Michigan football: Another O-line shakeup coming, or will it be status quo?

Michigan has shown improvement up front in the last few weeks, dominating overmatched opponents, but now faces a Wisconsin team that leads the nation in run defense before going out to USC. We’ll learn more about the offensive line’s improvement soon … but what exactly will the lineup look like?

Michigan grad senior and captain Giovanni El-Hadi appears ready to return from an apparent ankle injury suffered at Oklahoma, and head coach Sherrone Moore said today he’d regain his starting spot. Nathan Efobi started at left guard and showed improvement against Nebraska, but El-Hadi’s experience gives him the edge. 

“He’s earned it from his time,” Moore said Monday. “He’s played already training camp, what he did … he stamped his job. Brady [Norton] played really well too, but being open competition, I feel like now you’ve got four guys inside that can go play with Efobi and Jake Guarnera. So, he’s got to go back and he’s got to go take his job, but he’ll play for sure as we go through the season.”

Guarnera will play, too, Moore confirmed, though he wouldn’t say he’d solidified himself a starter. He did say, though, that Guarnera is a strong candidate as the Michigan center of the future, having established he can play both.

“He’s just done everything the right way and he’s played at a really high level … played fearless,” Moore continued. “Kind of like we talked about with [freshman quarterback] Bryce [Underwood] and [frosh corner] Jayden Sanders, because he’s really a, a freshman — Jake’s a redshirt freshman. He just never flinched in that position, got thrown in and became a starter and just went there and played his tail off.

So, we’ve just seen a guy that’s played physical, played with the great, right technique, played the right way, and continued to strain. As far as being solidified the starter, we’ll see as the week goes, because they’re all going to be back there competing. But he’s done a good job, and he’ll definitely play.”

Overall, the line has made great strides since the loss to Oklahoma, Moore said. He went hands on with them the week before the CMU game, but he credited line coach Grant Newsome for getting more out of the group.

“I thought we just played harder,” the Michigan coach said. “And there were some times in the Oklahoma game you watched and were like, oh man … we’re moving the guys off the ball. But it was consistent, and they played with better technique consistently. They were better nasty consistently, and I think that’s a credit to coach Newsome and the kids of what they’ve done to this point to get there.

“They just continue to push and push. Yesterday we came back and we were in spiders and helmets, but it was just physical, from a hand placement, eyes, pad level standpoint. That’s where it’s got to keep going.”

No matter who it is starting on the Michigan interior. Our bet — El-Hadi at left guard, Guarnera at right, and we hope to see the nastiness in El-Hadi we’ve seen from the younger guard down the line from him.

“It’s about the ‘how,’ and especially O-line, it’s a mentality,” Moore said. “You can feel the physicality breeding back and that mentality breeding back into those guys. Part of that is confidence, so you’ve got to have confidence. When you do it together in a great atmosphere like they did last game and have that success, it usually carries over. I just want to keep that going as we go into this week”