All eyes on Michigan offensive line ... Chip Lindsey has a plan

Michigan offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey has had plenty of experience with different styles of offense. Running, passing … he’s done it all, and he’s put up numbers everywhere. He’ll have a lot of talent at his disposal at Michigan, much of it young, but the skill position players all need one thing to really shine — good offensive line play.

That was missing last year, and while the Wolverines added some players from the portal, the experienced guys seem likely to get first crack this spring when practice opens tomorrow. Lindsey isn’t sure who the ones will be, but they have an idea of who is going to get reps where.

“I think we’re in the process of finding that out,” he said. “The good thing was we had was a bowl game [ReliaQuest Bowl] where a lot of those guys got to play and get reps … that’s a good start. And me being here, I was still learning names and everybody then, but what I’ve seen through the offseason and watching film is we’ve got a good young group for sure. Some of them haven’t played as much as you’d probably like, but I think we’ve got a great idea of how we’re going to rotate guys during spring. It’s a competition, and in any position when you have that competition, I think that’s when you get the best out of them.

“[At left tackle], it’s going to be something that’s going to move up and down [the depth chart] every day. You’d like for one of them to step up and be the guy, but we’re a long way from that. It will be good to see all the guys that are are working at left tackle.”

Andrew Sprague is likely to stay at right tackle, Lindsey said in confirming our reports this winter. He didn’t mention Evan Link, but Link played left tackle against Alabama and did okay. He’ll probably start the spring at that position, though many feel he could benefit from moving inside.

“I think the combination … if we can get any of the younger ones involved, I’m not sure yet realistically — are they going to be ready to play left tackle as freshmen? From the standpoint of [Andrew] Babalola … he’s going to be a really good player. Is he ready yet? I don’t know, but there are probably some more [experienced] guys.”

Some have wondered if Lindsey would install the offense the way he wants and expect players to step up, or if he’d scheme around any potential weaknesses. He made it clear he’d choose the latter.

“I think you always tailor your offense according to your players, the strength of your players,” Lindsey continued. “It’s something even when I was a high school coach, you don’t really know what you’re getting every year, so you’ve got to do that.

“Spring is going to be about is really establishing kind of our foundation of our offense and figuring out who does what well. Do we need to move this guy inside to guard, or is he really a tackle? Can he operate in space against a pass rush?”

Michigan was pursuing several other linemen in the portal, including two from Notre Dame, but came up empty this winter. The Wolverines will likely continue to look for options in the spring, but Lindsey isn’t certain they can rely on that for help.

“That’s a good question, because last year I remember going through it [at North Carolina],” he said. “We thought that spring portal being early, we’ll get some good players … people around the country, some of my buddies at other places. It wasn’t that way. The December portal seemed to be more top line players would be the best way to say it.

“For us, we need to focus on the guys that we have here in the building that are here. That’s where our focus is, and then kind of after the spring, maybe we’ll see what that looks like and address those needs if we think we have to do that. But at the end of the day, let’s really coach these guys up here and focus on that. Then we’ll go from there.”