The Michigan Wolverines football team was dealt a blow yesterday when it was announced that redshirt sophomore right tackle Andrew Stueber would be out indefinitely with a significant knee injury.
The Connecticut native started the final two games of last year after Juwann Bushell-Beatty went down with injury, and was in a heated competition with redshirt freshman Jalen Mayfield to take over as the club's full-time right tackle this season.
Position coach Ed Warinner had stated numerous times throughout the entire offseason that the competition between Mayfield and Stueber was deadlocked, and that the two were consistently splitting reps 50/50.
That was evident in the spring game when, despite the fact that Stueber was the first right tackle to see the field that day, was pulled on the club's second series of the game in favor of Mayfield.
It's obviously safe to now assume the redshirt freshman will be the starter at the spot come Aug. 31.
While an injury like Stueber's could have potentially crippled Michigan's offensive line in recent years, the Wolverines have finally built enough depth at the position where they can now withstand a blow like this.
The projected starting five along the front — fifth-year senior left tackle Jon Runyan, senior left guard Ben Bredeson, junior center Cesar Ruiz, senior right guard Mike Onwenu and Mayfield — should make up not only the best offensive line haul in the entire Big Ten, but also the best we've seen at Michigan since the Lloyd Carr days came to a close.
Warinner revealed yesterday on Jon Jansen's podcast that the two-deep has understandably been shuffled a bit in the wake of Stueber's injury (redshirt sophomore Joel Honigford has been moved from guard to tackle), but the second-string unit still appears to be the best the Wolverines have had in more than a decade.
Redshirt freshman left tackle Ryan Hayes, redshirt sophomore left guard Chuck Filiaga, redshirt junior center Stephen Spanellis, redshirt junior right guard Andrew Vastardis and Honigford's aforementioned new position of right tackle appear to make up the current two-deep, giving the Wolverines more serviceable backups than they've had in recent memory.
The first thing that jumps out from the chart above is how young Michigan's offensive line group is as a whole.
Only five of the 16 linemen are bonafide veterans (Runyan, Bredeson, Onwenu, Spanellis and Ruiz), with four of those five (Spanellis being the lone exception) projected to start in 2019.
On a similar note, the team's offensive line haul consists of two redshirt freshmen and six freshmen, with those two classes making up half of the 16 members.
Despite the losses of Runyan, Bredeson and Onwenu following the 2019 campaign, Warinner will still have plenty of talent remaining come 2020.
He has also shown he can work wonders with new linemen in a short amount of time, best evidenced by the job he did last year during his first season on the job.
Warinner took an offensive line that was horrendous in 2017 — 101st nationally in tackles for loss allowed and 114th in sacks given up — and transformed them into a solid unit in 2018 with three of the same starting linemen back from the '17 club.
Under Warinner's tutelage last year, U-M jumped to 15th in the country in TFLs allowed and 37th in sacks surrendered.
Michigan finally has the man in place to accurately do what needs to be done to overcome the loss of a potential starter like Stueber, an asset it didn't have during the Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke days.
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