ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- After three years of dominance, the Michigan football offensive line struggled in 2024. Part of it certainly was personnel losses as six starters moved on from the program while the position coach, Sherrone Moore, was elevated to head coach. However, by the end of the year, the group was looking closer to how it had previously. Now, the challenge is getting a new group to replicate the late-year success from a season ago.
One change is perhaps the depth of the group. Three starters from a year ago return -- four if you include Andrew Sprague, who started at right tackle in the bowl game. Second-year offensive line coach Grant Newsome sees the unit jelling in spring ball and feels like the group has something of a quality problem -- there are too many players who could start for this team this fall.
"I think what I'm happy is I think there's six, seven, eight guys who you could make an argument should be in that starting five," Newsome said. "So that's where we want to be is that you need to have eight, nine, 10 guys you feel comfortable starting. But we still have two more weeks of spring ball, so we'll see where it comes out at the end of spring."
While that's a positive development, there was something missing for much of last season. Of course, many point to it being the transition from Moore to Newsome, and Newsome does bear some of that on his shoulders. But one of the things he looks back upon is that his unit wasn't having as much fun as it perhaps should have.
And now he feels like that's been rectified.
"I think it kind of goes back to the question of looking at it respectively -- what I can do better? What I could have done better to help that group?" Newsome said. "And we just got to have fun. It's natural any time you go through some adversity, and especially just like us coaches -- it's been a while since anyone in that building has lost more than a game in a season. So all of a sudden now, you can get kind of that snowball effect where you're searching for answers and let's try this, let's try this, as opposed to just kind of taking a breath and just enjoying it.
"Like I always kind of joke, I get to coach, they get to play. We play a kid's game, like some of the six-year-olds play out at recess. And obviously, yes, there's bigger stakes to it. We all understand that, coaches, players, all of us. But at the end of the day, you have to have fun playing this game. And I think there were times last year where I didn't do a good enough job of just letting them do that. And obviously it comes from a good place, just like you see a baseball, a major league hitter starts pressing, and all of a sudden now it just keeps getting worse and worse, as opposed to just kind of having that short memory and getting back to what got them to that point in the first place."
Newsome is mum on who his starting five might be, but he does note that there are multiple players he considers entrenched at their starting positions. Given that Evan Link, Giovanni El-Hadi, and Greg Crippen all return -- players who started for all, if not most, of the season last year -- it would stand to reason that that trio is among them.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football offensive line outlook in spring ball
