Jim Harbaugh’s fifth Michigan Wolverines football team received some bad news — the first major camp injury — when it broke that redshirt sophomore Andrew Stueber would be out indefinitely with a knee injury.
William Burchfield of 97.1 The Ticket was the first to break the news Aug. 15.
Stueber and redshirt freshman Jalen Mayfield have been neck-and-neck throughout camp for the right to start at right tackle. The battle was expected to continue through the last week of camp, though Mayfield had been taking snaps with the ones recently per sources.
"Mayfield and Andrew Stueber are both really battling. Jalen kind of surged the last day and a half, but Stueber had before that,” Harbaugh said Aug. 13.
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The 6-7, 334-pound Stueber was at least going to be a backup and was expected to play significantly. Offensive coordinator Josh Gattis insisted they essentially had six starters given how good the right tackles had been playing.
“It’s going really well," Gattis said. "It’s too early right now to name a guy in front, but we’re fortunate to be in a position to do it … that we have a battle, because both guys are good enough to be a starter, in my opinion. For some people, when they’re going into a right tackle battle, they’re trying to figure out who the guy is that's the starter. In my mind we’ve got two in Jalen Mayfield and Andrew Stueber. Stueber, obviously, has started some games and played in some games, but when you've got the four returning guys coming back that we have, we've got six starters up front …
“It’s unfortunate that we can only play five because we truly believe that we have six starters, and then a bunch of guys that are good significant players that are backups that are using [the starters] to demand their best. Both guys are having a really good camp, it’s just day five, we're going to continue to stretch this thing out and continue to demand the best out of each one of those guys."
Redshirt freshman Ryan Hayes has improved and will be in the mix to backup Mayfield. He’s up to 299 pounds from 271, and senior guard Ben Bredeson said at Big Ten Media Days Hayes was going to be a good one.
But now it’s Mayfield’s time to shine, and he’ll be in the spotlight as the one first-year starter on the line. Harbaugh said during Big Ten Media Days he had high hopes for the redshirt frosh.
“I’ll tell you what I like about Jalen Mayfield — I like watching tape of No. 73," Harbaugh said. "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."
He’ll see a lot of him (knock on wood) going forward.
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