A win is a win. I always try to keep things in perspective. Herm Edwards famously said “You play to win the game,” and Michigan won the game. The Wolverines are 3-1 and their primary goals are still within play: win the Big Ten, beat your rivals, make the College Football Playoff, and win a national championship. Sometimes you win ugly, and sometimes you win pretty. It might help put things in perspective that star tight end Colston Loveland missed the entire game with an arm injury and Will Johnson was absent at the end of the game. This just happened to be an ugly victory, but oh well.
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PWO QB FTW. Well, it was a mild surprise when it was announced that former walk-on Davis Warren was named the starting quarterback for the season opener over Alex Orji and Jack Tuttle. Orji had received most of the hype in the off-season, and Tuttle is the most experienced. But Tuttle has been dealing with injuries and soreness, so he wasn’t really an option. Rumors started coming out a couple days before the game that Warren would be the guy. He finished 15/25 for 118 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception and graded out as Michigan’s #4 offensive player (69.7 on Pro Football Focus). Overall, I thought Warren was mostly accurate. He overthrew a deep shot to Tyler Morris, and he underthrew Fredrick Morris on an open post route that could have been a touchdown but turned into an interception. There were a lot of checkdowns and short throws, probably by design to make things easy for Warren in his first start. But overall, I thought Warren looked composed and accurate.
Name: Dominick Giudice Height: 6’4″ Weight: 310 lbs. High school: Freehold (NJ) Mater Dei Position: Offensive guard Class: Redshirt junior Jersey number: #56 Last year: I ranked Giudice #83 and said he would be a backup offensive guard (LINK). He played in three games. TTB Rating: 58
Two seasons ago, Giudice moved from defensive tackle to the offensive line and played in three games total. Last year he was 290 pounds and played a little bit as a backup; he played offensive line in one game (Indiana) and special teams in two contests (BGSU and ECU). Regardless of how ready he was to play, the 2023 line was tough to break in on because of the presence of so many good, veteran linemen.
This year the line has thinned out a little bit (six linemen from 2023 were drafted or signed by NFL teams), while Giudice has thickened up (290 pounds to 310). Reports out of practices have Giudice in the mix as a backup, but the guard spots are pretty much locked up by Giovanni El-Hadi and Josh Priebe. Raheem Anderson is another experienced interior guy who could factor in at guard (if he doesn’t win the center job), so I think Giudice is probably at least the fourth guard, if not lower. But injuries can take a toll on an offensive line throughout a game or a season, so with his added weight, perhaps Giudice will get a little more run in 2024.
Name: Dominick Giudice Height: 6’4″ Weight: 290 lbs. High school: Freehold (NJ) Mater Dei Position: Offensive guard Class: Redshirt sophomore Jersey number: #56 Last year: I ranked Giudice #85 and said he would be a backup defensive tackle (LINK). He played in three games. TTB Rating: 58
Giudice is one of the biggest wild cards on Michigan’s roster. Recruited as a defensive lineman, he spent 2021 there and then moved to the offensive line a couple games into the 2022 season. Oddly, he played defensive line in the season opener on September 3 against Hawaii . . . and then by September 17, he was playing offensive guard against UConn. It’s not often that a player plays on the other side of the ball a week or two after switching.
Now Giudice is playing offensive guard, and I just don’t see where he fits in any kind of rotation. Michigan basically has two units with starting capabilities, and there’s a battle behind that group to be third-stringers. Giudice is part of that battle. He did play on the line on the PAT unit, so he will probably see the field in some capacity. But how valuable is he to the 2023 team? Perhaps 2024 will be a more meaningful year for him after several starters or starting-caliber players depart.
Name: Dominick Giudice Height: 6’5″ Weight: 275 lbs. High school: Freehold (NJ) Mater Dei Position: Defensive tackle Class: Redshirt freshman Jersey number: #56 Last year: I ranked Giudice #122 and said he would redshirt (LINK). He played in two games. TTB Rating: 58
Giudice has already exceeded my expectations in a way. Last year I did not expect him to see the field, and he did. Of course, the way Michigan was playing, a ton of players saw the field in blowouts. But still, Giudice could have remained on the bench all year long, and he played against Northern Illinois and Northwestern.
Coming into his second year on campus, it seems once again that Giudice will be languishing on the sideline most of the time. Along with a couple solid returning players, some of Giudice’s classmates – Rayshaun Benny and George Rooks – have earned practice buzz from the spring. Add in a monster freshman nose tackle in Kenneth Grant and an early enrollee with some buzz in Mason Graham, and it’s an uphill climb for Giudice to earn playing time. I do not expect him to factor much into the rotation in 2022.
