Previously: Quarterback, Running Back, Receivers

Installment #4, and the final piece of the offensive side of the ball, for The Enemy, Ranked 2023 has arrived. Today we'll be looking at the offensive lines on Michigan's schedule. This list is not a murderer's row by any means and in fact the teams at the top of this list are teams in which the offensive line is one of the biggest question spots on their team. Part of this is Michigan being unable to play themselves (which I noted in RB), but part of it is Wisconsin and Illinois not being on the schedule either. So keep that in mind as you read this piece, which I will try to emphasize as we go along. 

 

12. Bowling Green

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Nate Pabst	Tunde Fatukasi	Hunter Deyo	Bronson Warner	Alex Wollschlaeger
Kameren Stewart		Cade Zimmerly (inj.)	Chris Akporoghene	Armon Bethea

Note for tables in this piece: bold = returning starter, italic = transfer in who started at another school  

Bowling Green was 112th in Football Outsiders' adjusted line yards metric last season and now lose three starters off of that line. The returners, Bronson Warner at RG and Alex Wollschlaeger at RT, graded out horribly in PFF's charting last season (I don't like having to defer to PFF on OL, but I also didn't get a chance to chart BGSU myself in 2022 so I have no choice). That's a rough place to start from! Projected LG starter Tunde Fatukasi is a sort of half-returning starter, logging a ton of snaps last season on offense (442) after transferring from Rutgers (you may remember his brother, Rutgers stand-out LB Olakunle Fatukasi) but his grading wasn't any better. So while there are some pieces with experience, it's not exactly great experience. The same could be said for Kameren Stewart, who right now is not seen as a projected starter at tackle despite logging 461 offensive snaps of his own for the Falcons last year, also to subpar results. 

To try and help the rough performances from the returners and fill in the gaps, C Hunter Deyo comes in as a 4* RS Fr transfer from Iowa State. He didn't play for the Cyclones in any substantial capacity last season, so this is his first go-around. Former C Cade Zimmerly missed last season with an injury and may not be back until mid-season, so TBD on that. Nate Pabst is a second year player moving from DL to OL (never really what I want to hear), while reserves at G and T Chris Akporoghene and Armon Bethea, respectively, are P5 transfers in from various locations without much experience in multiple seasons of CFB. In summation, this is an OL that was terrible last year, loses three starters, brings back some pieces who were mostly substandard, and brings in transfers with little to no experience. Not great! 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More offensive lines]

 

[247Sports]

11. East Carolina

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Parker Moorer	Dustyn Hall	Hampton Ergle	Isaiah Foote	Owen Murphy
	Richard Pearce	Ryan Beckman		Walter Stribling

Like every other spot on the ECU offense, the Pirates are seeing substantial departures in what figures to be a re-tooling year for the whole team. Their strong interior OL got raided by the portal leaving just RG Isaiah Foote standing, who was solid last season. He's a decent player to get back, but when both tackles also depart, that's a bit problematic. Dustyn Hall will be on the other side of the center, a multi-year contributor at USF who started for the Bulls last season to okay PFF grades. In between them figures to be Hampton Ergle (name of the week candidate), a former walk-on with many years in the program but not nearly as many actual snaps. The interior should be okay, but will need to gel some. 

The tackles figure to be some mix of upperclassmen returners Parker Moorer (formerly of WVU, last season's 6th man for ECU) and Walter Stribling (4th year player but seldom used), in addition to Akron transfer Owen Murphy. Murphy did not play last season for the Zips but was a starter in both 2020 and 2021, albeit with woeful grading from our friends at PFF. Ryan Beckman also came over from Akron with Murphy and has some (equally bad) starting experience to provide depth on the interior. Altogether this line has got quite a few career starts, which is in theory good, but those starts were in games where the players played badly and a lot of them came at other schools. It will be up to OL coach Allen Mogridge to bring a unit together that works in unison out of all these transfers, returning contributors, and ascending pieces. This doesn't feel particularly great, but neither does the next team on the list. Likely a middle of the road Gof5 OL.  

 

10. UNLV

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Marcus Miller	Jalen St. John	Jack Hasz	Amani Trigg-Wright	Tiger Shanks
Anton Ambuehl	Alani Makihele	Graham Keating III

The top rated non-conference OL, narrowly edging out ECU, are the UNLV Rebels, though they still far short of even the below-par B1G lines. UNLV's line being ranked in the top spot hinges largely on the health of their starting unit and whether they can stay together for the upcoming season, because the depth is rather weak and untested. The starters, though, are okay. Armani Trigg-Wright and Tiger Shanks (another name of the week candidate) anchor the right side of the OL as returning starters who were okay for a team that finished 95th in average adjusted line yards last season (not great!). Those two are the building blocks for a unit that also adds Jack Hasz as a transfer starter for Buffalo, who PFF thought was also okay for the Bulls. Three pieces to work with. 

The left side of the line is pretty inexperienced, but at the very least both are fourth year players, so they're not being pressed into duty too soon. Jalen St. John is a down-transfer from Arkansas who seldom got on the field for the Hogs, while Marcus Miller has been in the program marinating. Obviously you'd like to have players with starts under the belt at those spots but upperclassmen who have been getting ready is better than pressing a true freshman into duty or turning a DL around. These five can probably hold their own against Group of 5 opponents, though this is no better than a mid-tier MWC OL. The issue is if someone gets hurt, because the second team OL is a whole bunch of faces who have yet to see much real game action. This is not good, but neither are the other non-con teams. Don't expect the Michigan DL to be tested in the first three weeks. 

 

Indiana's OL was allowing a lot of this last year [Bryan Fuller]

9. Indiana 

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Carter Smith	Mike Katic	Zach Carpenter	Khalil Benson	Matthew Bedford*
Joshua Sales Jr.	Noah Bolticoff		Max Longman

Good news: Indiana is not planning to start a transfer from West Texas A&M at tackle this season. The bad news is they are still likely going to be quite bad on the OL (even though I think they will be improved). Last year's IU OL was a catastrophe, 127th in average adjusted line yards, which is fifth from the bottom of the entire FBS. You may recall Michigan's passrush bulldozing the Indiana OL over and over again in that game, which didn't happen too often in the rest of the Maize & Blue's season. The Hoosiers were BAD. 

The hope for improvement beyond "we no longer are starting a West Texas A&M transfer" is two-fold: 1.) Indiana gets most all of its snaps from last year back, 2.) Matthew Bedford is back healthy at tackle after tearing his ACL, and 3.) the hiring of ex-Wisconsin OL coach Bob Bostad. Getting production back is good, even if it was bad production, as all they can do is go upwards. Bostad's presence will likely help them do so. Still, it's a looooong way to go. Bedford's return is good in that it chases out said West Texas A&M player but less good in that Bedford was cyan'd on our old FFFF diagram back when he was starting in 2021. The interior of Mike Katic/Zach Carpenter/Khalil Benson are all back, but they all need coaching help to get them back on track. Carpenter, our Old Friend, looked a long, long way from a guy who we once thought Michigan was going to start at center. 

On the left side of the line, Carter Smith is in line to start as a RS Fr who 247 thought was a 4* (the composite had him as a 3*). Again, likely better than West Texas A&M. The depth figures to be improved some as well, Joshua Sales logged 324 snaps last year and is back to help out at tackle, while Tom Allen added Max Longman, a multi-year starter at UMass (not saying much, but hey, it's experience) to deepen the interior OL. All this production back and new coaching means improvement is very likely, and perhaps significant, but also do they ever need it. I'm just not ready to move them ahead of the next two teams on the list, but I think the gap between Indiana and those teams is much smaller than it would've been last season. 

 

8. Maryland

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Gottlieb Ayedze	Amelio Moran	Aric Harris	Corey Bullock	Delmar "DJ" Glaze
	Marcus Dumervil	Mike Purcell		Andre Roye

Last year the Terps ranked 6th on our list because even though they returned a ton of experience (all five starters were back!), I was skeptical given how poorly they had performed the preceding season. To the delight of Maryland fans, the group did alright, finishing 41st in average adjusted line yards, all the way up from the 80s the prior season. Unfortunately, now comes the fall. Four of the five starters are gone, leaving only DJ Glaze behind. Glaze was pretty solid last year after being cyan'd in 2021, so that's a nice start. Unfortunately, there's a lot of spots to fill. 

In terms of experience among the four new starters, the most experienced one at the FBS level is center Aric Harris, who played a real reserve role in 2021 and then logged 115 snaps a year ago. His PFF grades have been fine in spot duty, which is encouraging, but this will be a big step up in responsibility. Gottlieb Ayedze (yet another name of the week candidate) and Corey Bullock both are in italics in the chart, indicating that they were starters elsewhere. Unfortunately, they were starters at D2 Frostburg State (Ayedze) and FCS NC Central (Bullock). It's going to a massive increase in quality of competition moving up to the B1G for both of these guys, so I wouldn't count on them for a ton. Amelio Moran is slated to take the final starting spot on the line as of this writing, a sixth-year player who's been in the program for the last three but has yet to start and the charting in his appearances hasn't been great. 

The depth beneath this scotch taped together starting line is also murky. Marcus Dumervil arrives after three years at LSU, Mike Purcell arrives after four years at Elon and a staring role in the Colonial Athletic Association, and Andre Roye is a 3* RS Fr breaking in to a role. While Maryland's line was pretty solid last season, it is unfortunately a very different line this year and the state of affairs in the spring was extremely grim. I debated moving them below Indiana and it wouldn't shock me if they end up there, but I left the Terps ahead because at least they have a long way to fall, as opposed to IU having a long way to improve. But this is not a great situation, multiple FCS/D2 starters, multiple internal new starters, and a two-deep juiced by transfers from everywhere. Good luck, Taulia.   

 

[David Wilcomes]

7. Rutgers

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Hollin Pierce	Curtis Dunlap	Ireland Brown	Mike Ciaffoni	Tyler Needham
Reggie Sutton (inj)	Bryan Felter	Gus Zilinskas

Last year the Rutgers Scarlet Knights took 9th out of nine B1G teams on The Enemy, Ranked: OL. This year they take 7th (we're not last! we're not last!). I am not projecting them to be good. In fact, far from it. Just marginally less appalling than the two teams beneath them. Rutgers finished 91st in average adjusted line yards last year, in the bottom tier in just about every stat that Football Outsiders tracks, and that caused Greg Schiano to hire a new OL coach in Pat Flaherty, formerly of the NY Giants, where he won two Super Bowls (the second B1G team so far with a new OL coach). 

Flaherty's got his work cut out for him, but at least, like Indiana, he has a lot of players on the depth chart who have played B1G football. There are three returning starters in Hollin Pierce at LT, Ireland Brown at C, and Curtis Dunlap at G. Pierce is moving over to the left side from RT with the graduation of Willie Tyler III. We cyan'd Pierce last season so I don't feel great about his abilities to hang in there protecting Gavin Wimsatt's blindside. Dunlap and Brown weren't standouts, but they also avoided the cyan, so there is reason for optimism that they can build on that. The right side of the line also has a bit of experience, as Mike Ciaffoni logged 302 snaps last season, albeit to poor PFF scores.

Tyler Needham, the projected starter at RT, is quite inexperienced and the same could be said for all the reserves (all RS FR or RS SO who haven't seen the field much), with the exception of one-time tackle starter Reggie Sutton, who is still working his way back from a devastating knee injury. Sutton was a decent player when healthy, and he did return to the field in the spring, but we shall see if he's got enough of his old prowess left to win a starting job (presumably over Needham). Overall, I like this line a bit more than Indiana's because they weren't as catastrophically bad last year and bring back similar amounts of production. They also have more experience and upside than Maryland's giant question mark box of likely terribleness, but I struggle to see how Rutgers' OL approaches anything resembling "good" this upcoming season with a lot of the same players who were quite bad last season still here. 

 

6. Purdue

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Mahamane Moussa	Jalen Grant Jr.	Gus Hartwig	Marcus Mbow	DJ Johnson
Ben Farrell	Luke Griffin		Preston Nichols

The Boilers were not a particularly great OL last season, decent in pass protection and godawful in run blocking, but at the very least they return production and project to be not atrocious, which is enough to get them out of the bottom third among B1G opponents. Three starters return, two of which being very solid players in G Marcus Mbow and C Gus Hartwig, while Mahamane Moussa was a bit iffy at LT but again, he brings a lot of starts to his name. It also helps that the two new starters have some FBS experience, RT DJ Johnson logging 213 snaps last season in relief duty for Purdue (not insignificant) and LG Jalen Grant Jr., a transfer in from Bowling Green, where he was a two-year starter. As a group, Purdue's OL has 92 career starts to their name, a respectable number that should provide steady infrastructure in front of new QB Hudson Card. 

The depth has been farmed out of the transfer portal for the most part. Preston Nichols was an All-MWC player at UNLV (what is with Purdue getting transfer OL from Michigan's non-con opponents?), which is a nice backup plan to have on your interior OL. Luke Griffin is a transfer from Mizzou with some snaps in his past, while Ben Farrell is an up-transfer from Indiana Wesleyan with four years of NCAA football experience. The rationale for ranking Purdue at this spot is they return a good chunk of production and even the 6th/7th guys have quality FBS experience (moving them ahead of MD) and while they were not good last year, they were better than either Rutgers or Indiana and thus project to stay ahead of them with a veteran group. But make no mistake, they will probably continue to struggle on the ground and put up middling results as a unit. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

5. Nebraska

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Teddy Prochazka	Nouredin Nouili	Ben Scott	Turner Corcoran	Bryce Benhart
	Henry Lutovsky		Ethan Piper	Jacob Hood

Very much in the vein of Purdue is Nebraska, who also bring back a lot of returning production but from a unit that was not good at all last year. A theme of this Nebraska OL is talented players with great recruiting rankings who were disastrously coached for many years, though new OL coach Donovan Raiola did seem to improve the group to some degree in 2022, reversing damage done early in the Frost era (he was retained by Rhule). Despite injuries and massive mid-year turnover with the offensive staff, Nebraska finished 82nd in adjusted average line yards last year, which was ahead of Purdue, Indiana, or Rutgers. 

Nebraska brings back even more production than Purdue and adds a P5 starter as a transfer as well, which is the argument for putting them ahead of Purdue. Three returning starters are back in tackle Bryce Benhart and guards Turner Corcoran and Ethan Piper, though one may not start. Right now Corcoran is listed ahead of Piper, though my charting from last year verrrrrrry much suggests it should be the other way around (Corcoran is moving from tackle, we should note). The reason one may not start is because Nouredin Nouili, a starter in 2021, is back after missing all of 2022. So in some ways, the Huskers have three projected returning starters at guard and that's before you get into Henry Lutovsky, who played 281 snaps himself last season (we cyan'd him as well, unfortunately). If I were managing the Nebraska OL, I'd probably have Piper and Nouili as my starters and Corcoran and Lutovsky as depth, but we'll see how camp shakes out.  

Out at tackle, the aforementioned Benhart is a middling three year starter who should be competent enough to play the right, while maybe the X-Factor on the line is Teddy Prochazka. He was forced into duty way too soon as a true freshman in 2021 and again in 2022 as a sophomore. A 4* in the 247 composite, the talent is there, as is the size (6'8"), to be a legit LT. Can he be that for this group? He doesn't qualify as a returning "starter", but Prochazka has played plenty, fitting in the theme of this OL. Finally there's Ben Scott from ASU, a transfer in who was the Sun Devils' starter at C last year, a nice get for Rhule. In totality, Nebraska boasts 120 career starts on the OL + players who have logged plenty of 6th man type snaps. The experience is there. The talent is there: Corcoran, Benhart, Prochazka, many of these guys were legit 4* players in the composite. But the caliber of play in the past hasn't been there. They have enough experience to edge in front of the four OLs on this list beneath them, but that's saying very little. To move up higher, Raiola will need to bring this group together, help some of these players unlock their potential, and gel a real OL. Getting better health from these players would certainly help too. 

 

4. Michigan State 

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Brandon Baldwin	JD Duplain	Nick Samac	Geno VanDeMark	Spencer Brown
Ethan Boyd		Dallas Fincher		Keyshawn Blackstock

It says a lot about the state of offensive line play in the B1G that MSU has ranked in the upper half of the list two years in a row despite not being good at all at actually being an offensive line. They prevented sacks last year but did little else. Heading into 2023, the hope is that with a more senior and deeper line, they MSU can put up the best OL production that they've gotten under Mel Tucker. Three starters return, Nick Samac at C (I've never been big on him), JD Duplain at G (he's good), and Spencer Brown at RT (was fine as a first year starter last year). Brandon Baldwin at LT was also very close to qualifying as a starter in 2022, starting five games for the Spartans and playing over 400 snaps in total. 

That's a decent crop to start with and then you toss in Geno VanDeMark, who played over 200 snaps himself last year and you have a line that is very familiar with each other, always an asset when building a unit. If any of the starters get supplanted, it will likely be in favor of Keyshawn Blackstock, a JUCO transfer who was seen as one of the very best JUCO OL prospects in the country this past offseason, with the ability to slide in at guard or tackle potentially. Elsewhere on the depth chart are RS So Ethan Boyd and RS Jr Dallas Fincher, representing the internal depth that Tucker has been trying to build. I don't expect MSU to have a loaded OL by any means, but when you roll over five guys who all either started or were 6th/7th men, you are starting from a good point, and the addition of Blackstock strengthens the depth. With any reasonable OL coaching, they should keep ticking upwards towards being able to call the line "average", which lands them ahead of Purdue and Nebraska. 

 

[247Sports]

3. Minnesota 

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Aireontae Ersery	Tyler Cooper	Nathan Boe	Quinn Carroll	Martes Lewis
	Karter Shaw			JJ Guedet

Narrowly ahead of MSU is Minnesota, a team that doesn't see anywhere close to the same level of returning production but gets the benefit of the doubt thanks to having established a standard of strong OL play, as opposed to the track record of OL play at MSU, Nebraska, and Purdue the last five years best described as "uh oh". Minnesota loses three starters from last season, including Old Friend Chuck Filiaga and acclaimed C John-Michael Schmitz, but they've built up a very nice stable of options to replace them. The Gophers love their hulking OL and rest assured, they're still planning to start five guys 6'5" or taller and three of them 320+ lbs. despite losing Filiaga. 

The two returning starters are LT Aireontae Ersery (another great name), who got an honorable mention for All-B1G, and RG Quinn Carroll, who PFF loved last season and also got an honorable mention. New C Nathan Boe did get a hair over 200 snaps last season and graded out very well in those snaps per PFF, while Tyler Cooper and Martes Lewis haven't gotten a ton of work but both are uppclassmen who have marinated for years in this program. And given the track record of Minnesota, if they slide in a fourth or fifth year player who have waited their turn, I generally expect they won't be terrible. The same could be said for backup options JJ Guedet (tackle) and Karter Shaw (guard), both of whom are RS Seniors. No one is going to be pressed into duty too soon, just a simple succession of options at a well maintained OL school. Only 49 career starts on this depth chart, but I have high expectations for the Gophers when they've been top 50 in average adjusted line yards each of the last three full seasons. 

 

2. Penn State

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Olu Fashanu	Landon Tengwall	Hunter Nourzad	Sal Wormley	Caedan Wallace
Drew Shelton	JB Nelson	Nick Dawkins

Now we reach the top two teams on the list and the funniest thing about this is... I don't really like either of these top two teams' OLs! But who else on this list deserves to be ahead of them? Nobody in my mind! Penn State's OL is coming off a season where they managed to be middling in the trenches after years of being decisively much worse than middling. And with rolling over the vast majority of their production, there is optimism in NittanyLand that this is the year that James Franklin can finally have a good offensive line. We shall see. 

The big coup of the offseason was getting Olu Fashanu to stay in college after he was a projected elite NFL Draft pick, perhaps because his late October injury robbed him of the chance to play meaningful football for the Nittanys (missed the Rose Bowl). Fashanu is one of those interesting players, merely good in college last season but projected high for the NFL because of his physical gifts (we didn't star him on the FFFF diagram, for example). However, Fashanu coming back allows me to project him to take a leap into the sort of play that would justify his draft ranking. That's a key cog, and the cornerstone of this OL. 

Three other starters are back, with Hunter Nourzad, a former Cornell transfer, sliding over to center after an iffy first season in the B1G (old C Juice Scruggs has moved on). Landon Tengwall moves into Nourzad's old spot at G, with 200+ snaps to his name last season. The right side of Sal Wormley and Caedan Wallace returns intact, good because it is returning production and bad because those two players are still unsatisfactory, Wallace in particular remaining one notch above turnstile status (did get the ole cyan last fall). The depth includes Drew Shelton, who was forced to play as a Tr Fr at tackle when Fashanu went down. This season is hopefully a chance for him to sit and get his proper development track back in order. 

To tie it altogether, Penn State's OL is one of the more veteran groups in the B1G, though some of their returning starters aren't multi-year starters. They project to have a very strong lineman at the most important pass protecting position, while players are around average at the other four spots (Wallace an exception to that). There is okay depth. It should be one of the better lines Franklin has had. But is it good enough for #1, even if I don't feel great about OSU's OL? No, I'm not there yet... I just can't rank them there. I'd rather jump into Lake Superior in January than anoint a Franklin OL the best on the schedule. Buckeyes it is. 

 

[Patrick Barron]

1. Ohio State 

LT	LG	C	RG	RT
Josh Fryar	Donovan Jackson	Carson Hinzman	Matthew Jones	Tegra Tshabola
	Victor Cutler		Enokk Vimahi	Josh Simmons

Ohio State lands first on the list even though I have some questions about their OL after watching the spring game tape. In fact, it would probably be one of my three biggest questions about this OSU team (their tackles at least), but with Michigan not playing Wisconsin/Illiniois and unable to play themselves, I couldn't justify OSU anywhere else. PSU doesn't have a track record at all despite returning more production and the Bucks, even though they have struggled to run block in short yardage downs, have produced elite pass protecting OLs consistently for years. That track record + talent, crossed with the dismal list of OLs in the B1G (and their respective terrible track records) on Michigan's schedule leaves me with no choice but to rank an OL I don't rate terribly highly #1 on this year's The Enemy OL. Yippee! 

The good news is OSU returns both starting guards, Donovan Jackson being a projected NFL high pick because of course. Matthew Jones was the weakest of the five starters last year in my view. The bad news is they lost C Luke Wypler a year earlier than they wanted to, which means Carson Hinzman slides in as a RS Fr and the tackle situation looked questionable in the spring, to put it lightly. After losing multi-year starters Dawand Jones and Paris Jackson Jr. to the NFL, the current plan seems to be Josh Fryar, one of the team's only 3* players with any real role, at LT and then one of a couple options at RT. One such option is RS Fr Tegra Tshabola, a 4* prospect in the 2022 class, but he didn't look great in the spring, which caused them to dip back into the portal and go to the most trusthworthy well of all for offensive linemen... Brady Hoke. OSU nabbed Josh Simmons, a RS So who graded out extremely poorly in PFF's data as a first-year starter for San Diego State. 

What's the full picture here? The guards should be rock solid to good. Center will probably have lumps with a second year player and a first year starter, but Hinzman is a talented prospect. And then the tackles, idk man. Ohio State deserves all the benefit of the doubt in the world at developing pass protecting OL, but this situation is not appetizing. We always have to remember that the OL takes time to gel and you can't read too much off of spring game tape (especially at OL), but when you dip back into the portal after spring to grab a one year starter with bad PFF grades at tackle, it acknowledges there's something going on here. Day said it himself with the quote: "looking for consistency" on the offensive line. I don't think this is going to turn into a catastrophe because OSU is far too talented and far too good of a program to let that happen. But some drop-off, perhaps sizable, from the tackles they've had the last two years seems probable to likely at this time. Yet, because of the lay of the land with this list, OSU retains the top spot on the list. Go figure. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Where would Michigan rank?

This one is just as easy as RB, #1. None of these OLs scare me at all and Michigan's is one of the best in the country. Easy! Honestly, Michigan's second team OL of Jeffery Persi/Gio El-Hadi/Crippen-or-Anderson/Karsen Barnhart (or Trente)/Myles Hinton is no worse than 5th on this list if it were the starting unit. That it's the second unit below a first string with two lauded transfers, two returning All-B1G players, and a solid fifth starter, is what vaults Michigan into the pole position by a mile.