There's a reason Mike Sainristil is a two-time captain for the Michigan football team. At 5-foot-10 and 182 pounds, he's not an all-world athlete or some "freak," a word people in the football world have grown accustomed to saying.

Instead, Sainristil possesses — and has mastered — a trait that goes beyond simply what he can do between the white lines of a football field.

The fifth-year senior has become the ultimate team player, and it shows. His legacy makes an impact around the clock, not just for 60 minutes on a Saturday.

Some would call him a leader.

But on Wednesday, defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator Steve Clinkscale took it even a step further, saying Sainristil is more than just a leader.

"You have followers; you have leaders; and then you have influencers. I think Mikey's an influencer," Clinkscale said.

By now, it's become a well-known fact that Sainristil took UMass transfer cornerback Josh Wallace under his wing by showing him the ropes in Ann Arbor.

"I told [Wallace], I said, 'Look, just be around me, and I promise you that I'll take you to a good, good place,'" Sainristil said at Big Ten Media Days in July.

On Tuesday, sophomore safety Keon Sabb said that Sainristil has also taken him under his wing and helped him continue to improve and grow.

"Mikey took me under his wing over this spring, some of the summer," Sabb said. "I was just trying to be a sponge, be around him, because he was one of the guys, so I wanted to learn as much as I could from him at all times. How he plays man, how he does his business, like, his routine through game week, so I was really under his wing a lot."

"Captain last year, captain this year, he's been working on [his leadership] a lot," Sabb added. "Sometimes he would take Josh under his wing — things that he was teaching Josh, I would learn from as well... once I had my chance one-on-one with him, it made it a lot easier."

At this point, it seems Sainristil is mentoring just about every defensive back on Michigan's team.

Clinkscale continued to heap praise on Sainristil on Wednesday, saying that the fifth-year senior's impact goes beyond just the DB room.

"I think Mikey has changed the mindset of everybody on our team — not just the defensive backs," Clinkscale said. "So he's easily to be drawn to. If I was a player and I wasn't Mikey, I would be right there next to him."

"I tell the guys... when we watched film last week and watched a guy play man defense and made a great play. Guess who it was? Number zero. We watched him destroy a block. Guess who it was? Number zero. He got beat on a play. And the guy caught the ball running down the sideline and he punched it out... number zero."

"He never stops. He's always going and going and going, and if he makes a mistake... the great ones correct it. And he's a great guy to be around."

With only 11 guaranteed games left in his Michigan career, Sainristil will look to make the most of his last season as a Wolverine.

It's clear, though, that those Sainristil has taken under his wing will carry the influencer's legacy well beyond 2023.

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