Blake Bars
Offensive lineman Blake Bars has left the football program, reportedly to begin concentrating on his law degree. He would have been a fifth year senior for the upcoming season.
Bars committed to Michigan in June 2011 (LINK), and it seems very weird to me that I’m linking posts to my old-fashioned website from five years ago. Time flies. Anyway, he initially said that he was being recruited as a left tackle, which I thought might have been a bit of hogwash at the time. It turns out that he never sniffed the two-deep at left tackle. I initially gave him a TTB Rating of 71, but that dropped to a 62 once the 2012 recruiting class wrapped (LINK).
Hit the jump for more on Bars’s departure.
After redshirting as a freshman in 2011, he played in just eight games over the remainder of his career. He practiced mainly at guard and some at center, and I never heard much about him pushing for playing time. This past season he was injured for part of the year, and he was listed at 6’5″, 281 lbs., which is not really an acceptable weight for an offensive lineman in the Big Ten.
The coaches are concerned about offensive line depth. They reportedly wanted him to stick around for his fifth year, and they only took three offensive linemen in the 2016 class. The loss of Bars shouldn’t be a huge issue for Michigan this season because he wasn’t a high-quality player, but if the injury bug bites the Wolverines, there’s a big drop-off between the starting five and the backups, especially after you get past the next two guys (David Dawson and Patrick Kugler). Michigan has just thirteen scholarship linemen for the 2016 season, including three true freshmen.
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Bars is a helluva name for a lawyer.
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