Previously: Last year’s profiles, K Adam Samaha, K James Turner (Tr), S Brandyn Hillman, CB DJ Waller, CB Cameron Calhoun, CB Jyaire Hill, HSP/LB Jason Hewlett, LB Hayden Moore, LB Semaj Bridgeman, LB Ernest Hausmann (Tr), OLB Breeon Ishmail, DE Aymeric Koumba, DE Enow Etta, DE Josaiah Stewart (Tr), DT Brooks Bahr, DT Cameron Brandt, DT Trey Pierce, OT Evan Link, OT Myles Hinton (Tr), OT LaDarius Henderson (Tr), IOL Amir Herring, OG Nathan Efobi

Stanford Transfer (Hometown: Lone Tree, CO) – 6'1"/300
		247: 6'1/275                           3.98*	AS TRANSFER: 4*, 90 #8 IOL, #145 Ovr
		On3: 6'2/275                           4.30*	AS TRANSFER: 4*, 92 #3 IOL, #31 Ovr
		Rivals: 6'2/260                           3.67*	AS TRANSER: 3*, 5.6 #36 OL, #253 Ovr
		Transfer Avg                           3.98*	3.5*, #407/795, #47/82 IOL since '90
		HS Composite                           3.49*	3*, #1141 Ovr #15 C, #7 CO
		MGoAverage                           3.46*	3*, #176/795 Ovr #76/82 Cs since '90
		YMRMFSPA	David Molk
Other Suitors	Miami?, KSU? M happened fast.
Previously On MGoBlog	Portal In by Alex Drain
Notes	Nickname "Diesel." Jr/5th eligibility.
Film:
Film: 2022 vs USC:2022 vs ASU:

Last year Michigan graduated a walk-on center from its Joe Moore Award-winning OL, plucked a Rimington finalist from Virginia, and won the Moore Award again, with the transfer center taking home the awards for best center and best lineman in the country. So why not go back to the portal again?

While Olu Oluwatimi was Working Out at Michigan, things at David Shaw's Stanford program were Not. Around the time Michigan trounced Indiana, the Cardinal were losing to Oregon State at home, dropping them to 0-4 versus FBS competition on the season. Noting this during a podcast session, I pulled up their PFF scores to see if anyone might be of interest, and Nugent immediately stuck out. After Michigan trounced Penn State the following week I got back in time to catch Notre Dame-Stanford. Nugent stood out, especially with UDFA Jayson Ademilola tearing through everyone else on the line.

Vulturing over crumbling teams rarely actually works out, but I think everyone understood if/when Shaw's program ever came down, Michigan would be a likely beneficiary. I didn't actually expect it to happen. But here we are. Let's see what's under the tree.

[After THE JUMP: A wolverine.]

---------------------------

WHAT'S HIS STORY?

Nugent was your typical Stanford recruitment. He went to the same elite suburban Denver high school as Dylan McCaffrey, overlapping for two out of the four that Nugent was a starter. He picked up interest from Pac12 schools like Oregon State and Arizona State, and became an "if I get in" Stanford lean until he got in. He rolled up the 3-star ranks after his junior year but fell back after an injury cost him most of his senior season. He also starred in track, winning three consecutive state championships in shot put (2016-'18) and was runner-up in discus. ASU wasn't going to hold a spot open for him.

The Cardinal managed to get a redshirt on him in 2019 despite Nugent serving as the primary backup to to center Drew Dalman and both guards for the latter part of the season. He only got on the field for two games—Colorado (11/9) for a snap when Dalman's helmet came off, and then for a couple of late drives versus Notre Dame (11/30), giving up a sack and a hurry in a dozen opportunities via PFF. He was also listed at 284.

In 2020 he was up to 292 and backing up All-P12 Dalman for the six games they got in. Dalman was drafted in the 4th round, and Nugent ascended smoothly into the starting job for 2021, pushing another guy into the portal. Now listed at "300" he was considered a smaller guy but also the one to worry about when opponents previewed the Cardinal. Here's Utah's Sammy Mora:

While he is on the smaller side for a center, he has great speed and ability to drive opponents down the field. He is also good when he is called upon to pull and act as the lead blocker. He has been penalized three times this season and has a tendency to reach into blocks when he is being overpowered. He has been better as a center in run blocking over pass protection.

Nugent was named captain in 2022 and had another HM All-Pac12 kind of season that graded out much better to PFF. Stanford gave him the Team Technician Award. He was also an Academic All-Pac12. Nugent had postseason surgery on his knee, so he wasn't able to participate in spring practice. He told Jansen the injury came on over a long period of time.

“I was always doing heavy squats and stuff, trying to do too much, and I think it caught up to me, these past couple years at Stanford. I just had some bad knee pain. It wasn’t anything detrimental or structurally wrong, it was just super painful stuff, like tendonitis stuff.

But he fit in well enough with his new teammates that he joined Zinter and Keegan on spring break.

THE FILM

As with Hinton I watched the 2022 USC game, mostly vs 2nd rounder Tuli Tuipulotu and 6'3"/345 NT Brandon Pili, a UDFA; and ASU vs UDFA Tautala Pesefea, plus bits of ND. There was a screen vs ND that didn't make the highlights unfortunately.

Run Blocking:

He has such a strong base of power; once he gets under you you're a goner. Watch what happens to ND#57 Jayson Ademilola here before Nugent gets down to a safety and pancakes that guy:

#60 the center

They loved to run behind him in short situations (or when trying to avoid one) because he moves guys on the downblock, and knows when and how it's time to release.

But the best part of Nugent is his legs never stop moving. Driver who keeps those legs churning and churning until he overpowers you. The moving feet are the reason he routinely wins battles he shouldn't, an important skill in their "slow mesh" offense and occasionally one unleashed for a reach block.

I mean, that is not a guy a center is supposed to get around on. Molk-ian.

The typical Stanford run play has Nugent get rocked back then turn the tables to put a guy on skates.

I bet he loves the sleds. Nugent also has the strength to maintain his advantage for a long time, a necessary trait for the Slow Mesh. At Michigan's that's going to lead to a lot of +0.5s when a DT thinks he's got a win only to give up a small crease because of Nugent's second effort.

Unsurprisingly for a Stanford OL, Nugent is smart. He often stays engaged to one guy while tagging another, and picks through traffic to figure out where he can best be deployed. He doesn't run by his blocks, and has the patience and sneaky timing to maximize defensive mistakes, often flipping the script when a defender tries to two-gap him.

The quick feet also allow him to get enough push when he doesn't have leverage, and make him devastating when he gets out in space,

…with a cool technique of using defenders to spring out there.

The best way to neutralize him is not engage. Nugent wants to get into you, get his legs behind him, and start sledding, but defenders who have the length to deny him can waste that power.

Pass Pro

Nugent is very hard to fool on stunts because he anticipates the rush so well, deftly maintaining contact so he's in position to immediately switch onto a new assignment. The guards last year were pretty iffy in protection, so defenses usually attacked their gaps and Nugent had to play cleanup with one or both of them:

I was pleasantly surprised to be able to blame Stanford's protection woes more on blocks failing than protections, which were generally organized/well-called. You had to go full Cover Zero or blitz a corner to get in a free rusher (teams played man against Stanford a lot because their receivers weren't great) and then the QB knew exactly where he was.

That doesn't make him perfect. Nugent is limited by his length, so a DT with long arms can sometimes push himself free. Nugent tends to get blasted high—an explosive DT or someone who does fool him can take away his leverage. Usually however Nugent is able to just give up a little ground and reestablish. The low center of gravity and wide base make him extremely good at re-anchoring after he's taken the initial blow.

THE GRADING

PFF gave him a 77.5 (pretty good) for 2021 and a 80.5 (good) for 2022, with higher run-blocking scores (81.2 and 84.1) than pass pro (69.0 and 77.2) for his two seasons as a starter. They have him for 4 sacks each year, crediting him for 23 pressures on 928 pass sets over those two seasons. That's on par with the Rimington-worthy centers who've come through here lately.

		All Pass Sets				True Pass Sets
Player	Yrs	PA	Pres	Prot%		PA	Pres	Prot%
Patrick Kugler	2017	371	17	95%		156	7	96%
Cesar Ruiz	2018-'19	837	19	98%		310	10	97%
Andrew Vastardis	2020-'21	560	24	96%		250	16	94%
Olu Oluwatimi	2022	389	9	98%		162	7	96%
Drake Nugent	2021-'22	928	23	98%		254	6	98%

And that stands up under their "True Pass Sets" drill-down, so I don't think it's just an effect of Stanford's slow mesh.

PEOPLE RANKING HIM

As a college player though he's expected to be one of the best centers in the country this year. He's PFF's highest-rated returning center after finishing 2nd team All-Pac12 last year:

Playing all 12 games and 833 snaps, Nugent was 19th out of 61 Power-Five centers in pass-blocking efficiency (per PFF) and was No. 3 of the same group in PFF’s run-blocking grade. He allowed four sacks in 500 pass-blocking snaps, and the Cardinal averaged 4.26 yards per carry when running behind center last fall, compared to 3.43 yards per carry overall.

Walter Camp Football has him on their preseason All-American list, and Athon has him 2nd team. He also comes up first when various people Draftageddon, and the 10th most important player on a loaded Michigan roster according to Zach Shaw:

OTHER PEOPLE SCOUTING HIM

Nugent didn't inspire many draft takes. He's mocked in the late 300s (UDFA range). NFL Draft buzz has measurements from May 2023 (meaning they came from Michigan) and it paints a picture of an agile little guy at 9th/36th/39th/45th percentile in height/weight/forty/vertical, and 89th percentile for his position in the shuttle. They rated him a 77/100, #247 overall, #41 center, and a UDFA candidate, with a much higher run blocking (86) than pass blocking (78) score.

Strengths included nastiness, his work in the screen game and working against the 2nd level, high football IQ, and good quickness. Negatives…

• Flashes the ability to move his man with his hands, but is not yet consistent in this area.
• While he’s solid as an athlete, he’s more comfortable moving forward as a run blocker than setting in pass protection, as Nugent too often relies solely on his initial punch to stand up pass rushers instead of moving his feet.
• Is more of a phone-booth blocker who has limited range. He’s also going to be somewhat limited as a pass protector, especially when it comes to mirroring against quickness.

For some reason there's also a Tampa Bay Buccaneers site that looked at Nugent. Again they liked how he digs guys out, plays to the whistle, and anchors despite being on the "short and stocky side." They also say he's not elite in anything, not consistent in pass pro, and "needs to prove his worth in a straight-ahead running game" whatever that means.

His teammates talk about him the way guys used to talk about Molk. Here's Myles Hinton:

Diesel. Like, that kid can go. He has the most insane motor, insane mentality I’ve probably ever seen in a player ever. Like, there'll be days out west when we were conditioning. I'm always next to him because I need to be pushed. I'm thinking like, I want the challenge. But next to him. I was like, ‘Man Nugent’s always going, he’s not stopping.’ He's always the first guy in the conditioning. He's always yelling at me, ‘Get it going Myles.’ He thrives in that, like, red area. Whenever he's like, on the verge of just passing out, he just like gets more excited. It’s cray, I’ve never seen it in anybody else.

And Zach Shaw:

As a player, Nugent's height and arm length limits him from an NFL Draft perspective … Nugent is known for his tireless work ethic and physicality that expands beyond his frame. That especially shows itself in the run game, which is the way Michigan likes it. Beyond his blocking ability, he's a veteran center capable of reading defenses and making pre-snap calls.

Mason Graham brought up Nugent with Kris Jenkins and Trente Jones as guys who were freakishly strong in winter workouts.

STILL-RELEVANT TAKES FROM HIGH SCHOOL

Blair Angulo from 247 nailed this one so far.

Wide build with broad shoulders and strong lower half. Physical, prototype center that reaches second level consistently. Nasty streak and plays through whistle. Knocks back defenders with strong punch. Able to recognize when he should help accompanying guard. Could improve pass protection technique. Needs to plant feet firmly to hold ground against pass rush. Potential multi-year starter down the road.

ESPN didn't have an evaluation but they did have some testing results:

Etc. Track: three-time state champion in shot put, runner-up in discus. Degree in Science, Technology, and Society. Has two years of eligibility remaining (redshirt in 2019, COVID shirt in 2020).

Why David Molk? Compact, heady center with great agility who was a monster collegiate player the NFL had little interest in because he wasn't tall enough to survive the freakish DTs you play every day.

Guru Reliability: Solid. Well-scouted two-year starter for a Power 5 team.

Variance: Low. Nugent will develop further but he's a very player already and isn't going to turn into Cesar Ruiz tomorrow.

Ceiling: Very high, and he's almost there already.

Flight Risk Level: Low. He may go to the draft this year but if there's a guy on this roster who can be One More Year'd into coming back for 2024 he's a good candidate, since his pro career isn't likely to be all that flashy, and Michigan appreciates its linemen.

General Excitement Level: Very high. Baseline 5; +1 for How many times did you hear me say "Molk" in this piece?, +1 for Stanford Brain—probably can pick up the protections even if he's not Olu because that's impossible, +1 for Weight room junkie, +1 for Type of guy who gets the nickname "Diesel", +1 for I love squat centers who get under you and sled, –1 for NFL has no interest, +1 Reach blocks.

Projection: Starts at center, isn't Olu, but is an Andrew Vastardis++ kind of player who routinely grades out well, with some spectacular blocks in space through the year against low competition, and a few times he gets overwhelmed against somebody's freaks. Has an NFL decision to make at the end of the year. Rimington finalist.