away"), Rivals ("going to be a good one … still a year away"), and your author ("much bigger … still not big enough … on track to contend in 2020") are all of one mind.

Public statements from the coaches are a little more optimistic about the here and now. Harbaugh said he's "really finishing and playing athletic" on Attack Each Day. Warinner provided some more detail:

[Hayes's] strength is better, his explosion. Pad level he’s playing with. He’s much more aggressive. And his details have been good. He’s doing some things you wouldn’t expect a freshman to do in terms of understanding schemes.”

This site is extremely high on 6'7" tight ends who zoom up to 300 pounds in year two and expects Hayes to be a real contender next year; he should get a lot of garbage time snaps to help that transition.

Michigan moved JOEL HONIGFORD [recruiting profile] out to tackle in the aftermath of the Stueber injury, which makes sense since the freshmen most ready for action are on the interior. Honigford did feature in a couple clips from garbage time against WMU, when he and James Hudson (…sigh) wrecked some MAC reserves: 

The McCaffrey-led TD drive did most of its work behind the right side of the line, where James Hudson and Joel Honigford did good work. Wilson's first chunk run was mostly those two guys getting blasting single blocks:

#59 RG and #55 RT

A little bit later the gap is again between those guys, with Honigford reading the play in front of him and popping off on a charging LB effectively:

#59 RG and #55 RT

…Honigford hasn't generated word one from practice chatterers, though, so that's more meaningful for him. If he'd done that in a spring game against the second string people would have been saying his name all offseason.

Honigford still hasn't generated much talk from inside the program but he was the only interior backup to do anything I noted in UFR last year. One somewhat concerning note: Honigford's listed at 284 on the roster, down 11 pounds from last year. "OL under 300 loses weight" is one of the only unambiguously negative takeaways from the phonebooks. After the freshman class packed on MEGABEEF between high school and the fall roster, Honigford is now Michigan's lightest OL. Mitigating factor: he did have mono at some point over the last year or so.

The move was occasion for Warinner to address Honigford in some detail:

"Joel has only been there a couple of days but he's looking real comfortable. That may be a better position for him. A year ago when I first got here I tried him out there, he struggled in the pass protection. Now, he's over a year working that and some of his fundamentals we were able to develop with him, he's really looked good out there in terms of that. That was the piece that kept him from playing tackle a year ago. Now, I feel real comfortable in his pass protection, he knows what's going on and I think it's going to be a good move for him."

Runyan also said "he's an athletic guy, so there's no doubt that he can [play tackle]." I'd be real nervous about putting out a Cole Chewins should it come to that.

Barnhart can get you some paw paws [Isaiah Hole]

After that it's true freshmen. This is fine for spots 5 through N on the depth chart. TREVOR KEEGAN [recruiting profile] and TRENTE JONES [recruiting profile] are true tackle prospects; KARSEN BARNHART [recruiting profile] is more of a swing guy. All are mid-to-high four stars with encouraging notes speckled throughout their profiles. Jones and Barnhart shot up over the course of the recruiting cycle; Keegan was a high profile target of OSU and Georgia, amongst others. All will redshirt unless the walls cave in, and huzzah for that.

For what it's worth, early returns on these gents are uniformly positive, particularly for Jones and Barnhart. Webb asserted that he's heard the most about Jones, as "his athleticism is everything they thought it would be," but Barnhart "looks like he'll be the best of the bunch" after he added a bunch of weight without sacrificing his mobility. Barnhart's going to take a minute since he played tight end in a wing T for a tiny high school; Jones could be up for a battle as soon as next year.