'We're supposed to be the badasses': Juan Castillo helping Michigan offensive line get its swagger back

Michigan Wolverines football head coach Sherrone Moore brought back Juan Castillo — a senior offensive line assistant — to work with position coach Grant Newsome and the men up front.

The 65-year-old Castillo has coached offensive line for decades, following his professional playing career. He was the offensive line coach with the Philadelphia Eagles (1998-2010), Baltimore Ravens (2014-16), Buffalo Bills (2017-18), Chicago Bears (2020-21) and UCLA Bruins (2024). He was an offensive analyst at Michigan in 2019 and is now back in Ann Arbor.

On an appearance on the ‘In The Trenches’ podcast with host Jon Jansen, Castillo explained what continues to motivate him as a coach.

“There’s a certain feeling that you get when you see a kid doing something that you taught him and that he’s worked on, and you see it work,” Castillo said.

The work is the most important part, he believes, and he’s instilling that in Michigan’s offensive line.

“Offensive linemen, by nature, are not as athletic as defensive linemen,” Castillo said, before receiving some lighthearted pushback from Jansen, a former U-M All-American and national champion on the offensive line. “Usually, if you’re athletic, you end up being on defense, to a certain extent.

“That’s why I always used to tell my guys, ‘Look, think about this, who are the toughest, who are the strongest, who are the smartest and who works the hardest?’ And the guys will say, ‘We do, Coach. We’re gonna kick the s*** out of the defense. That’s the way it’s gonna be.’ I said, ‘Look at that.’

“I never talked about athletic ability, because all of those other things override that part. But that was always my start.

“Think about it for offensive linemen, we’re stronger, we work harder, we’re smarter — we’re supposed to be the badasses.”

Michigan graduate guard Giovanni El-Hadi said this spring that Castillo has added a lot of value for the offensive line. El-Hadi was a backup and spot starter on offensive lines that won the Joe Moore Award in 2021-22 and national championship in 2023 — and he’s intent on getting the group back to playing at that level this fall.

“We’re gonna be nasty,” El-Hadi said. “We’re gonna impose our will like we know we can. We’re not gonna take no — I can’t cuss — but we’re not gonna take no anything from any team. We’re not gonna worry about anything but doing our jobs and doing it until the whistle blows.

“You finish plays — that’s how you become a nasty O-line. You finish until the whistle blows. You push the pile, and you don’t stop until the referee pushes you off. That’s how I feel.”

Castillo being in their corner as they prepare can only be a positive.

He’s also in Newsome’s corner as he enters his second season as Michigan’s offensive line coach.

“Well, I think the nice thing is you work with each other,” Castillo said of the cohesion between himself and Newsome. “You kinda work together, and I think the part with Grant is Grant knows me. He was here the last time I was here with Coach Moore, too, so we know each other and he trusts me. I think that’s an important part.

“And then being able to bounce things off and say, ‘Coach, what about this or what about that?’ For me, too, being able to … I still want to get better and improve and be the best that I can be. That never stops. The minute that you stop trying to be the best you can be, then you don’t get any better.”

Juan Castillo philosophy on switching sides of the line

Michigan has two players who are projected to start on the opposite side of the line from where they did a season ago. El-Hadi played right guard but is repping on the left side, while junior Evan Link was the right tackle but switched to left late last season, before the bowl game against Alabama.

T”here are some things you talk about technique-wise or how you line up in your stance, but really what I’ve found out — and I tried to mention this to Evan, and we’re doing that with Ty [Haywood], the young freshman, right now … he was used to left side … — just doing the technique on the other side over and over, the repetition.

“You get used to feeling comfortable in that stance, feeling comfortable with a reach block, feeling comfortable with an angle set, feeling comfortable. So, you do it so much — over and over and over — until it becomes natural. And I think that’s the key.”