76 days until Michigan football: The Ryan Hayes replacement plan
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Michigan football has a battle on its hands this fall in replacing departed left tackle Ryan Hayes, who is off to the NFL as a seventh-round pick of the Miami Dolphins. The Wolverines felt like they had some good competition already with graduates Karsen Barnhart and Trente Jones, but there was always from to augment the competition.
That’s where Arizona State transfer LaDarius Henderson fits in. While he has not started games at left tackle since his freshman year and did not participate in spring ball, many consider him the leader for the job.
It is not hard to see why with 29 games of starting experience in his college career.
Pro Football Network had Henderson as one of its more intriguing prospects had he entered the 2023 NFL Draft class. Prior to committing to Michigan, he had accepted an East-West Shrine Game invite.
“With Henderson, there’s a unique mix of youth, experience, and also inexperience — oddly enough. Henderson didn’t even start playing football until his junior year of high school. As a senior, he quickly morphed into a lockdown offensive tackle, allowing just one sack in his final season. A late start amounted to a mere three-star billing as a recruit, but Henderson still generated interest from Power Five schools — one of them being Arizona State.
Competition is the name of the game at Michigan, though. Barnhart has 16 games of starting experience and is not shying away from more bodies in the room.
“Everybody wants to get better and it just brings so much depth,” Barnhart said this spring. “The past two seasons you’ve seen it. There’s been not just five guys that start and the whole season, there are seven, eight guys playing and we got depth with like 10, 12 guys that all play and start in big-time places. They’re all here because everybody wants to get better. Everybody wants to play for the M.”
Barnhart has found a home at tackle after playing guard early in his career, too. He feels as comfortable as he ever has at Michigan, but is still cross-training on both sides of the offensive line.
“I’m playing both sides right now and just getting comfortable playing both sides,” he said. “I’ve played everywhere, but like you played one side for so long and then you get uncomfortable going back to the other side after playing for so long. But just playing both sides. And there’s a lot of guys that are playing really well right now, like [junior center] Greg Crippen, he’s coming up. He’s doing some good things right now.”
The guy that winds up playing on the left side remains to be seen, and whoever loses the gig could be the leader at right tackle. Jones will also factor in, but it seems likelier than not that Henderson and Barnhart could start the season at the tackle spots.
Michigan football countdown to kickoff
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