Lou Esposito reveals how Damon Payne changed his game at Michigan following Alabama arrival

In his first game after transferring from Alabama, Damon Payne made his presence known in Michigan’s season opener against New Mexico. Now, he’s turning toward an opponent he saw last year – Oklahoma.

Payne was part of the Alabama team that fell to OU last year, and he’ll look to get some revenge on the Sooners in Saturday’s Week 2 matchup. During the film session, though, Michigan defensive line coach Lou Esposito noticed Payne is already looking different than last season.

With three tackles against New Mexico, Esposito said he wasn’t necessarily surprised by Payne’s big debut for the Wolverines. But the transfer said he noticed some differences between his two programs.

“I don’t, it wasn’t a surprise to me,” Esposito said. “I think, you know, guys perform at different levels, right? Like in practice, you want to mimic their game as much as you can. And I think he’s done that. The last week of practice, he was really on, played really well. I think he’s done a great job of getting himself in shape. And, you know, it’s funny, we talked this week because we’re playing, obviously, Oklahoma. They played him last year when he was at Alabama. And there’s a couple clips of him on tape.

“And I said, man, you look different. And he goes, coach, we run a lot more here. We work out differently. Like, I feel way better. So I think that was a big part of going into it. And first time playing at home for him, a lot of emotion. He said it four or five times during the game. Like, there’s really 110,000 people here, coach. Like, playing in a home crowd for the first time in a while was big for him. So I thought there was a lot of factors that went into it. But he did a great job. He’s worked his tail off to get to where he is right now. We just got to keep raising the level, raising the level, raising the level. What we’ll do with all our guys.”

Damon Payne put together the best year of his career at Alabama in 2024, totaling 14 tackles – including five solo stops – as a junior. He then entered the transfer portal and became one of the top coveted transfer defensive linemen, checking in as the No. 18-ranked player at the position, according to the On3 Industry Transfer Rankings.

Michigan and Oklahoma will square off in one of the biggest games on the Week 2 slate. It will also mark a homecoming of sorts for Sherrone Moore, who played for the Sooners before embarking on his coaching career. Kickoff is set for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.