Previously: Last year’s profiles. P Tommy Doman Jr. S Rod Moore. CB Ja’Den McBurrows. LB Jaydon Hood. LB Junior Colson. LB Tyler McLaurin. DE Kechaun Bennett. DE TJ Guy. DE/DT Dominick Giudice. DT George Rooks. DT Rayshaun Benny. NG Ikechukwu Iwunnah. C Greg Crippen. C/G Raheem Anderson.

Sterling Heights, MI – 6’5”, 318
[David Nasternak]		247:               4.50*	4*, 95, #88 overall #12 OT, #3 MI
		Rivals:               4.46*	4*, 5.9, #92 overall #13 OT, #4 MI
		ESPN:               4.38*	4*, 84, #12 MW, #136 Ovr #18 OT, #5 MI
		Composite:               4.49*	4*, .9612, #88 overall #11 OT, #4 MI
		Other Suitors	PSU, OSU, MSU
		YMRMFSPA	Tony Pape but Grapentined
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello from the Future post by Brian.
Notes	Early Enrollee. UA All-America. Twitter.
Film:
FBO film vs Eisenhower (full game):   More Film: Hudl page. Practice. MGoFish analysis. TMI highlight reel. Junior reel.

The recruitment Michigan’s first commit of its 2021 class was so undramatic as to be weird. Giovanni El-Hadi, committed on March 19, 2019 after his sophomore season at Adlai Stevenson, and shortly before there were 2021 class rankings to speak of. He was expected to be a top-100 player when they debuted, and he was. He was expected to keep adding good weight and agility, and he did. He was expected to stick with Michigan despite two tumultuous seasons, a pandemic, and a new position coach. He did.

When you’re a debut top-100, you should be top-250 when they’re done if they haven’t changed their minds about you. When you’re an offensive tackle who’s already 285 as high school sophomore, you’re expected to fall further, because the first round of rankings are usually filled with pure large fellas who go to camps and sit on normal people on their tapes.

El-Hadi…did not fall. Part of that may have been a weird year when it was harder than usual to turn up late risers (that will affect the next class more because we got full junior tape on this one). But the services turned up hundreds of tackle prospects between El-Hadi’s commitment and El-Hadi’s arrival for spring football, and one by one they were deemed not quite El-Hadi. I dutifully kept records until last December and El-Hadi was the most boring almost five-star recruit ever.

You would also think such a guy has limited upside. Via everybody, that’s not the case. In fact, El-Hadi, who only turned 18 this month, is the *YOUNGEST* member of the class.

[After THE JUMP: So good it's boring good]

Nobody goes there; it’s too crowded. The thing that made El-Hadi’s recruitment so boring was everybody knew he was good, and everyone knew he was going to Michigan. The week he committed to Michigan, Alabama was talking to his head coach about sending their OL coach up, and El-Hadi said don’t bother. Steve Lorenz called El-Hadi “a classic 'committed early so nobody talks about him' recruit.”

One of the best offensive line prospects in the country and a potential early impact type guy if some chips fall his way and his technique continues to develop. A great recruiting win when you consider how quickly he verbally pledged to the Wolverines.

Allen Trieu said El-Hadi is this year’s “massively under-appreciated commitment because he committed really early,” and “one of the under talked about guys in this class that's going to be good.”

This has been going on so long his new HS coach literally walked right past him.

The following year spring, Stevenson got a new head coach, Justin Newcomb. He heard there had been a freshman playing varsity he needed to meet, but when he went to seek El-Hadi out, he walked right past him thinking the 6-foot-5 figure with facial hair he walked past was a parent.

Newcomb’s OC and OL coach Ryan Roy Reason gave a “don’t pay attention to the rankings” crootin quote then nailed the rankings.

“They’re getting a stud. I don’t care what all the rankings say or who he’s compared to in the state, but he’s the best tackle in the state. Michigan is getting a winner.”

The rankings, both then and now, said he was the 88th best player in the country and the best tackle in the state. That alone was pretty incredible for a bumper year of Michigan OL talent that included 4-star OTs Cole Dellinger (LSU) of Clarkston, and Country Day’s Caleb Tiernan (Northwestern).

Great feet/athleticism/bend. When we can get the industry to talk about the boringly top-100 player they talk about the exact kind of multi-sport athlete. The 247 writeup by Allen Trieu plays the future NFL OT greatest hits:

Has great bend. Is flexible and has good twitch. Is able to handle outside speed rushers, but can re-direct against counter moves. Very good in pass protection. Gets good leverage and push in the run game and plays mean there. … Has the athletic tools and intangibles

And the B sides:

Athletic. I know when we first met, he had come straight from basketball practice and almost didn't make it. … He was at the Under Armour Future 50 down there in Florida where the defensive line group on the other side of him, absolutely loaded with four and five-star guys … Handled himself extremely well. He was one of our top performers at that event. Athletic, tough, mean, everything that you want out of an offensive line prospect.”

That camp was where El-Hadi put up a quantum-timed FAKE shuttle of 4.44 that was real enough for 247’s Draftageddon.

Round 11, Pick 110: … A 4.44 shuttle at 6-5, 275 is elite. As he adds more weight, he'll have the chance to develop into a high NFL Draft choice.

Rivals’ national analysts Rob Cassidy, Adam Friedman, and Chad Simmons were at that camp as well, and put El-Hadi among their favorites.

Looked extremely comfortable in this setting, and he should be proud of his performance. The Michigan commit had success against both the bigger, strong ends and the ones that were more about speed. He always played under control, he kept his feet under him, and he won a lot of reps against elite defensive linemen. He was clearly one of the more consistent performers on the line throughout the day.

This opposing coach (Chippewa Valley HC Scott Merchant) caught one of El-Hadi’s basketball games and got frightened.

“I once saw him at a basketball game, and I was blown away by how lean he looked,” Merchant recalled. “When people think of offensive linemen, they imagine heavier-set guys but he looks like he could be an NFL tight end right now. … Not many kids who are 6-6 and 270 can move the way he does as a 10th-grader.”

Merchant also lamented that Stephenson kept running behind a sophomore El-Hadi and he couldn’t do anything about it. El-Hadi also played Merchant’s team as a freshman, which doesn’t happen very often in one of the top conferences in Michigan.

Newcomb more recently:

“I think he’s just scratching the surface with how good he can be," Newcomb said. "I get that coaches recruit size and you try and forecast ability and sometimes you get kids and sometimes you strike out. To be able to get a kid at his size and someone that moves his feet as well as he does, and you couple that with the toughness factor and a kid that loves to grind and work, they’re getting a great combination in Giovanni.

He gets to wear the bowling shirt. The grinding is the other thing that stands out about El-Hadi. Newcomb to Brice Marich:

He is your throwback Bo Schembechler type of lineman. He’s tough, nasty and physical. It doesn’t matter what era you put him in

Trieu calls him “Athletic, tough, mean, everything that you want out of an offensive line prospect.” Jim Harbaugh’s Signing Day comment was “Tough guy, really good player. You think about guys in the class that really love Michigan, he’s one of the first to come to mind.

Marich referred to El-Hadi as a “big, strong, physical road grader” who fits what Warinner was looking for (IE that). Rivals Midwest recruiting analyst Josh Helmholdt noted “El-Hadi likes to put an exclamation on his blocks.” His OC/OL coach Ryan Roy Reason:

“He came off really low, which was good. With all of his blocks, he has that motor, which doesn’t stop. It was really good to see. He attacked the linebackers just the way we wanted him to. If you noticed, we ran the ball quite a bit to his side.

El-Hadi sweated out playing full-time, both ways as an upperclassman.

I love playing offense [as opposed to defense]; some people think playing tackle is boring, but I like pancaking people too much.

Merchant can confirm:

“The thing that makes him different — other than his physical stature — is that he’s extremely aggressive, and you often times don’t see that from high school offensive linemen. … el-Hadi was nasty in a good way — not as a person — and you love seeing offensive linemen have a mean streak and enjoy putting people on their backs.”

The incredible shrinking tackle. El-Hadi stands out on a Southeastern Michigan football field like the Renaissance Center. How tall he is has been up for some debate, or at least it’s been shifting downward. His coach said El-Hadi was already 6’5”/270 when he got to high school(!). Brandon Brown said he “definitely looks to be all of his listed 6-6 and is just a shade under 285” when he committed in March 2019. That 6’6”/285 was the canon from Newcomb, which opposing coach Merchant said “6’6”/270” after the basketball game while worrying the kid might outgrow football:

He’s a prototypical Division 1 offensive lineman, is exactly what you’re looking for ... I guess he could actually get too tall if he keeps growing, because you don’t see many 6-10 football players. Maybe he’ll turn into a basketball center if he gets to that height.

Havo dad, Juwan. After that Future 50 camp both sites started listing El-Hadi at 6’5”/275. However he measured 6’4” at The Opening shortly before the shutdown. Six indoor months later El-Hadi reported via Zoom that he’d grown.

“Right now, I’m 6-foot-6, 300-pounds and the coaches love my weight,” El-Hadi said. “Coach Warinner really likes it and how I look good with it. To be honest, I feel like I’ve gotten faster. I don’t feel like I lost a step, but actually gained one. I’m faster and move better.

Last December Allen Trieu described El-Hadi as “6-foot-5 plus. I think he's closer to 290 or so pounds now.” Michigan’s roster pegged him at 6’5”/318. Rosters never lie.

So is he moving down to guard? The recruiting people do discuss it to varying degrees. Trieu said it more like “yeah, if you want to do that.”

“Well-developed already but still has room to fill in. Well muscled. Measured 6-foot-4 at The Opening, so could play tackle or guard.”

Here I’ll mention he gave a comp to Cleveland swingman Joel Bitonio, which is saying a lot more. This is the NFL’s player bio for the 6’4”/302 Bitonio:

An undersized college left tackle who projects best to the inside in the pros. Displays the tenacity, leg drive and mean streak that is highly coveted by OL coaches and could drive up his draft status. Could require some initial patience moving inside, yet possesses the skill set, intelligence and desire to successfully convert.

Trieu also said El-Hadi is “Like Karsen Barnhart, maybe a guy that can give you some depth at multiple positions.” Rivals’ national analyst Mike Farrell foresees a (productive) move inside:

I also like the quartet of offensive linemen from Michigan, but especially El-Hadi. He could be special as a guard prospect.

Barnhart is currently competing for a guard spot via fall reports. However El-Hadi said Michigan’s coaches were only talking to him about tackle.

Raheem Anderson’s Assistant Coach. While not to the same degree as the last guy I wrote up, we got enough similar vignettes about El-Hadi to peg him the class Grant Newsome in a class that didn’t have an all-timer. There was never a question of a waver in his commitment to Michigan from the moment they were driving up to visit and his mother said 'if they tell us you have an offer, Giovanni, you better ask where the pen is to sign.”

His OC/OL coach said El-Hadi took over the OL as a junior.

We had only one combined start for everyone else on that offensive line. … He told me he’s got it and he started making all the different line calls and I think it calmed some of the other guys down. We literally ran the ball the whole fourth quarter and maybe only threw one pass to mainly kill the clock, but also because it was reliable getting four or five yards running behind our workhorse of Gio. He did really well.”

“His knowledge of the game is really more impressive this year and he just wants to be the best,” Reason said. “He’s hungry to learn more. … He did miss a couple blitzes off the outside, but came off and said, ‘Coach, I saw exactly what you are talking about and I’ll fix it’ and he took care of any other blitzes in the second half that he saw. He’s doing really good and it helps having a secondary coach out there especially with us being so young. He knows the offense and we can rely on to get the job done.”

People mistake him for an adult all the time.

“I actually thought he was one of their coaches when I first saw him,” Merchant laughed. “He’s 6-6 and about 270 pounds, and looks like he’s 25 years old.

…and he already understands personal responsibility better than most of them.

"He called me on his way home and he sounded dejected even though he did pretty well. He’s his biggest critic," Newcomb said. "He was already ready to get into a workout. He was telling me some things that he felt he needed to get better at. He really doesn’t take a day off.”

It was pretty important to him to be the first kid in that class. He prides himself in that a little bit and he likes to be the leader, so to speak

Are there injury concerns? El-Hadi has played through some stuff in his career that you, as a Michigan fan, would probably prefer he sat through. There was a hamstring hampering him in the 2020 opener everyone scouted (including us) and caused a Rivals writer to gripe he didn’t see the nasty. He also played through a high ankle sprain as a junior that lingered into the camps so that Trieu wondered what a 100% El-Hadi could do:

Had an ankle injury which bugged him during his junior year some and also at Under Armour Future 50, but we still liked his performance at UA. Lateral movement is still there and he was going against good competition. Interested to see what he does fully healthy as a senior.

I can’t find anything else negative to say about him. That’s probably why he’s ranked there.

Why Tony Pape but Grapentined? Because he reminds me a ton of Pape, a the most Wisconsinesque #77 to play tackle at Michigan whom we all keep trying to peg as a guard because he looked like a mauler, but who had the feet and length to fare really well at right tackle even against elite competition. Pape was also ranked way high (#5 OT to Rivals, #3 OT to Lemming, #3 OL to Superprep, Parade All-American) and had the same square-shaped torso. Pape might have been a bit taller, depending on where you put El-Hadi. If you think Pape was too tall and stiff, change this to Adam Stenavich, who was a Jon Runyan Jr.+ kind of left tackle. Or--fine--Jaylen Mayfield (and what we want Barnhart to become). But Mayfield did a lot more developing in high school, and more agile than mean. Tony Pape is what you would call a "Bo Schembechler-style" Michigan tackle.

"But Grapentined" because Carl Grapentine couldn't do much with "Tony Pape"; iambs were more in Keith Jackson's wheelhouse. “Giovanni El-Hadi” is vastly more musical. I mean, have you ever heard the tinny-ass dweebs they have announcing at Penn State and MSU, or the nasal little brother who yells “First dooowwwnnn Wisconssiiinnn”? We are truly blessed. Maybe we can engineer a carry per home game for El-Hadi; as long as we have Carl we should take advantage.

Guru Reliability: Exacting. They saw, they rated, we conquer.

Variance: None. The only difference is ESPN put the 12th best player in the Midwest outside of their Top 100 to fulfill their contractual obligation to overrate SEC players.

Ceiling: High. He’s not a 6’8” Jake Long. But El-Hadi impressed a lot of the same people who remember Jake Long, both on the football field and the basketball court. Potential three- or four-year starter and first-day pick that the NFL wants to move to guard.

General Excitement Level: High+. This is a Michigan-style lineman from point-emphatically-at-the-hand Michigan, a believable 6’5” and 300 pounds of twisted blue steel who put up a 4.44 shuttle despite an ankle thing. He’s been starting at OL for four years against some of the best players in the state, and in some years he would be the top prospect in that state. I won’t go to a 10/10 because offensive linemen are a crapshoot at the best of times. This is as close as you get.

One thing going against him (I know it’s late in the writeup for a real negative) is that guys who hit puberty early are generally much closer to their ceilings, and El-Hadi had enough facial hair at 15 that he could probably buy his friends beer without getting carded. That is negated somewhat by the fact that El-Hadi is over a year younger than a lot of his fellow 2021 recruits.

Projection: If he cracks the depth chart before next year forget what I said about 10/10 offensive linemen, but that’s not going to happen as long as Hayes, Stueber, Barnhart, and Trente Jones are available. If things go according to plan though I would expect to see El-Hadi in the mix for RT depth as early as next spring, and the guards had better hope he stays out there. Past Jones/Barnhart, who are a breath from the field right now, I see 2020 OT Jeff Persi and fellow 2021 Tristan Bounds as LT prospects, and El-Hadi is the favorite of that group of three to see the field first. Projecting a timeline for these guys is difficult because so many have freshman eligibility even if they’re third-year players. Even old man Stueber could play through 2022. When the current two deep clears off however, expect El-Hadi on the field for at least two years.