Michigan football: 'Diesel' Drake Nugent has 'insane motor'

Michigan Wolverines football has a deep offensive line group, even with two starters from last season now in the NFL, which includes transfers Drake Nugent (Stanford), Myles Hinton (Stanford) and LaDarius Henderson (Arizona State).

Nugent will have to fend off juniors Greg Crippen and Raheem Anderson at center, but he’s a preseason first-team All-American according to Walter Camp and the top returning center in the nation per Pro Football Focus. He enrolled at Michigan in January but was limited this spring with a minor knee injury.

“As a new guy, you’re trying to come in and compete for a spot, but you can’t do that in the springtime,” Nugent said on the In The Trenches podcast with Jon Jansen. “Even at Stanford, I didn’t have any injuries, and I never missed football for a period of time like that. So just sitting there watching practice, everyone else is getting better.

“At least I wasn’t alone. I had guys like [senior running back Blake] Corum and [junior running back] Dono[van Edwards] and [senior right guard] Zak [Zinter], too. There were a lot of injuries. So I was able to lean on them and just get after it in the weight room during practices. It’s been a little frustrating, but I’m getting back into it now and it’s starting to come together.”

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Voted a team captain at Stanford last season, Nugent is all business once he enters Schembechler Hall, though he has connected well with his teammates, especially those along the offensive line.

“Competitiveness, I’d probably say,” Nugent said of what he brings to Michigan. “I’ve gotten a couple jokes, like [Offensive coordinator and line] Coach [Sherrone] Moore has told me I’m always angry. Which, I don’t like to think that I am, but that’s not the first time I’ve heard that.

“I just bring a business mentality. I have fun outside of here and with the guys, but as soon as you come in the building, you’re at practice, workout, meetings — I just take my business very seriously because I care about this.

“It’s been tough to know exactly what I bring to the team because I haven’t been out there on the field. But I’ve just been trying to carry over exactly what I did at Stanford. I was a captain there last year, probably one of the best honors I’ve ever had in my football career. I thought to myself, ‘OK, it’s still college football. If I can just continue doing what I’ve done and apply those standards I had for myself there, here, then everything else will work out.’”

Once Nugent is back full-go, he’ll raise the bar for his teammates. Hinton knows that all too well, having spent the last three seasons with him in Palo Alto.

“He’s a diesel. That kid can go,” Hinton said. “He has the most insane motor, insane mentality I’ve every probably seen in a player ever.

“There would be days out west when we’re conditioning, and I’m always next to him because I want that challenge. I was next to him, I was like, ‘Man, Nugent’s going. He’s not stopping. He’s always the first guy in the conditioning.’ He’s always yelling at me like, ‘Get it going, Myles.’

“He thrives in that red area. Whenever he’s on the verge of passing out, he just gets more excited. It’s crazy. I’ve never seen it in anybody, I’m so serious.”

Nugent carries a chip on his shoulder, which helps drive his competitiveness and intensity.

“I guess it’s a compliment,” the Michigan center said when being told about Hinton’s comment. “I’ve always been like that since high school, really. Being a shorter guy makes me know that I’m always looked down upon, literally, so I feel like I’m always undervalued, even some people may differ in that argument. ‘Red lining’ would be just going all-out as much as you can until you break.”

There’s a fine line between giving your all and doing too much, Nugent has come to learn.

“That’s part of how I got the injury,” he revealed. “I was always doing heavy squats and stuff, trying to do too much, and I think it caught up to me, these past couple years at Stanford. I just had some bad knee pain. It wasn’t anything detrimental or structurally wrong, it was just super painful stuff, like tendonitis stuff.

“Looking back on that, I went a little too much at times, but at the same time it did get me here, so I don’t know how much I would regret that.”

Michigan struck gold with Olusegun Oluwatimi, a graduate transfer from Virginia, at the center spot last season. This one may well work out this fall. One thing is for sure, Nugent is ready to work.