Michigan OT Evan Link reflects on struggles, growth last season
Michigan football‘s offensive line was a lightning rod for criticism last year, and nobody took more shots than second-year tackle Evan Link.
Grading out as one of the team’s worst performers on the line early, he seemed to hit his stride down the stretch and held his own.
“A big thing I had to learn the hard way was taking things from practice and putting them into games, just because when you do it in practice, you do the same things thousands of times,” Link said this week. “And when you get into a game, it’s a little bit different situation. Everything’s a little bit more heightened. You’ve got a crowd. There’s an audience, so you may be in your head thinking you need to do something different, and that got me a few times early in the year, just because I’d be thinking, I’d see something forming, and I’d have to go, I’d overreact and do something I shouldn’t really do, just because I knew it was coming. And I was in a game, so I was like, oh, I need to do something different.
“And I think a big learning thing for me towards the end of the year, and going into this next year, is just taking things in practice and just doing it the same way in a game, just because you’ve done it thousands of times, why are you doing it any different when you’re in a game? Same defense, same thing. You’ve practiced it in practice, the same looks, so why do anything different? So that’s a big thing I need to work on, and I’m going to try to be working on this year.”
Link currently projects as a starter for Michigan at left tackle, where he played in the ReliaQuest Bowl win over Alabama due to Myles Hinton opting out. But things had clicked before that, and just in time to hold his end of the bargain in a 13-10 win over Ohio State.
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“I think it was just confidence.” Link said. “Just because the Ohio State game for me especially, that was really special to me just because I grew up going to Columbus every year — my father went to Ohio State — I grew up watching those games every year, so getting the chance to play in that game and being told I was playing in that game and starting that game was just like, it was one of — probably the best experience of my life up to this point.
“And so going into it, I’ve watched this game for so many years, I’ve seen how good it is, if they think I can be here, I can hang, and I say I did, and I did the best I could, we ended up winning the game. So that was a huge confidence boost.
“And then going into Bama, it was like, for me it was (we) just beat Ohio State, I don’t really care about these guys, they’re nothing compared to that game. That game’s the pinnacle of what you come here for, so you can go play Bama now, and yeah, they’re still Bama, you gotta respect them, but at the end of the day for me it was, I just beat Ohio State, there’s nothing I can’t do.”
Link and the Wolverines continue spring ball this week as they turn the corner on the practice circuit, which wraps up on April 19 at the Big House in the annual spring game.
