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The present and future of Michigan’s offensive line: Grant Newsome previews the 2025 Wolverines
by Alejandro Zuniga
104 minutes ago
Michigan’s offensive line formed the foundation for the program during the Wolverines’ run to three Big Ten titles and the 2023 national championship. After a rockier season last fall, the unit looks to regroup under second-year OL coach Grant Newsome.
Returners on the Michigan Wolverines’ offensive line include center Greg Crippen and guard Giovanni El-Hadi. Evan Link, who started 11 games as a redshirt freshman in 2024, looks to continue his upward trajectory after a solid performance at LT in the ReliaQuest Bowl against Alabama. But there are snaps available for the taking, and players like Andrew Sprague, Jake Guarnera, Blake Frazier, five-star freshman Andrew Babalola and Cal Poly transfer Brady Norton among those competing for reps.
Newsome spoke with reporters on Monday to preview his unit. Here’s what he said:
Michigan’s OL adjusting to new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey
It’s been very seamless. Obviously, he’s incredibly, incredibly smart. He’s had a lot of experience calling offense.
I think it’s been great to incorporate a lot of what he’s done with meshing with what we’ve done and just finding how can we be the most explosive, productive offense. It’s been awesome being able to work for him.
There’s no ego. There’s no, ‘I’ve done it this way. We’ve got to do it this way.’ It’s very much, ‘Hey, what’s our offense going to look like? What’s going to be best for us? What’s going to be best for the program?’
It’s been awesome being able to work for him.
NFL veteran Juan Castillo helping Michigan’s OL staff
Obviously, he brings a wealth of knowledge, and I’m very fortunate to have a lot of great help. I mean, I’ve got all the help I could possibly need between Coach Castillo, Coach Ingalls, Nick Gilbert, Nick Rossiello.
I think any time you can get a lot of great offensive line minds — and obviously, nonetheless, with Coach Moore, it’s just added help for us and for the guys. How Evan Link is performing in spring practice
That was definitely encouraging to see, and that’s the way we saw it, too. He played his two best games down the stretch, and it’s always what you hope for with any guy, that you play your best when your best is needed, and that was definitely the case with him. And especially to rebound after having some struggles early in the year and a few kind of up-and-down games, to see him really kind of take that challenge and play his best down the stretch was awesome to see.
He’s continued that in the spring, and now it’s just for us to say, how can we find the best five on the field, and whether that’s mixing up positions or just who are the best five that can help us win games?
Third-year OL Nathan Efobi’s development
He’s had a really good spring so far. A really, really solid spring, and we’ve been very encouraged to see him kind of push to take that next step because that was a challenge for him of: ‘Hey, you’re no longer that young guy who’s just a freshman or a redshirt freshman. Take that next step and go compete to put yourself in the mix for the starting lineup.’ And he’s done that so far this spring.
Cal Poly transfer Brady Norton impressing
Brady’s been great. Been a great addition.
Very smart. Loves ball. Obviously has some good experience, although it was at a lower level that you haven’t seen any of that kind of struggle that you — not worry about, but you wonder. Like, ‘Hey, is this going to be a little too fast for him? Everyone’s a lot bigger, stronger, faster.’ You haven’t seen that at all.
He’s doing really, really well, and, again, he’s another guy who’s going to put himself in that mix to be one of those best five. It’s been awesome to see that from him.
In terms of interior guys who have continued to step up, I think Nate’s at the top of that list of guys who have kind of taken that next step, younger guys. Jake Guarnera is playing really good ball as well.
That’s the nice thing about having a younger group is that there’s a lot of reps and there’s a lot of moving guys around and, again, just trying to see what the best five that we can put on the field is.
Jake [Guarnera] has been working center and guard. Brady has been working, yes, tackle and guard, and I think he gives a lot of positional flexibility. He’s not the tallest guy, but I was talking about him today in a staff meeting. He reminds me a lot of a Mason Cole, John Runyan Jr. type, where he’s just a very good football player. It’s not going to be – if he ends up being a tackle, it’s not going to look like Myles Hinton coming off the bus. But he’s a really, really good football player, and he’s already made our room better, and I’m excited to see him continue to push to be the one in the starting five.
Five-star OL Andrew Babalola is ‘incredibly smart’
He’s been just fine. [laughs] He’s been just fine.
He’s incredibly smart. He’s an incredibly gifted and talented player as well. So there’s always some growing pains as being a freshman left tackle when you kind of get your first experiences going against Derrick Moore and T.J. Guy and Dom Nichols, the elite edges that we have. But I’ve been very impressed with not only him, but really all three of the freshmen we have currently on campus have exceeded our expectations so far of where they would be at this point, especially when you sometimes have to remind yourself these kids should be going to AP English in the fourth period, not at a Michigan football practice. It’s been super encouraging to see how well all three of those guys are playing so far. The leaders in Michigan’s OL room
The thing that’s interesting is you have a little bit younger of a group, but then you do have two older guys who have played a lot of football in Greg Crippen and Gio. We were looking at it the other day. I mean, Gio’s played over a thousand snaps of college football. You go back and look at their games in 2022, he’s starting multiple games that year.
So it is sometimes, you know, easy to forget because you have the Keegans and the Zinters who were such established starters, just how much ball those two have played. I’ve been happy, encouraged to see those two kind of take on that leadership role.
Can Gio El-Hadi play right or left guard?
We’re going to play guys in multiple spots. I’ll leave that to Coach Moore to kind of set the depth, but he’s been working at one spot. I’ll say that.
Michigan happy with Brady Norton’s weight
I’m very happy with where he is weight-wise. Coach Tress and Abigail and her staff have done a great job with all those guys. But no, he’s at a weight where he can play in this conference right now. So I don’t have any concerns about, is he big enough? Is he strong enough? He’s already one of the stronger guys in the room. Physically, I have zero concern about, is he anything enough to be able to contribute.
Practice harder than games due to Michigan’s DL
Coach Esposito does a great job of getting those guys ready and developing those guys. And it makes us better every single day. I truly feel like we may face other good defense alignment every single year. Maybe you face one or two guys a game who are at the level of our guys, but I don’t feel like we’re going to face alignment who’s better than our guys. I don’t think we’re going to see a better edge than a Derrick Moore or a TJ guy. Again, we may see guys who are good players and not taking away from anyone else in this conference, but it makes us better as opposed to facing guys who aren’t as good.
And then you get to games and it feels like everything’s going super fast. And it’s funny. I was talking to Sprague mid-game versus Alabama during one of the TV timeouts.
And I was telling him, ‘It’s just football. Isn’t it?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah. This is easier than practice.’ So take that for what it’s worth.
The hurdles a freshman OL has to clear in order to start
Anytime you get closer to the ball, it does become a little harder because physically, the delta can be so much bigger between a guy who is a fifth year who’s been in a weight program for five years versus someone who should be in high school. Whereas maybe at receiver or corner, you’re not as close to the ball. So the strength element, maybe it doesn’t matter quite as much.
Coach Moore has always kind of said the best five are going to play. So if we have a freshman who’s good enough to be one of those best five, there’s no hesitation about playing them as long as they’re ready.
But at the same time, just because someone has a ranking or we think fairly highly of doesn’t mean that we’re going to play them before they’re ready.
What Michigan is getting in top-50 prospect Ty Haywood
We’re thrilled to have Ty joining us here in the summer.
It’s interesting. He was a guy who Coach Moore had offered and recruited and I had recruited for a long time. He ended up committing to Bama early, obviously.
When he kind of reached back out and said he was considering opening things up, we were ecstatic. Not just personality wise and ability wise, but who he is and how much he loves ball, fits our room and gives us another extremely talented player who can hopefully contribute whenever he’s ready — whether that’s year one, year two, or whatever it may be.