Michigan Football OL Position Breakdown

For our Position Breakdown series, we are going to take a look at each position group for Michigan Football with spring practices nearing a close.

How does the current depth chart shake out?
What are the storylines or things you should be watching heading into the summer and eventually of course the season?
What's the X factor, whether it's a player, coach, or situation that could change the way the group looks?

Let's talk about the men up front.

Michigan's offensive line has won the Joe Moore Award, given to the nation's best offensive line, for two consecutive seasons. This year's group, might be the best yet.

Starters Trevor Keegan, Zak Zinter, Karsen Barnhart, and Trente Jones all return from last year's roster. Jeffrey Persi and Giovanni El-Hadi had their first career starts last season. Michigan will have nine players with career starts with the additions of Drake Nugent, Myles Hinton, and LaDarius Henderson.

Michigan will be comfortable with any of the offensive linemen in the two-deep starting, and there is likely another 4-6 linemen pushing as well. Who eventually becomes the starting five may not be settled until games begin, but there are some obvious leaders and competitions.

Keegan and Zinter are sure to hold down their guard spots for the third straight season, but El-Hadi will be considered a starter by this coaching staff, he's that good. Karsen Barnhart started camp as the starting left tackle, but expectations are Henderson will win that job. That means Barnhart is likely to start at right tackle over Trente Jones. Jones was trending in the right direction and progressing well last season before, an injury derailed his 2022 season and allowed Barnhart to take over the job. At center, another transfer, Drake Nugent, is the favorite to win the starting job but Greg Crippen and Raheem Anderson have been performing well in spring practices.

My X factor is the lineman who just joined the team this summer, LaDarius Henderson.

Not being able to join the team for spring practice obviously put him at a massive disadvantage. Barnhart, Jones, and Persi have all been with the program for years and have started as Wolverines. Henderson is very athletic for an offensive lineman, and he has the length to play left tackle. If he wins out at left tackle, it just makes the depth of this group even more impressive with Barnhart sliding to right tackle.

So much of a successful offensive line depends on cohesiveness, and how a group works together. Part of why Olu Oluwatimi was able to be so good for Michigan was the way the line clicked together from the start of spring practice. There's a chance Michigan may rotate guys early in the season, trying to find not only its five best offensive linemen but its most cohesive group of 5. Henderson getting a late start won't help, but no one is going to win a job by default this year, and if he is able to beat out the players already on the roster it would just raise the ceiling of this group even higher.

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