Evan Link opens up on 2024 Michigan offensive line: 'Nobody was really around anymore who had been there and done that'

Michigan Wolverines football junior offensive lineman Evan Link was thrown into the fire last season, starting 11 games (10 at right tackle, one at left tackle) and gaining valuable experience. He’s competing mostly at left tackle this offseason and has a good shot of winning the starting job.

Michigan’s offensive line set a high standard from 2021-23, but the performance dropped off in 2024, after the top six players at the position departed the program. Link and others didn’t have the kind of experience needed to carry that mantle, but they believe growth can be had heading into 2025.

“Offensive line at this university has such a high standard,” Link said on the ‘In The Trenches’ podcast with Jon Jansen. “Those guys set it in ‘23 and then people have set it in countless generations before.

“A lot of us, what we’re trying to do right now is just get back to that standard. There’s a certain mentality that comes with that, and it wasn’t really present last season, just because we had lost all those guys.

“Nobody was really around anymore who had been there and done that, and a lot of guys were kinda just … for me, that was my first ever time playing in games, so I had no idea what it took to do what they did.

“Now that I have a little more sense of it — I know [graduate guard] Gio[vanni El-Hadi], I know [graduate center Greg] Cripp[en], I know all those guys in that room who played last year have a sense of it and what has to happen, for spring and summer, it’s really gonna be getting the mentality of the unit right. As soon as we get that right, we’re out there ready to go kill. That’s what you have to do in offensive line, you gotta be ready to throw your body on the line, hell be damned.

“Everybody is trying to get back to that, trying to get back to what those guys set and what those guys showed us of how to do it.”

Michigan players have talked about being more “violent” and “nasty” up front, but they’re also prioritizing building better relationships amongst the unit.

“A big part of it is mentality, but a lot of it is just togetherness,” the Michigan lineman pointed out. “Those guys were so tight in ‘22 and ‘23. They all knew each other. They had been playing with each other for years. They hung out every time after games and all that stuff.

“We didn’t really have that last year. Everybody kinda did their own thing. Nobody really hung out with each other, and we’re trying to fix that now.

“We’re trying to get the unit together now, we’re trying to get people around each other, we’re trying to get everybody to be friends now. Not to say we weren’t last year — it’s just there has to be a certain bond when you go into war with these guys that you just can’t force. You gotta just build it over time.

“I think part of it is we’re trying to do that, because once we get that bond going, I think things are gonna kind of become a little easier on the field. If you know that guy — you may not know it subconsciously — you can trust that guy is gonna be where he needs to. You don’t have to overthink it.”

Link had his fair share of struggles at right tackle, even being removed from the starting lineup at one point before coming back in due to injuries to others (he also said he was battling through injuries himself). The 6-foot-6, 328-pounder allowed 30 pressures in pass protection, the third-most among Big Ten tackles last season, and had a dismal 19.2 pass-blocking rating. He graded out at 55.3 in run blocking.

“The entire experience was a huge opportunity,” Link said of his first season as a starter at Michigan. “Getting out there as a sophomore, you’re gonna learn a lot of things that you wouldn’t be able to learn until potentially your junior year. A lot of it was, what does high Division-I football look like on the field when you’re out there playing? That was invaluable experience now that I have that under my belt.

“The other thing I would say is that whole opportunity was a great chance for me to work on the small things, because you don’t think about them until you actually play in a game. A big thing for me was getting out in a game and maybe acting a little different than you would in practice, because now you’re in a game, there are stakes, there are people watching.

“For me, at the end of the year, I started to get it a bit better. But toward the beginning of the year, I would just get a little bit over-anticipating some things.”

The Michigan coaches believe he played his best game in the final contest of the year — a 19-13 victory over Alabama in the ReliaQuest Bowl. He played left tackle, the position he’s repped at the most this offseason.

“In all honesty, it was a lot easier than actually playing right,” Link said. “I was playing it for the entire year, but I grew up playing left. As soon as you get back into it, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember how to do this. This feels pretty good.’

“Getting to play left was definitely an honor, just because at this university what left tackles have done and what that means.”