Michigan Wolverines football offensive line coach Ed Warinner saw plenty of Cesar Ruiz, helping mold him into one of the nation’s top centers. The New Orleans Saints picked Ruiz in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft … and they’re getting a great one, Warinner said on a conference call.

Ruiz was a second-team All-Big Ten selection after running the show on the U-M line for two seasons.

“He’s very athletic and he has a very high football IQ, so he's very football smart and understands what's going on, but he's very athletic, so that combination,” Warinner said. “And he's highly competitive. He's a very competitive person. It's real important to him, and he tries to win every play."

Warinner called Ruiz ‘a great combination of all the attributes that you're looking for.’

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“He was a joy (to coach). I was fortunate to realize early on coaching him that he was going to be an NFL player, and I actually told somebody that said, ‘I remember you told me two years ago after spring ball that Cesar would be a first round pick,’” Warinner continued. “That person obviously hit me up today and told me, ‘you were right.’

“… There's really nothing he can't do that they're going to be looking for him to do in terms of the job descriptions of an interior offensive lineman, center or guard, and he's played both positions at the highest level."

Ruiz made all the calls in the run game and all the protection calls and he made most of the adjustments in the protection calls, Warinner continued, so had a big hand in any run game adjustments. He understood what they wanted to have done, what looks they wanted to run plays into, what communications they needed and studied it consistently.

“It was really important to him, and he was extremely good at it,” Warinner said. “We went back and reflected as you do in your offseason and reevaluate your performance, and he graded out so high in terms of maybe once or twice in a whole season that he makes the wrong call. That's pretty amazing. I mean, we're talking about 99 percent accurate on his intellectual decision making on the field."

It didn’t him long to know Ruiz would be his center, he added.

"He liked to sit right up front [in meetings]. He was right up front. He was very focused,” he said. “ He likes to watch film; he likes to study. He's very detail oriented. He asks questions, communicates … a real clear communicator. He's a joy to be in meetings with. Some kids in meetings they put their head down, their eyes start closing, they don't pay attention all the time. Not Cesar. He's alert, he's into it, he's focused, he's watching.

“… He very much wanted feedback to be the best player he could be. Some guys don't like feedback. Cesar is not afraid of feedback. He just wants to improve (and) there's really nothing he can't do. So then it's just, is he doing it to the most efficient way? He's very coachable.

“He has good power and strength. He has really good hands. He has good vision of what's going on in front of him. He can adjust … the most challenging thing for o-linemen is what they see pre-snap changes, and even with his head between his legs at times, we had him blind snapping and doing some things. He's very aware of what's going on so he can make adjustments within a play, within a series. It's one of those things that when you feed him, it all makes sense to him, when you give him things, they all register and then he applies them, and he does it quickly.”

With attention to detail and great technique.

“If you give him a test of 50 questions that he needs to know for a game, he's going to get 49 out of the 50 right because that is just the way he is,” Warinner finished. “He wants to be perfect. The times that he had penalties with the cadence were really silent counts.

“He was phenomenal about that. When you look at his penalties per snaps and his mistakes per snaps … it's so low it's amazing. It speaks highly to the importance he places on doing well.”

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