Previously: Podcast 11.0A, Podcast 11.0B, Podcast 11.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Offensive Tackle.

Depth Chart

LT	Yr.	LG	Yr.	C	Yr.	RG	Yr.	RT	Yr.
Jon Runyan Jr	Sr.*	Ben Bredeson	Sr.	Cesar Ruiz	Jr.	Mike Onwenu	Sr.	Jalen Mayfield	Fr.*
Ryan Hayes	Fr.*	Chuck Filiaga	So.*	Stephen Spanellis	Jr.*	Andrew Vastardis	Jr.*	Joel Honigford	So.*
Trevor Keegan	Fr.	Karsen Barnhart	Fr.	Zach Carpenter	Fr.	Nolan Rumler	Fr.	Trente Jones	Fr.

Four games in the question had to be asked.

Is this... the Warinner effect?

Maybe? I think it's real. Michigan errors against stunts and various blitzes tend to be rare and largely understandable. … Michigan is picking up twists and blitzes and the like and from time to time I catch an OL doing something that seems advanced. Here Bredeson is locked on the LB but when he doesn't charge he takes the opportunity to help Ruiz out, and then goes to the LB:

LG #74

…almost nobody got to run straight at the RB without someone hitting him. That happened so much last year. It's happened some this year. But a minimal amount.

While Warinner was rebuilding Jon Runyan Jr midseason he was also creating a structure in which Michigan's guards went from horrible pass protectors to elite ones, and pushing Cesar Ruiz to NFL draft lists. It's been 20 years since you could assume Michigan OL who left the program were certainly going to get drafted. For one year, at least, that's back.

[After THE JUMP: MEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT]

CENTER: IN SOVIET RUSSIA, CESAR RENDERS YOU

RATING: 5.

GET YOU A CENTER THAT POINTS [Eric Upchurch]

Yeah, I used the same header last year. It's too good to change, and so is CESAR RUIZ. Ruiz arrived at Michigan as the most-hyped center prospect in the last decade of college football and wasted no time delivering. First he displaced Mike Onwenu at right guard for the back half of his freshman season; for an encore he radically improved Michigan's OL organization as a true sophomore center. This quote from last year was revealing:

“How it was last year, it’s like, no matter what, if he comes, you gotta block him,” Evans explained. “Now Cesar’s in there and he can adjust it and you can go at it like that."

The combination of Ruiz and Warinner all but eliminated instances where Michigan's blocking was so messed up that I threw up my hands and asserted it had to be the line call, as was common in 2017. From last year's Offensive 5 Questions:

I have a hard time constructing a narrative where the center position wasn't a fundamental issue. That opinion was reinforced by semi-regular occurrences where Kugler would fail to do an incredibly obvious thing to do. Here's a power play against Rutgers on which Kugler fails to make a basic downblock opposite the play, seemingly because he realizes who he should block post-snap:

Michigan's first and only play in OT against Indiana was a similar occurrence, with everyone except Kugler going one way and Kugler going the other. A pin-and-pull earlier in the game was destroyed because Kugler pulled despite having a guy he very very obviously needed to block just to his right. So many plays last year were doomed not because of technique or strength but because someone was headed for the backfield without a block.

That was literally all gone. I did not clip giant line busts, or spend big sections of various UFRs attempting to forensically re-assemble the bits of a nonsense play. I did see Ruiz understand the implications of certain pre-snap moves from the defense:

Ruiz is grading out pretty well these days.

He is, and he did a thing I very much enjoyed in this game. You may have heard me complain about knowing the implications of certain defensive alignments, and reacting based on those implications. This usually means that there's an almost-certain blitzer out there who implies a DL slant away from the blitz. Notre Dame was able to get some stops by bringing a linebacker down in an area with no eligible WRs; I felt like someone should be able to see that and read the implied slant.

Well, here's a Maryland linebacker creeping down, and Cesar Ruiz pointing it out:

#51 C

Then he goes and whoops the NT he knows is going to slant to him, creating a giant gap for Mason. That guy doesn't know what hit him.

The acid test against Michigan State's double A-gap blitz, which Mason Cole passed and Patrick Kugler did not, went swimmingly:

What happened to that double A gap blitz MSU used to run all the time?

They still run it a bunch.

uh

 

It just gets picked up. Ruiz got beat for a pressure on it on the first play of the game. Every other instance was a pickup and a reasonable amount of yardage.

M #51 and #74 C, and LG

The above was consistent. Double A blitzes after the first pressure: 6 yard run, 16 yard TE screen, 5 yard run, 9 yard run, 4 yard run. This pays off season preview speculation that Cesar Ruiz would be a major upgrade.

After Ruiz got Michigan set up right he displayed a rare combination of agility and mashing ability. One reason Michigan's arc zone was so effective in critical short-yardage situations was the prospect of an extended Ruiz-Onwenu double putting your defensive tackle in the endzone. If it happened to Raequan Williams, and it did…

C #50 and RG #51

…nobody was immune. And Ruiz didn't need Onwenu to move some guys. Here he crunches Wisconsin's Olive Sagapolu out of the lane:

C #51

And if you slanted to him and weren't ready for the smoke he just blew you up and moved to the linebacker level.

C #51

The combination of all of this in one package is rare. 24/7 poster Boanerges77, who's clearly some variety of ex-OL, on Ruiz:

His ability to reach shaded nose tackles is quite impressive, mostly due to his elite athleticism for the position. Additionally, you can see this athleticism at hand in his ability to climb quickly to the second level, and has shown the ability to pull. Also, his leverage is phenomenal, not easily moved backwards. The IQ and directing of the OL is definitely there.

That's the whole package for a center.

Even with all that Ruiz was a hair behind his compatriots at guard last year. His 14 protection minuses were the most garnered by an interior OL, albeit barely. His run grading of 70% was also a whisker behind Bredeson and Onwenu. This may actually be good news for this year. Ruiz is a year younger than the guards and should improve faster, especially given the general shape of his 2018. When the Athletic surveyed the 2020 interior OL draft class they named Ruiz the #4 prospect, highlighting both his natural tools and a few things he's still cleaning up:

…young player who’s still learning how to play college football at a consistently high level, but he has been a quick study. While it doesn’t always look pretty, he works to gain proper body position and is quick to roll his hips and introduce his hands, flashing the violence needed to bully his target. Ruiz looks the part with his barrel-chest and strong trunk, but he is surprisingly nimble for a 320-pounder.

Must Improve: technical savvy

Ruiz’s technique isn’t an area that needs an overhaul, but rather the elimination of some bad habits. At times, he will drop his head or overextend, not consistently playing with his feet beneath him. When he is caught leaning, his hands tend to slide off his target, which leads to chaotic movements. From his tape, it is clear Ruiz understands what he is doing, he just needs more playing time to improve his muscle memory.

…one of the youngest draft-eligible prospects (born June 14, 1999) in this class … While undeveloped in a few areas, Ruiz has projectable traits and his success rate should continue to improve as his technical skills catch up to the rest of his skill-set.

Bredeson 2019 is going to be Bredeson 2018 with a little extra polish. Ruiz 2019 can rip past the teammates he's currently a hair behind.

It's a tough year for getting the whiz-bang awards. That Athletic article has Ruiz behind three other underclass centers(!), including Wisconsin's Tyler Biadasz. Ruiz could be Rimington-worthy and still get pipped by Biadasz or Oklahoma's Creed Humphery. But he'll be in that tier. I wouldn't get too attached to the idea of a senior Ruiz; he'll be in the NFL.

GUARD: GRAPES OF WRATH

RATING: 5

WHAT DID YOU DO RAY [Seth]

Of all the player-specific takes about this year's team the ones that make the least sense to me are about MIKE ONWENU. To me, Onwenu lived up to every speck of hype. He was indeed the grape demon summoned into being to destroy so many miniature New York Cities. To everyone else… eh, pretty decent. He was third team All Big Ten, which is nice, I guess, but preseason talk about him has been minimal. NFL types who are over the moon about Ben Bredeson think Onwenu is barely draftable.

I don't get it. Onwenu keeps getting talked about like he was iffy last year and is only now taking it Football Serious and losing the weight, but even if he was 350* pounds last year he was also terrific. The stunt issues that plagued him as a sophomore were gone. Over the full season (including OSU/UF) we had him for a total of 8 pass protection minuses—Runyan had 9 in the Notre Dame game—and PFF's grading was even kinder:

Both Michael Onwenu and Luke Campbell allowed a mere four QB pressures last season, but Onwenu beat him out with an 87.6 pass-blocking grade pic.twitter.com/uLaUb6pc5q

— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 25, 2019

That's the bit of the game you'd think a planet-man would struggle with. Instead Onwenu was Michigan's best pass protector and probably the best they've had since Taylor Lewan, once you grade the interior on a curve.

He also did well at the things you'd expect him to. Many opponents went for the proverbial "ride":

RG #50

Even when DTs timed up the snap and barreled into him it often wasn't enough. This poor Hoosier probably thought he'd won something:

RG #50, IU DT #95

There were many incidents where opponents ran full speed at a relatively stationary Onwenu and got either no penetration—if they were DL—or were thunked out of their gap—if they were LB. Michigan's ground game was left-handed last year because of the down-to-down reliability of Ruynan and Bredeson, but when it was time to crunch some dudes in short yardage Michigan preferred to run behind the bighuge guys on the right:

RG #50

Purported mobility issues seemed overblown to me. There were some power plays, particularly against Northwestern, on which Onwenu took some heat for not getting over fast enough. On review I thought those weren't his issues, but rather hyper-aggressive linebackers getting to the spot first. This feels pretty quick for any OL, 350* pounds or 300:

That looks bad for Onwenu largely because Higdon decides to run directly into the LB who he stalled out. When called into action on various pin and pull looks where Bredeson also pulled there didn't seem to be much, if any, difference between their respective abilities to get through the LOS and do something productive downfield. Sometimes Onwenu did better, even.

The combination of power and mobility bore out in Onwenu's UFR charting, where his season grade on the ground was Mason Cole-level:

Opponent	+	-	TOT
Notre Dame	5	2.5	2.5
WMU	7	1	6
SMU	14	7	7
Nebraska	4.5	4	0.5
Northwestern	11.5	4.5	7
Maryland	10	3	7
Wisconsin	7.5	2.5	5
MSU	7.5	3.5	4
PSU	14.5	2	12.5
Rutgers	6	0.5	5.5
Indiana	11	0.5	10.5
OSU	3.5	6	-2.5
Florida	2	0	2
TOTAL	104	37	74%

So there's all that, and also Onwenu is about the only starting OL being talked about. That's because he has more upside yet to explore. I'm dubious that Onwenu dropping some pounds is going to make a major difference in his ability—how much better can he get than 4 pressures allowed and a pile of +2 blocks on the ground?—but the takes are out there. Lorenz asserted he's "answered the bell" and that he's "hearing really good things about the strides Onwenu has taken"; Rivals posted that he's been "really good" and the weight loss "improved his footwork and stamina"; Webb has a source who said that Onwenu's pushing for the NFL—he is generally not regarded as a major prospect—and that his "mental preparation is on another level now."

Gattis then put out the first non-fictional weight Michigan has ever used for Big Mike:

He's been awesome, he's just a guy that — he is one of the most impressive guys to look at, because he's 370 pounds and when you first think about an offensive lineman you say 370, you worry about them, but he has really good feet and can run and move really well. He's actually got one of the lowest body fat percentages of all of our offensive linemen. … Mike is playing really, really well.

If all this is true, Onwenu is going to be an All-American. There's nowhere else for him to go. This space is apparently alone in its belief that he already is one.

but mister Frodo [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

BEN BREDESON is tougher to summarize in a few clips than Onwenu. He was not a font of mashing +2 blocks over the course of the season. His main asset was consistency. He's a 300-pound Tyrion Lannister: he blocks, and he knows things. This double-A gap blitz pickup is the most definitive clip I've got:

LG #74

DT leaves. Okay, pick up the linebacker. Linebacker moving away from him. Okay, redirect to the guy twisting over the top of him. First down. That's Ben Bredeson: he blocks, and he knows things. If you need someone to keep his head up and pop out on a linebacker shooting into an unexpected gap he's your guy.

Michigan had a lot to think about after the Notre Dame game, and the first solution they came up with on the ground was to heavily feature Bredeson. Michigan moved to a ton of "down G"—a quick-hitting off tackle play with the frontside guard pulling—with most of it headed left. Bredeson was the puller on these plays, and reliably carved out room:

LG #74

Bredeson and Runyan got most of this duty despite the right side of the line's general hugeness because they were capable of executing even when defenses threw games at them. Here Bredeson sees that he's got no one flowing to him, stops, and is able to give a good linebacker the business despite losing most of his momentum:

LG #74

This is a regular power play but again Bredeson IDs a problem—a DE diving inside Gentry—and deals with it; then he moves off his initial hit to pick up another guy:

LG #74

He was less likely than Onwenu to pick up a mashing +2 block and occasionally got stood up by DTs. He was also less likely to pick up a –2, as Onwenu did with some frequency. He knows things.

Don't get me wrong; Bredeson also has some oomph to him. He was able to move Notre Dame's excellent DL on the regular, scoring a +6.5 against one of the best DLs Michigan faced last year. If he pulled he sent guys on a ride more often than not. He was +7 against MSU and did a big chunk of that work against Raequan Williams:

LG #74

He was the only interior OL to keep his head above water against OSU. That more than anything else is why he's high on NFL lists. When the competition stepped up Bredeson kept pace. He was Michigan's best OL against ND, MSU, and OSU.

Opponent	+	-	TOT	NOTES
Notre Dame	7.5	1	6.5	May be legit good
WMU	7.5	5	2.5	Couple of dorfs.
SMU	4	4	0	A dorf or two.
Nebraska	6.5	1	5.5	Heads up plays and a lot of down G kickouts.
Northwestern	5	4	1	Faded a bit late.
Maryland	3.5	2	1.5	Oddly low grading events kind of a thing.
Wisconsin	5.5	2	3.5	Continues getting graded less than others.
MSU	11.5	4.5	7	More relevant and came through against two tough TDs.
PSU	12	2.5	9.5	Finished a lot of doubles from Runyan.
Rutgers	7.5	2	5.5	Mobility an asset this week.
Indiana	14.5	0.5	14	IU DTs were not ready for this
OSU	6.5	4	2.5
Florida	2.5	4	-1.5
	94	36.5	72%

Onwenu had a bad game at the worst possible time. He still edged ahead of Bredeson in my grading. Which guy is actually better? I don't know. I do know that's a good question to have.

Bredeson was only a hair behind Onwenu as a pass blocker both by our reckoning (12 pass protection minuses to Onwenu's 8) and PFFs (6 pressures to Onwenu's 4). Like Onwenu, this was a massive improvement. Even setting aside the many, many TEAM minuses the 2017 line racked up—a chunk of which were probably his deal—Bredeson had 21 pass pro minuses in the 11 games we graded. On a per-snap basis Bredeson more than halved his negative pass pro events last year.

This wasn't just Warinner saying "hey, pick up some stunts, ya yutz!" Bredeson improved a lot in one-on-one pass protection events. Last year's preview spent some time clucking about the pickups but also noted that Bredeson engaged with guys who pwned him on a semi-regular basis last year. In 2018, that was over. This kind of thing from 2017 is gone:

I don't clip plays where that doesn't happen. There are no individual-clip attaboys for OL who are expected to win 90% of the time in protection. So we'll have to take the lack of yuck clips as proof enough. Also I graded it. And so did PFF.

But while I thought Bredeson took a big step forward last year I was blindsided by the first 2020 NFL draft projections, which came out before the Indiana game:

Ben Bredeson, Michigan's best OL and the third-best G prospect in the NFL draft?

I guess? He has not graded out as the line's standout star by my reckoning. He's been good, but I often have fewer graded events for him than other guys on the line. He doesn't leap out. He does consistently make good decisions, which is something I treasure after 85 years of watching Michigan fail to block guys shaded outside of them on inside zone.

… the consistency with which Michigan executes [their] stuff, and Bredeson's consistency in particular, is the #1 reason the line has gone from a sack of cats to an army on the march. …  Like Runyan he racked up a blizzard of +1s and +0.5s for executing what he was supposed to be doing on about every play.

I get it more now after the final two games. Bredeson is a lock to be All Big Ten and go fairly early in the NFL draft. He doesn't bring the necessary destruction to be a national star and first-round pick, but his down-to-down consistency is rare.

BACKUPS

Spanellis and Filiaga should be ready to go [Campredon/Fuller]

Harbaugh was so pumped about the right tackle battle that at one point he told the media that Jon Runyan Jr might move inside. Presumably unstated was "if there is an injury." Then there was one. With Stueber down that's off the table. The first interior OL off the bench will be redshirt junior STEPHEN SPANELLIS [recruiting profile].

After a redshirt freshman season in which Spanellis featured as a tight-end-type substance and also played center in the bowl, Spanellis was reputed to be locked in a legitimate battle with Onwenu last offseason. Onwenu's listed weight is an aspiration and there have been many fusty insider notes over the course of his career about how he's got to get it together, so that battle may have been more motivational than real. If it was even a little real, though, Spanellis is going to be close to a best-case scenario as a backup OL. He did grade out well against South Carolina.

Spanellis's role in the offense disappeared last year, but with three NFL prospects ahead of him on the line and a legitimate three-deep at tight end that's more about circumstance than performance. Spanellis uses words like "empirical" in press conferences and has flashed the kind of on-field intelligence you need from the Wonderlic-heavy interior OL spots:

Here he initially blocks down on a DE before realizing he needs to get off that block. His head's up and he's watching downfield even as he goes to harass the first guy:

Spanellis hasn't generated much, if any, talk since. That's more about the nature of practice observers than anything else. The only interior OL anyone's said anything about is Onwenu, because he's even denser. I wouldn't read anything into it. Spanellis is a quality backup.

Michigan has beef and a fair bit of experience at the guard spots. CHUCK FILIAGA [recruiting profile] has the whiz-bang recruiting rankings and mashing, Onwenu upside. From his recruiting profile:

• "…great strength and close-quarters power as a drive-blocker. … high motor and finishe[s] blocks with tenacity."
• "plays with a chip on his shoulder and has the size and dominant nature to enforce his will … massive right now … still has a very high upside frame ... punishing blocker who plays through the whistle with a noticeable mean streak. "
• "pancake machine … powerful player … good feet and a finisher’s mentality. … brings the toughness Harbaugh and his staff covet … I could also see Filiaga being a road-grader on the interior"

Filiaga's roster weight isn't quite as obviously fictional as Onwenu's 350*, but when a 341-pound person is listed at the same weight in consecutive years we cock our eyebrows. That is potentially an unwanted weight increase for a guy who's probably got a target of 320 or 330.

If that's the case that might help explain why Filiaga hasn't generated any talk at all aside from odd mentions that he is the left guard on the second unit. To be fair it seems like nobody on the interior is drawing much talk except a couple freshmen. I wouldn't necessarily pencil in Filiaga next year.

Honigford's move to tackle was an option because Michigan was comfortable with walk-on ANDREW VASTARDIS. Vastardis was picked out as a potential contributor early in his career and generated some buzz in spring practice a couple years ago. Lorenz and Ace both thought he had a shot:

Ace Anbender at MGoBlog picked out former PWO Andrew Vastardis as a guy who stood out today and I'm inclined to agree. Vastardis was one of three or four PWOs last cycle the staff believed would, not could, be a difference maker sooner rather than later. He's not going to start this season, but he was a good indicator that a lot of guys have improved this off-season.

Vastardis dropped off the radar after that, at least outside the program. He was one of four walk-ons to get scholarships last year and drew some mention as a guy "battling at right guard" with Honigford. Warinner in the aftermath of the move:

With (Andrew) Vastardis playing so well at guard/center, we felt very comfortable having Andrew Vastardis as a right guard and then bumping Joel out.

Vastardis is listed at 317 on the roster, so he's got the requisite size. Seeing him on the field would be uncomfortable but probably okay.

Carpenter (left) and Rumler (center) are brothers from another mother [Isaiah Hole]

Beyond the second string Michigan has an incoming horde of freshmen. Two are near-clones. Those two gentlemen are NOLAN RUMLER [recruiting profile] and ZACH CARPENTER [recruiting profile]. Both are two-time captains out of Ohio powerhouses. Both are certainly interior OL on the college level. Both have truly massive amounts of experience for true freshmen. Rumler started from day one on a team that won four straight state championships, starting 58(!) games in total. Carpenter, also a four-year starter, was "raised as an OL" because of his grandfather, a long-time CFL OL coach.

In a different world one would be prepping to play as a true freshman. In this one getting on the two deep is a solid goal. Both guys have already started generating chatter to that effect.

Rumler is the more touted of the two, a guy who was obviously going to be a Michigan commit by the time he finished his freshman year. Both Rivals and 247 have asserted he's lived up to the hype. Rivals asserted he "will be in the two deep"; 247 says he's "an early favorite to take one of the guard spots next year," passing up two guys who will be redshirt juniors. Folks have gone so far as to assert he's the guy with the highest floor in the recruiting class, which is a crazy thing to say about an OL but may in fact be true. Bill Greene:

… does not miss assignments, is technically sound, and plays the game with a nasty disposition….very strong, especially in his lower body, and plays with great leverage…. extremely physical, and plays with a lot of intensity. …highly intelligent … basically zero concerns.

It should be noted that Michigan's most recent slam dunk guys are Bredeson and Ruiz; we can probably let go of Patrick Kugler Didn't Work Out.

As for Carpenter, Steve Lorenz asserted that he is "right there" with Rumler as a guy who could play early and "appears to be the heir apparent at center." He's unusual amongst recent OL commits in that he's the sort of guy who has to cut weight instead of add it, and it says something that he moved from left tackle to center during his senior year. One of those things is bad: pass protection might be an adventure. The other is good:

The ability to read the defense and pull off a zone block to pick up a charging linebacker means more than every time an OL jumps on a downed opponent combined, and Warinner clearly prioritized these things when he went after Carpenter.

Carpenter's already through part of his body refinement and may be able to push Spanellis in a year.

The third guy we'll address in this section is JACK STEWART [recruiting profile], who is the lowest-rated member of the class because he's probably an interior guy, never went to a camp, and played in Connecticut. If he works out he'll be in the Mason Cole class of hypermobile, smart open-field terrors. Unlike Rumler and Carpenter he is a medium-term project. KARSEN BARNHART is another swing lineman; he was classified as a tackle for preview purposes.

All of these guys are going to redshirt, which should give Michigan its first opportunity to really maximize a good recruiting class in forever.