Olu Oluwatimi reflects on his time at Michigan, cites teammates for success

You could make the argument that nobody in recent memory has made as much of an impact on Michigan as center Olu Oluwatimi did last season.

Transferring from Virginia, Oluwatimi helped elevate an excellent offensive line room to be an even better one during the 2022 season and has set the bar very high for expectations moving forward.

Oluwatimi helped the Wolverines secure team awards and honors, as well as individual honors for himself after the season was over.

In an exclusive interview with Maize & Blue Review, Oluwatimi reflected on his time in Ann Arbor and what he would remember the most.

In typical Oluwatimi fashion, he deflected all of the self-praise to his teammates.

"The things I will remember the most is the team awards," Oluwatimi said. "Us winning a Big Ten Championship, us winning a Joe Moore Award. Those things I am going to look back and I'm going to be like, 'Dang, man. I did that with my brothers.' Also, the single awards, if we were 6-6 and we were bums, I'm not winning the Rimington. It has my name on it, I couldn't have done it without my brothers on the O-line helping me and making me look good.

"Playing next to great players, always helps you elevate your level of play. Everything that I earned this year, every award that I got, was definitely a team effort. The Big Ten Championship for sure was one that I will always remember."

Before the awards and on-field success even happened, he came in during spring and had to learn a new offensive system that some describe as complicated and difficult to master.

For Oluwatimi, he took everything in stride and stuck to what he's learned during his time in college football to help him get through the offseason mastering the playbook.

"I wouldn't say the offensive scheme is complicated," Oluwatimi said. "We have a lot of formations, we run a lot of plays and we do a lot of things. Our coaches do a good job of explaining it and trying to make it as easy to pick up and as easy to learn. Take things out of the game plan if it's getting too much or too wordy. I wouldn't say it's too hard to pick up. Me, I just have a process of how I do things. If I got into a new situation, how I have to learn and gel with the guys, things of that nature.

"As for an O-lineman, a playbook is just different terminology. Everybody runs the same run plays, just do it out of different formations and different sets. It's just different terminology. Pass pro is the same. It wasn't too bad to pick up."

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