Previously: Podcast 14.0A, 14.0B, 14.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Offensive Tackle.

LT	Yr.	LG	Yr.	C	Yr.	RG	Yr.	RT	Yr.
Ryan Hayes	Jr**	Trevor Keegan	So**	Olu Oluwatimi	Sr**	Zak Zinter	So*	Trente Jones	So**
Jeffrey Persi	Fr**	Reece Atteberry	So*	Greg Crippen	So	Gio El-Hadi	Fr*	Karsen Barnhart	So**
Tristan Bounds	Fr*	Alessandro Lorenzetti	Fr	Raheem Anderson	Fr*	Connor Jones	Fr	Andrew Gentry	Fr

The Joe Moore Award was started in 2015 by some Notre Dame OL with money who wanted to honor their old line coach. Mike DeBord's career spanned roughly the same time period as Joe Moore's, and by any metric was as successful. Had Jeff Backus thought to endow an award before former ND tackle Aaron Taylor, it might have been the Mike DeBord Award.

This would have been a superior development. It rhymes, for one. Two, I wouldn't have to keep specifying first names when differentiating between the line coach the award is named for, and the line coach whose guys won the award in his first-ever season as line coach.

Since nobody has the time to chart every OL, the award for most outstanding offensive line is as much about vibe as anything else. Eleven games into 2021, I would bet Michigan wasn't in the Might Have Been DeBord Award committee's top three. Eleven point seven-five games into 2021, this was the vibe:

Michigan should not pass the ball anymore.

— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) November 27, 2021

(But in a good way)

The two Michigan guards putting tears in the eyes of gruff former trenchmen who say "football" like "FOOT-ball" were just 2nd and 3rd year players with freshman eligibility. They lost an organized, underratedly agile walk-on but are joined by a transfer the Rimington voters thought was no worse than the 3rd best in college football. Our heuristics would be projecting a healthy charge up the rankings and hot-taking Moore's corps to win the Moore if they hadn't just done so.

The comparisons to 2000 and 2019 have already begun. The next generation has made the two-deep. The biggest questions people have about the interior OL are "How long can it last?" and "Can we buy them all Italian sports cars so they'll never leave?"

Michigan OL Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter sign a Lamborghini NIL deal with Xtremexperience. @bighitslive @DenoteHunter @DzikNoah pic.twitter.com/vGzgtwxHRq

— Bighitsnil (@Bighitsnil) May 23, 2022

Okay then, so how long can it last?

---------------------

CENTER: A GROWN ASS MAN

RATING: 4.5

Watch me. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

If we've learned anything from Brian's decade-plus (and my many fewer) years of charting football, it's that a center who can set a good protection is absolutely crucial to an effective offense. The Joe Moore Award agrees:

This is a thing of beauty. Watch the communication:
C => LG => C => RG => RB. #Teamwork pic.twitter.com/GbQYCBLX0Z

— Joe Moore Award (@JoeMooreAward) March 16, 2022

Michigan only had three games last year with more than four minuses handed out under "TEAM." Indiana builds their defense around pressure from weird places. Ohio State spent all year coming up with blitzes for The Game. Georgia had a generational defense and Michigan spent most of that game in comeback mode. Andrew Vastardis was agile and sometimes graded out in star range, but the reason he's appreciated around these parts is because Michigan quarterbacks rarely had to deal with a guy unblocked.

Because these protection calls are program-specific and take so long to get down against all the myriad looks a season can throw at you, transfer centers rarely work out. Of course, nobody's ever tried bringing in a Rimington candidate before.

OLU OLUWATIMI [transfer profile] checks every box my bolded distrustful-of-OL-transfers mind can come up with. He was one of three Rimington finalists last year while starting the latest 12 of 36 career starts (32 of them in a row) for the Virginia Cavaliers. All three years he started he made all-ACC. Michigan's competition for his services was Clemson, who as a program rule never offers transfers. Ranking transfers is something the recruiting industry isn't sure how to do yet, but those in the game never failed to leave out Olu:

Rivals' Mike Farrell had Oluwatimi the 2nd best OL transfer of the year, after UF's O'Cyrus Torrence out of Louisiana-Lafayette, but behind Notre Dame's Jarrett Patterson and Wisconsin's Joe Tippmann for #1 center. 24/7's Clint Buckley had Oluwatimi the 2nd biggest transfer pickup in the Big Ten after the edge defender Nebraska got from TCU. He was an 80 overall to Pro Football Focus, the second-highest center grade after Linderbaum.

People around Michigan were already saying Olu's the best player on the offense by the end of spring, his battles with Mazi Smith drawing a crowd. The hype picked right up again in fall. Balas said Michigan hasn't had a center this strong since Ruiz($). Alex Drain was getting frustrated that they couldn't talk about something else in the insider bits until the insiders started slipping out fun words:

If you want to hear good things about Michigan's new center Olu Oluwatimi, this section is for you. The reports remain uniformly positive on the transfer center, not just that he is a good football player but that he is very well respected among his teammates and is already a leader on the team ($). The program seems to believe that Oluwatimi could be an NFL Draft candidate in the same territory that Cesar Ruiz was once the season is over(!). The Sam Webb piece linked two sentences prior has a collection of words being used to describe Oluwatimi inside the program. I won't give you all for paywall reasons, but one is "he’s a grown ass man that handles his business like a grown ass man", which is too good to pass up.

So, okay, but can he set a pass protection? Well, Oluwatimi has set more of them, against more crazy looks, than anyone else in college football. Virginia under Bronco Mendenhall led the nation in pass rate on standard downs, and a sizeable portion of their runs are from quarterbacks who weren't recruiting for it, meaning scrambles. You can watch an every-snap video from last year to see it for yourself:

That offense finished 3rd in yards per game, 5th in SP+, 6th in success rate, and 3rd in passing down success rate. If anybody can set a protection in college football, Olu Oluwatimi can.

So, okay, but can he set a Michigan pass protection? Here we have to trust the program, but just about everyone who's seen Michigan this offseason came away with praise for Olu. This started at the beginning of spring. I had at least one inside talking crazy in my ear, saying Oluwatimi was already better after 5 weeks than Vastardis after 5 years. Harbaugh was also talking crazy:

At center, Crippen, Olu look to be extremely good. First impressions of Olu, just hasn’t missed a beat. Came in and hit the ground running like he’s been here for three or four years. Very good leadership, very mature guy, very strong guy. Great addition would be the first impression there.

So, okay, why isn't he in the League already smartass? According to Oluwatimi (via Jansen's podcast) the reason has to do with scouts not seeing enough on his film.

“I got my draft grades back and my feedback from the league, and I was getting day three grades and undrafted … So, I was like, 'I’m going to use my last year of eligibility to work on what the league says I need to work on.' …

Oluwatimi seemed to be looking for a new challenge, one in which he could showcase his run blocking ability. The U-M coaches will ask him to pull, drive block and more, and he’ll have an opportunity to put more on film for NFL scouts.

PFF scored him highly—but too many scrambles throws their system for a loop. Michigan's a pretty good run blocking film school, or so I've heard. I point again to the recruiting profile:

He's boxy, and gets low when digging guys out:

And the rare pulls went well; he's been coached to keep his shoulders square downfield and use his feet to get to his target. I didn't get to see much stretch zone—I don't think Virginia does that much—but the one time they tried it Oluwatimi managed to stick with his DT (recent transfer to Minnesota Darnell Jeffries) and take him down when his feet could no longer keep up:

Most opponents gave him the Tyler Linderbaum treatment (IE let him release to a LB and attack his buddies). Please try that on Zak Zinter. Unfortunately the one bit of evidence we didn't get was a dominant spring game. In fact Olu picked up a holding call and an early –2 against true freshman Mason Graham:

The maize team didn't pick up any protection busts, but it's not like this was the time to get weird.

That one play is set against a mountain of hype (also Graham might be pretty good). My practiced ear ignored similar talk from Michigan State last year about their transfer RB. Without going into Heisman talk, it's not that much of a stretch to think Oluwatimi could be Vastardis's equal in organization, and a substantial upgrade in the run game, and those things together should equal another Rimington finalist season followed by a 1st round selection. The transfer part means the floor is lower, hence 4.5 instead of 5, but that's mostly hedging.

BACKUP

If Mendenhall hadn't suddenly retired, Michigan seemed comfortable going into the season with true sophomore GREG CRIPPEN [recruiting profile] and Harbaugh made it clear that an injury to Olu would draw in the backup (as opposed to Zinter moving over). Michigan actually burned Crippen's redshirt last year to prepare for the eventuality, so in our weird universe he has the same eligibility now as Cade McNamara and Trevor Keegan.

Fortunately Crippen took a lot of AP center in high school, starting there for IMG Academy for two years against a schedule of similarly semi-collegiate teams. He was committed to Notre Dame at one point, but they may have backed off when they determined he wasn't ferocious enough to be a guard. The scouting on him was tepid on all things except "is center doing center things."

Brandon Huffman:

A natural center. Decently flexible, at times looks like he's bending at the waist but then shows more knee bend. Looks for contact and where he can deliver a punch.

Brian Dohn:

To me, first of all, he's a center. I think when you look at his body type, his length, and everything, he’s a center. You want a guy who's a smart guy. He can stay low and explode. … given his football IQ, his intelligence, and just the physical aspect, I like him most at center.

Michigan recruited Crippen for his center qualities, and immediately had him playing second team behind Vastardis. Zinter mentioned Greg Crippen as the early enrollee impressing him on the line:

Greg Crippen is standing out a bit. He’s going to have a very bright future in front of him. He’s very smart at the game, wants to learn, has a strong drive. He’s going to be a good player.”

The sum of his charting was +4.5 against Washington and NIU, whence he caught a blitz Graham Glasgow-style:

Crippen also got a Ruiz-style block on two defenders in his first collegiate game.

Spring takes are useless because Crippen spent it playing guard with a club on his snapping hand. His only chartable moment was getting the wrong edge on a pull to create the play where Mullings bounced it outside of a cornerback. All the Crippen notes in fall camp were reaffirmations of his depth chart position. Given the IMG thing he's well ahead of most centers, who usually play tackle in high school because they're their teams' best linemen. Getting Oluwatimi felt more like a move of opportunity than desperation; those vibes say Michigan was ready to roll with Crippen until Bronco Mendenhall gave them an opening to have better.

Options after Crippen are also backup guards and covered in the next section.

GUARD: TEENAGE FAN CLUB

RATING: 5

[Patrick Barron]

Here is a complete list of true freshman offensive line starters in the history of Michigan football by % games played:

• Mason Cole, 2014 (12/12 games)
• Ernie Vick, 1918 (4/5 games)
• ZAK ZINTER, 2020 (4/6 games)
• Ben Bredeson, 2016 (8/13 games)
• Cesar Ruiz, 2017 (5/13 games)
• Kyle Bosch, 2013 (3/13 games)
• Art Leroux, 1944 (2/10 games)
• Justin Boren, 2006 (1/13 games)
• Grant Newsome, 2015 (1/13 games)

Save for one ill-advised Lloyd Carr recruiting promise, our list is a condemnation of late-Rodriguez/Hoke OL recruiting, and some other global catastrophes. If you're familiar with dates, you will probably recognize that the teenager was only starting because everyone else those years was hurt, transferred, sitting out a pandemic, fighting a World War against Germany, or (in Vick's case) all of the above. It also invariably boded well for the future of said teenager.

ZAK ZINTER was not some 5-star you would peg to join the list, let alone climb the toughest depth chart of our candidates. He was a 3-star subject of a fierce Michigan-Notre Dame battle nobody else knew about because he played for a Massachusetts high school whose name sounds like a law firm. Zinter debuted in garbage time against Minnesota (Brian clipped a LB thunk just in case), and earned his first start two weeks later against Indiana, when both Jalen Mayfield and Ryan Hayes came up limp at the end of MSU. In doing so, the recent Buckingham Browne and Nichols School alumnus passed a 2019 class of Trevor Keegan, Trente Jones, Nolan Rumler, Zach Carpenter, and Jack Stewart. (Karsen Barnhart was in that class too but replaced Hayes at LT). Four of those guys are FBS starters now, so it boded well.

But not for 2020, e.g. there was a huge –9 passing grade against Rutgers that Brian shrugged it off because "is freshman."

2020
Opponent	+	-	Tot	Prot	Notes
Minnesota	2	0	+2	4/4	Good thunk.
Indiana	3	2	+1	41/42	Not bad for true frosh, also we're playing a true FR
Wisconsin	2.5	4	-1.5	26/29	Enjoyed rugby scrum at least.
Rutgers	6	6	0	45/54	Had issues IDing blocks on pulls.
Penn State	0.5	3.5	-3	5/5	Left after a few plays.
2020 Total	14	15.5	-1.5	90%	True freshman freshman'd but he's going to be a star.
2021
Opponent	+	-	Tot	Prot	Notes
Western Michigan	7	0	+7	6/10	Can't pass pro one-handed but can club people.
Washington	15.5	5	+10.5	15/15	Agility and strength combo is freakish. Many pulls in his future.
Northern Illinois	4	4	0	12/12	Missed some blitzers, good kicks.
Rutgers	10.5	10	+0.5	15/17	Sometimes you forget he's a true soph, sometimes you don't.
Wisconsin	7	6.5	+0.5	29/31	Having a mashing day until two bad plays at the end.
Nebraska	1.5	0	+1.5	12/13	First guard injured. Came back and left for good.
Northwestern			0	0/0	DNP
Michigan State	9.5	9	+0.5	47/52	Moved guys, lots of targeting/protection rust.
Indiana	9.5	10.5	-1	30/33	Consistently moved people, rusty on the edges.
Penn State	9	4	+5	33/33	The other guy they wanted pulling.
Maryland	10	4	+6	37/38	ZINTER SMASH!
Ohio State	11	2	+9	23/23	Kickouts consistently kicked Zach Harrison's ass.
Iowa	8.5	2.5	+6	27/27	Mashed face.
Georgia	7.5	5	+2.5	48/49	This may come up a few times this offseason.
2021 Total	110.5	62.5	+48	95%	We have liftoff.

Unfortunately, that 2020 Rutgers game was the last time we were able to grade Zinter without a hand injury. He tore the UCL in his thumb before the 2020 Penn State game, tried to make a go, and took himself out. That was healed by spring 2021, when the coaches allowed him to speak with the media (a sign they see a guy as a veteran) and were cross-training Zinter at center because they figured that was the way to access their best lineup. Then he damaged his hand late in fall camp and debuted with a giant club on it.

Still picked up a holding call. [Barron]

That put an end to the center talk. It also meant Zinter couldn't pass block, hands being kind of important for that:

Zinter couldn’t play much pass pro—he had two –2s when he couldn’t do anything about a DT going to his right to account for the bulk of Michigan’s low protection day—which I attributed to the club on his hand. He rotated with Filiaga some, and this probably figured into why they chose not to pass at all for long stretches of the game. They also used him as a sixth OL in their heavy and unbalanced formations, since they couldn’t exactly use him as a full-time OG. That sucks because in the run game he is…well he’s the kind of guy the coaches notice because when he blocks a guy the guy ain’t there no more.

#65 the right guard

I have to believe The Club was part of Michigan's reasoning for running, running, and running some more against Washington.

Zak Zinter (#65 the RG) didn’t have to pass block with that hand very much. When he hits people, they move. He’s the guy who turned the edge on the play above, and did that with consistency. He also kicked well when that was the play. He’s also grades roads.

Dead coaches might argue otherwise, but they couldn't go all season playing Zinter when they meant to run and pulling him when they intended otherwise. WMU, NIU, and Washington, sure, but Rutgers figured out the whole "passes are lava" offense, and Michigan had to shelve it until Ohio State, the next opponent too hapless to do anything about it.

The club came off for Wisconsin, when he tweaked it again, having to miss Northwestern and play hurt against the Spartans when Keegan and Filiaga were out. It was clear Zinter wasn't himself, especially when that right hand had to get involved.

On the ground, even a one-handed Zinter was a force, especially teamed up with big luggin' Stueber.

When you stay on course, wrong shoulders typically solve themselves. #GapScheme #OL101 #OLTips pic.twitter.com/xC9KkEdmV9

— Joe Moore Award (@JoeMooreAward) March 17, 2022

Despite being huge enough to qualify for Hoss status, Zinter also demonstrated the kind of agility and balance that would have made him a 5-star in a more recruited state. You remember how excited we would get about little centers who can reach block MAC opponents? How about a 6'6"/320 kid who just turned 20 doing it to a Dawg?

This Power run was dead in the water when Barnhart got blasted two yards into the backfield, but Zinter danced around that and found a guy in the hole like no big thing.

By late in the season we started getting plays that OL people share with multiple lines of exclamation marks. Like when he took out two all-B10 defensive backs at a time.

ON A PULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone who just watched Northwestern (under Michigan alum OL coach Kurt Anderson) just do the usual to Scott Frost's Nebraska understands the value of a puller who can regular dance around an edge defender trying to both-sides the issue. That block is the crucial one in Michigan's power run game. Zinter can pull it off against ANYBODY.

Also after Penn State the pass protection issues all but vanished. He picked up three when he returned against Indiana, and after that there were just two dings in the last five games, one of those against Georgia. Not that his technique couldn't use improvement--Zinter's tendency to get his feet too narrow and trust his strength had the potential to get him in trouble a few times versus Devonte Wyatt. That was not how the other Michigan linemen graded against Georgia.

On the way, Zinter looked more like a 4th year player than a 2nd year. If he let a guy cross him, he didn't turn back. He timed his combos well, sticking around long enough to get the job done but leaving in time to crease the linebacker. He mastered little OL tricks like falling down (oops!) all in-the-way-like after reaching a backside target.

Warning: Fool gets hurdled.

He also knew how to find work when the opportunity presented itself,

…and when to turn Ohio State's five-star tackle into a syrup sponge.

In the year most guys who end up pretty good at his position are just beginning to crack the two-deep, a reasonable expectation for a healthy season of Zinter is somewhere between MVP of the nation's best offensive line and the nation's best lineman. He's going to be the focal point of the offense, a regular puller, the engine of their short yardage attack, and the subject of a nerve-wracking pro decision at the end of it.

Dead. [Barron]

When Zinter left the Penn State game in 2020, the next redshirt freshman in was TREVOR KEEGAN. This guy wasn't so much of a surprise considering his recruiting profile was fairly typical of any Michigan lineman from the 1990s or 2000s: Chicago 4-star, offensive tackle-shaped, courted by blue bloods, person most likely to know how to spell Quinnipiac. Following the script—Brian's comp was Ben Braden—a lack of insane lateral agility and/or pterodactyl arms presaged a transition to huge guard.

Keegan was a starter in 2021, but began the year in a meant-to-be even rotation with Chuck Filiaga. As I graded this I started getting the Josh Ross/Devin Gil vibe where I thought seniority was preventing the better player from seeing the field. This problem "solved" itself because clubbed Zinter had to come off the field for passing downs, then got muddled again by Keegan getting hurt, quickly followed by Filiaga. Keegs was clearly still dealing with something against Nebraska, and like Zinter missed the Northwestern game and wasn't healthy for Michigan State either.

The remainder was about what you want to see from a 3rd year Braden type: he mauled, made some quick-thinking decisions, had some freshman moments, and learned on the job until it was time to wreck Ohio State and get wrecked by Georgia.

2020
Opponent	+	-	Tot	Prot	Notes
Penn State	4	5	-1	25/25	Had a couple of mashers but also displayed his youth.
2021
Opponent	+	-	Tot	Prot	Notes
Western Michigan	5.5	6	-0.5	13/14	Puller, WMU was coached to beat his kickouts.
Washington	10.5	9.5	+1	14/15	Came out positive vs Tuli & Taki = huge win.
Northern Illinois	6.5	3	+3.5	6/6	Missed most of the first half.
Rutgers	6	5	+1	10/11	Think he's won the job permanently now.
Wisconsin	5	7.5	-2.5	28/30	Still rotating, still making good pickups, still misses some.
Nebraska	6.5	5	+1.5	23/25	Alternated good/bad, and on/off. Would believe there's an injury.
Northwestern			0	0/0	DNP
Michigan State	1	2	-1	17/19	Much better than Barnhart, played way less. Still injured maybe?
Indiana	8.5	3.5	+5	33/33	Welcome back, hyperintelligent bear.
Penn State	4.5	3	+1.5	32/33	I was making comps to Glasgow then realized he basically is one.
Maryland	4	5	-1	26/27	Dunno why Filiaga started but not his usually good game.
Ohio State	13	4	+9	23/23	Kicked Haskell Garrett's ass.
Iowa	7	5	+2	26/27	More physical game this time, Iowa blitzes were a new challenge.
Georgia	3	11	-8	41/49	Most of this was protection not running game. Davis ate him alive.
2021 Total	81	69.5	+11.5	94%	Very good for a RS soph, or RS RS frosh in this case.

The main ingredient here was Keegan's intelligence. The first time he was noted in an UFR was when Brian caught the RS freshman expertly handling a tricksome PJ Mustipher:

Keegan, on the other hand, was a major factor in the Haskins chunk run. He has a DT slanting across his face and almost shoots him to the opposite hash:

LG #77

Keegan also got major motion on a dart play on which Corum missed the giant cutback lane. He'd later give back those positives but he's got promise because when he gets it right he gets it very right.

This particular attribute was never more appreciated than when Ohio State unleashed the weird stuff they had saved just for The Game, and Keegan figured it out on the fly.

[Keegan's] body of work is smaller so he wasn’t among the two OL who earned stars in the FFFF chart this week. But he’s on watch and probably getting there. My “is Graham Glasgow” take isn’t even hot anymore. His think-on-the-fly intelligence unlocks a lot of the big run plays, and is one of the reasons Michigan doesn’t have to stop doing what they do when defenses start getting crafty and/or silly. Earlier this season—I want to say against Rutgers—there was a similar run outside where I wanted Filiaga to just run by a DE crashing in this far because there are other guys to block and this guy isn’t going to get there. Keegan gets around on his pull, realizes the force player has given up the edge already, and just arms around him like he’s Corporal Upham.

I had to watch this multiple times to figure out what Ohio State's doing with this run blitz, which had Michigan's playcall dead to rights (they're sending two guys at the gap Michigan's attacking):

Keegan just…dealt with it, popping the linebacker out of his lane, then turning out the safety who's supposed to be replacing him. First down, clock rolls, sorry about all the practice time you put into that. Keegan did that kind of stuff too many times in the games preceding for that to be luck. He is, in my estimation, the college football player most likely to be caught mumbling Sun Tzu quotes under his breath in the middle of plays:

"The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

Graham Glasgow is this site's gold standard for the kind of OL who probably would have made an extremely good squad commander (or terrifyingly effective víkingr) because he processes the enemy's attack on the fly. Keegan had me bringing up Glasgow a lot.

So we’re competent?

Looks like. Brian pointed this out in the game column, but Michigan’s offense thus far has shown a consistent ability to handle its business even when presented with weird stuff. This is the first play of the 2nd half, NIU desperately wants to kick Michigan off the field and get it to something respectable like 35-10, and they think they’ve cooked up something to generate a thunderous TFL against the “base” play of Split Zone. Trevor Keegan, the newest member of the offensive line, who was absent for most of the last half, came in and calmly handled the blitzer, Graham Glasgow-style.

#77, the LG, 2nd from the bottom on the line

Glasgow is also good comparison because he was tackle-sized, and agile/strong enough to make that work for him in a thus-far successful NFL career, but never an athletic freak like Zinter. When Keegan was asked to reach block a guy last year the best he could do was bother him and let the running back to do the rest.

Keegan is a legit 6'6", but according to the roster he's no longer a lug; he's now at 305, which is 19 pounds under his playing weight last year and 5 pounds under where he was in high school. The "all weight lost was bad" rule is an important one here, but Ian Boyd pointed out that all of the older Michigan linemen dropped weight over the offseason, if none so dramatically as Keegan. This may suggest a shift to more outside zone, which they didn't do much of last year, despite Vastardis being pretty good at it, because Stueber, and to a lesser degree Keegan, were better used as maulers.

There were signs in the spring game that a svelter version of Keegan could be added to the list of the capable, such as when he got around then arm-barred Kris Jenkins:

Keegs doesn't make many big mistakes—none of his four –2s were mental—but did generate a lot of –1s and –0.5s in my charting by getting out-athleted, particularly against Nebraska's athletic DT tandem. Wisconsin/Georgia linebackers were too fleet to pick off, as was the odd safety he encountered. Keegan's kickouts were job-doers, not spectacular collisions, and he was the most likely to be met too far inside or lose control of his target. Hopefully the lost weight is a response to that.

With a reasonable progression from Keegan it's not hard to see Michigan having the best pair of guards in the country. Where we get unreasonable is imagining these guys (and their position coach) could stick around and keep getting better through 2024. If it takes a fleet of Italian sportscars to make that happen, it's worth it.

BACKUP

This is ALSO KARSEN BARNHART. He is discussed in the Tackles article.

OTHER BACKUPS

Depth behind Barnhart completely turned over. Chuck Filiaga wasn't going to win a timeshare with Keegan again and transferred to Minnesota. Half of the guys from the six-man 2019 class that Zinter scooted by—namely Rumler (Kent State), Carpenter (Indiana), and Stewart (UConn)—are gone as well. That clears the way for the post-Zinter/Keegan generation, who've been dutifully picking up positive chatter and insider hints that they had something to do with the transfers as well.

The first is 2020 recruit REECE ATTEBERRY [recruiting profile], one of several Michigan products from the same Colorado trainer who produced Chris Fox, Andrew Gentry, and Connor Jones. Atteberry came in at center but moved to guard and saw the field enough to warrant a small UFR inclusion.

2021
Opponent	+	-	Tot	Prot	Notes
Northern Illinois	2	2	0	6/6	Got shoved twice, got 'em back twice.
Nebraska		1	-1	0/1	Finished the game. One pass pro issue.
Maryland	1	0	+1	8/8	Knows how to blindside already.
2021 Total	3	3	0	94%	Good vibes.

Only the Nebraska appearance, which was four plays on the last drive when Michigan was running out of guards, was more than backup hour. It means more that they were putting him out there in that situation than the one event, which was getting shoved backwards by Ben Stille, and didn't matter since the play was a corner fade.

As you might expect from a center/guy comped to Mason Cole, the first time Atteberry got clipped was for being clever. Here he got tripped up over Crippen but managed to stay on target and get his guy's legs. He then stood up and prevented a DT from pursuing McCarthy without drawing a flag for blindsiding.

Atteberry is up 35 pounds from his high school weight. He got hurt in spring so we didn't get any more data in the spring game, but Harbaugh reported "some real physical dominant plays" in fall camp. The best data we have on him is he played over Rumler et al. last year. We'll probably get some opportunities to see it in the 4th quarter of the non-conference schedule; if Atteberry is needed for more than that he'll probably be replacement-level.

The other guy who seems close to the field is redshirt freshman GIOVANNI EL-HADI [recruiting profile]. El-Hadi is another guy whose athleticism leads the scouting report, but in his case people have been aware since his freshman year of high school. The extremely odd recruit who began the cycle in the top-100 and stayed there throughout, El-Hadi redshirted last year and only popped up again this fall when they started naming guys they're impressed with. He seems like a future starter, but one that still needs some strength training. When he got clipped in the spring game it was because some up-and-coming DT was looking like a dude:

#58 right guard vs Benny

vs. Jenkins:

After these guys is just one more non-true freshman. RAHEEM ANDERSON [recruiting profile] started four years at center for Cass Tech, gives off the vibe of a future head coach, and is an unabashed extreme Michigan fan since birth. Michigan's reciprocation felt a bit forced over Anderson's recruitment—they missed on several elite/regional dudes before Anderson was a take. They also made it clear Crippen was the class's center, shifting Anderson to guard immediately when he hit campus. Raheem showed a good head and agility in the spring game, but was even more shoveable than El-Hadi.

Past him are true freshmen, both down-the-road types. CONNOR JONES [recruiting profile] is a Bradenesque mauler from the same Colorado factory as Atteberry, while ALESSANDRO LORENZETTI [recruiting profile] was the mother of recruiting industry blindspots, a Quebecois who moved to Connecticut, lost a year to COVID, most of another year to injury, gave recruiters no drama. Michigan thinks they got crazy lucky to find a guy with Lorenzetti's potential like that, but he'd have to be a total Zinter to see the field this season.