By the numbers: Offensive line competition

Michigan has had the best offensive line in college football for the last two seasons. So much of the team's success starts with the offensive line unit. After their Joe Moore award winning season in 2021, Michigan needed to replace two starters along the line with center Andrew Vastardis and right tackle Andrew Steuber departing.

Michigan stayed in house at right tackle, with Trente Jones earning the starting job out of camp and then Karsen Barnhart taking over when Jones missed time due to an injury. At center, Michigan added a Rimington Award finalist in Olu Oluwatimi via the transfer portal. Oluwatimi won the Rimington Award in 2022 and Michigan appeared to show a new strategy with transfers this offseason, adding Drake Nugent, LaDarius Henderson, and Myles Hinton via the portal.

Michigan again needs to replace at least two starters in 2023 with Ryan Hayes and Oluwatimi heading to the NFL. Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter each chose to return to Michigan, giving Michigan two of its starters from 2021 and 2022. Trente Jones and Karsen Barnhart are back, but the right tackle battle is now much bigger.

Between Keegan and Zinter, the three incoming transfers, Jones and Barnhart, and Giovanni El-Hadi and Jeffrey Persi, Michigan currently has 9 offensive linemen on roster with at least 1 career start. How Michigan handles competition on the offensive line will be a focus of spring practice.

Offensive line coach Sherrone Moore has previously shown a philosophy of finding your best players first, and then figuring out positions. So, who are your top 5 offensive lineman regardless of position and then where do you put them? Will that be the strategy this offseason, or will we see a more structured left tackle, center, and right tackle battle?

We're going to see what the numbers say about the linemen involved in the competition, try to ignore our assumptions and see who Michigan's 5 best linemen are. Do they conveniently work out in position or would there have to be some movement, and what would that movement look like? If Michigan is more loyal to positions, are they risking benching one of their better players? While the starters are obviously important, what can we learn about the depth Michigan has in 2023 as well?

This is an experienced group. Which means we have plenty of data to dig through. 8 offensive linemen played at least 200 snaps last season. That number equates to roughly 20% of the highest snap count by any linemen in college football in 2022. That is the number used for the minimum to chart out. The only player with a start but not enough minimum snaps was Jeffrey Persi. We will get to him and few others in a moment.

Each player is given a pass grade, a run grade, and then the average which is how they are sorted. First, I will admit sorting by the average of the two grades probably isn't the best metric. It doesn't factor the weight of pass vs rush snaps, or the weight by position. For instance, a tackle is likely to face more difficult pass rush than an interior linemen, but for now we are trying to find the top 5 so we are ignoring position bias.

Pass grade factors sacks, hurries, total pressures allowed relative to total snaps. Run grade factors "successful plays" where the runner gains 3 yards+, blocker gets to second level, blocker seals or finds defender relative to gap/zone scheme.

Played but not minimum snaps; Noah Stewart, Dan Taraboi, Connor Jones, Greg Crippen, Dominik Giudice, Andrew Gentry, Reece Atteberry, Tristan Bounds, Raheem Anderson, Jeffrey Persi.

What sticks out from the chart?

First, seeing Drake Nugent perfectly matched with Zak Zinter is eye opening. Zinter is Michigan's best offensive linemen, an All-B1G selection who could have gone on day two of the NFL Draft this year. Nugent has been seen as an addition at the level of Olu, but maybe he should?

All three transfers graded out at the top in pass grade, with Nugent tied with Zinter for third, Myles Hinton second at 98.7, and LaDarius Henderson at a 99.0 in pass grade. I have been consistently inserting Henderson in at left tackle in my depth charts and this grade is encouraging. Henderson won't be joining the team until the summer, so it will be interesting to see if that impacts his place in the competition. I was a little surprised to see Hinton so high in pass grade, but also so low in run grade. Again, this doesn't factor position bias, so right tackle being the lowest in run grade wouldn't be a massive issue.

Giovanni El-Hadi played quite a bit last season, getting action when Trevor Keegan was injured. Although he performed well, he likely shows up equal to Keegan on this chart because he did get more late game snaps. I don't think the chart suggests El-Hadi should be challenging Keegan, but I do think it suggests El-Hadi is very good.

Last year's two starters at right tackle, Karsen Barnhart and Trente Jones appear outside the top 5 in the chart. They have the same run grade of 96.9 which is ahead of only Hinton. Again, not surprised to see this with right tackles. Barnhart grades slightly higher than Jones in pass protection, 97.7 to 96.9, but he is a full point behind Hinton. This has been the perceived battle for right tackle, but there are other names pushing as well.

There are four names that likely need to be added to this conversation who didn't have the minimum reps last year.

Jeffrey Persi started at LT against Rutgers. He saw 33 pass snaps and allowed 2 pressures but 0 sacks for a 96.9 pass grade. I can't give a solid run grade because only 6 carries were on his gap. For what it's worth, those 6 carries went for 49 yards and 3 first downs, but 38 of the yards came after contact. PFF gave him a 62.3 for the day, but their run blocking grades were not reliable this season. If he doesn't win the job at left tackle, he could still push to start on the right side.

Raheem Anderson played 57 snaps in 4 games, all at center. Now he doesn't have the minimum snaps and they were all garbage time, but his numbers are still impressive. He allowed 0 pressures in 17 pass snaps and would get a 100 for pass grade. Anderson played 40 run snaps, but again this was largely Michigan grinding out the clock, but he grades out at 97.2. Anderson passed the eye test last season and shouldn't be counted out in the center competition or as someone who could crack the two deep at center or guard.

Greg Crippen saw 15 snaps against Colorado State. He didn't allow any pressures, but again with such a low snap count and only having contributions in the opening game I can't make any data-based arguments. Crippen has long been seen as the favorite to eventually start at center, going back to last season when Michigan added Oluwatimi. Right now, the numbers show he is behind Anderson as well.

Andrew Gentry had 28 snaps, 11 at right tackle and 17 at right guard. No pressures allowed and again difficult to make a data argument in the run game. PFF loved him in pass protection, giving him a 78.9 in his two games, which ranked second on the team. Again, PFF was inconsistent with grading this season and you can't compare Gentry's 28 late game snaps to Zinter's 918. Still, Gentry was a top 100 recruit in 2020 is now back in football shape. His ceiling and versatility make him a factor.

So, if the strategy is pick your five best linemen and sort out the rest later, what are we looking at? Based on the data, there is a clear top 5.
Zak Zinter, Drake Nugent, LaDarius Henderson, Trevor Keegan, and Giovanni El-Hadi.

And we have reached the obstacle with the pick your five best offensive linemen. What we have here are four guards and one center. So how do we begin to sort out positions? We can cross center off at least with Drake Nugent, so we have need to find our two tackles.

LaDarius Henderson was initially a tackle prospect and played tackle when he first arrived to Arizona State. We have heard since he committed to transfer to Michigan that they liked his length and believe he can play tackle. Trevor Keegan slid over to left tackle early in the season last year when Ryan Hayes was hurt and Giovanni El-Hadi took over for Keegan at left guard. So here's what we get;
LT Trevor Keegan
LG Giovanni El-Hadi
C Drake Nugent
RG Zak Zinter
RT LaDarius Henderson

I go with Keegan at left tackle because of his experience and I like Henderson's speed at right tackle with how much JJ McCarthy likes scrambling to the right. On paper, that's a solid group.

But it might not be that easy. Telling Keegan to just start at left tackle and Henderson to play on a side he hasn't played on before has it's own potential struggles.

What changes if there is a level of position bias? Nugent and Zinter are where they belong so that's fine. While Henderson can and is arguably expected to play tackle, keeping him on the left side may make more sense. You obviously aren't benching Keegan, so he moves back to his original spot at LG. So we have out trade.
LT LaDarius Henderson
LG Trevor Keegan
C Drake Nugent
RG Zak Zinter
RT Karsen Barnhart

Nothing crazy has happened here. Michigan starts Karsen Barnhart at right tackle, the player who took the most snaps there last season. Giovanni El-Hadi becomes a valuable depth piece like last season, blocked by the return of Trevor Keegan.

We validated something we thought we knew, which is that Michigan has not only a very talented group of offensive linemen, but a deep group as well. There are 8 players with a significant amount of successful reps last season. There are 2 players who do not have the same level of experience but were successful in their limited opportunities. There are 2 more players who do not have enough data to be in this argument, but absolutely will make a case to start or be solid contributors. And behind all of them are even more players talented enough to push to crack the two-deep.

There appears to be a clear top 5 starters based on data and a top 5 with position bias factored. But let's be clear, these decision go beyond last year's data. This is just part of the conversation, a way for us to try and project what we think will happen.

No group is cohesive more important than on the offensive line. How a unit gels together, communicates, and is able to almost instinctively know how their teammate will react is so crucial. Something that makes sense on paper may not click on the field. The coaches will surely be mixing and matching different groupings together, looking for the right fit. Competetion brings out different things in different players. We can't assume one player will perform at the exact level we think the data projects, and we can't assume another player won't exceed expectations when we don't have the data to project.

All this to say Michigan once again has a group capable of being the best offensive line in the country yet again. Who eventually starts won't be decided for 7 months, but what players do starting now with spring practice will eventually factor into who the coaches eventually chose. I don't envy the coaches who have to make those choices.

Michigan has a problem, but what a fantastic problem to have.

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