Name: Giovanni El-Hadi Height: 6’5″ Weight: 315 lbs. High school: Sterling Heights (MI) Stevenson Position: Offensive guard Class: Fifth year senior Jersey number: #58 Last year: I ranked El-Hadi #14 and said he would be a starting offensive guard and second team all-conference (LINK). He started all thirteen games and was named Honorable Mention All-Big Ten. TTB Rating: 84
Last year I said it seemed like El-Hadi had been around forever, and just now he’s entering his fifth year. I also predicted he would be Second Team All-Big Ten, and that was way off, too. So maybe I’m a bit aloof when it comes to El-Hadi.
El-Hadi had mostly played left guard early in his career, but last season he switched to the right side to make way for Northwestern transfer Josh Priebe to start at left guard. Both of them had pretty forgettable seasons. And that was the case for most of the offensive line. It was a pretty ugly year overall except when Kalel Mullings was stepping through tackles in the backfield and turning them into 20+ yard runs.
Now El-Hadi is back at left guard, and my hope is that he plays better as a result. Just like with Evan Link switching back to left tackle (where he played in high school) from the right side (where he played most of last year), I think being comfortable with the footwork, hand placement, eyes, etc. can help an offensive lineman. El-Hadi has been named a captain for the upcoming season, and he pairs with fifth year senior center Greg Crippen for some good experience on the interior. I’m not going to go as far as saying El-Hadi will be an all-conference player in 2025, but he should be improved and the offense overall should look better under new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey.
RETURNING PLAYERS: Greg Crippen (RS Sr.), Giovanni El-Hadi (RS Sr.), Connor Jones (RS Jr.), Brooks Bahr (RS So.), Nathan Efobi (RS So.), Evan Link (RS So.), Blake Frazier (RS Fr.), Jake Guarnera (RS Fr.), Luke Hamilton (RS Fr.), Ben Roebuck (RS Fr.), Andrew Sprague (RS Fr.) NEWCOMERS: Lawrence Hattar (RS Sr.), Brady Norton (RS So.), Andrew Babalola (Fr.), Kaden Strayhorn (Fr.) DEPARTURES: Raheem Anderson (transfer to Western Michigan), Tristan Bounds (transfer to Arizona), Andrew Gentry (transfer to BYU), Dominick Giudice (transfer to Missouri), Myles Hinton (NFL Draft), Jeffrey Persi (transfer to Pitt), Josh Priebe (NFL Draft)
OUTLOOK: Michigan really struggled up front in 2024, the first year under new offensive line coach Grant Newsome. They did seem to make some progress late in the year, but it was too late to salvage anything but a couple surprise victories against Ohio State and Alabama. The top performer up front was Myles Hinton, a mammoth Stanford transfer. Transfer left guard Josh Priebe struggled at times, and from the center to the right tackle was a travesty for much of the year. Greg Crippen and Dominick Giudice played hot potato with the reins of the center position for the entire year, Giovanni El-Hadi performed disappointingly at right guard, and redshirt freshman Evan Link posted multiple PFF grades of 0.0 in pass protection.
There has been a lot of turnover on the offensive line, with seven players either moving on to the NFL (Hinton, Priebe) or transferring. Giudice, Andrew Gentry, and Jeffrey Persi all had significant starting or playing experience, and all three decided to play elsewhere, leaving somewhat of a void in the remaining offensive line.
The bowl game against Alabama featured Link at left tackle and freshman Andrew Sprague at right tackle, and that may be the configuration we see to begin the spring. Link looked more comfortable on the left side, and Sprague showed some promise at right tackle, especially from an attitude perspective. Add in an off-season of strength and conditioning, and Sprague should be ready to roll.
As for new faces for 2025, Ferris State transfer Lawrence Hattar could possibly be penciled in to start at guard; he’s a fifth year player with lots of starting experience at the Division II level. Andrew Babalola is a 5-star prospect who’s big enough and athletic enough to compete for playing time at one of the tackle positions. Junior college transfer Brady Norton has potential down the road, but he’s probably a developmental guy at this point.
A couple other players who have been rumored to be in contention for playing time are redshirt junior Connor Jones and redshirt sophomore Nathan Efobi. Redshirt freshman Blake Frazier has been mentioned as having potential if he can get/stay healthy, and redshirt freshman Ben Roebuck had college-ready size when he arrived in 2024. All of those players are huge question marks since we haven’t really seen them on the field except during spring games.
Overall, the offensive line is a group with a lot of individual talent, but very little cohesion from playing together. Center Greg Crippen and offensive guard Giovanni El-Hadi have spent lots of time together as two fifth year seniors, but the rest of the players are either young or new to the system. It’s probably a pipe dream to hope for a return to the Joe Moore Award-level play we saw in 2021 and 2022, but it’s going to be very disappointing if Michigan can’t perform better in the trenches than they did in 2024.
Name: Giovanni El-Hadi Height: 6’5″ Weight: 310 lbs. High school: Sterling Heights (MI) Stevenson Position: Offensive guard Class: Redshirt junior Jersey number: #58 Last year: I ranked El-Hadi #33 and said he would be a backup offensive guard (LINK). He played in fifteen games. TTB Rating: 84
It seems like El-Hadi has been around forever. It seems like he’s been a backup forever. And it seems like a long time ago that he started three games in place of a banged up Trevor Keegan. But it hasn’t been forever. He was a part of the 2021 class and started those three games in 2022. Normally it seems like a player with El-Hadi’s recruiting pedigree and talent would have been playing by at least his second year, but Michigan has had the advantage of having a veteran offensive line room for the past several seasons. El-Hadi’s PFF scores were higher in 2021 and 2022 than they were in 2023, but I wonder if that’s a function of feeling a little stagnant while waiting his turn.
But the time has now come for El-Hadi to be a full-time starter. Keegan and Zak Zinter, both long-term starting offensive guards, have moved on to the NFL. Along with Myles Hinton at left tackle and Josh Priebe at the other guard spot, El-Hadi is one of three solidified positions on the offensive line. The battles have continued at center and right tackle, but El-Hadi was a shoo-in. Furthermore, Sam Webb has been touting El-Hadi this off-season, including saying he would take El-Hadi as the “breakout offensive player of the year.” With the way Sherrone Moore has developed offensive linemen, it might be a good bet that El-Hadi turns into an all-conference lineman this season.
Prediction: Starting offensive guard; Second Team All-Big Ten
2023 Starters: LT La’Darius Henderson, LG Trevor Keegan, C Drake Nugent, RG Zak Zinter, RT Karsen Barnhart Losses: Barnhart (NFL), Henderson (NFL), Trente Jones (NFL), Keegan (NFL), Nugent (NFL), Zinter (NFL) Returning players: Myles Hinton (RS Sr.), Jeffrey Persi (RS Sr.), Raheem Anderson (RS Jr.), Tristan Bounds (RS Jr.), Greg Crippen (RS Jr.), Giovanni El-Hadi (RS Jr.), Dominic Giudice (RS Jr.), Andrew Gentry (RS So.), Connor Jones (RS So.), Nathan Efobi (RS Fr.), Amir Herring (RS Fr.), Evan Link (RS Fr.) Newcomers: Josh Priebe (RS Sr.), Blake Frazier (Fr.), Jake Guarnera (Fr.) Projected starters: LT Hinton, LG El-Hadi, C Crippen, RG Priebe, RT Persi
Michigan went from having a terrible offensive line under Brady Hoke to a decent offensive line at the beginning of the Harbaugh era to one of the best in the country at the end of Harbaugh’s tenure. In two of Harbaugh’s final three seasons, Michigan won the Joe Moore Award for the best offensive line in the country; in the third season, they lost the award but won a national championship. And now most of the key pieces to those awards and accomplishments are either in the NFL or heading there soon.
Much like the quarterback position, nobody really has a great idea of how the position group will shake out. Will it be as good as it was in 2021-2023? That’s unlikely. Could it still be a solid conglomeration? Sure. Four of the starters above (Hinton, El-Hadi, Crippen, and Persi) were 4-star prospects or better, and the only 3-star (Priebe) is a multi-year starter coming from Northwestern. Furthermore, they are all veteran players in at least their fourth year of college.
At offensive tackle, Hinton started one-third of the season before ceding his spot to Barnhart in 2023, so he seems like the most likely to start. On the right side, it could be a battle between Persi and Gentry. Both have looked somewhat rough in limited time, but Persi has two years of experience on Gentry, whose footwork still looked pretty sloppy in 2023.
At the guard positions, El-Hadi is another player who has some starting experience a couple seasons ago as an injury fill-in, so he seems likely to slide right in this season. Priebe is a veteran starting presence who should be able to fend off most contenders, if not all of them.
Word coming out of Ann Arbor about Crippen has been that he’s a potential All-American, but he’s just been blocked by two really good players in Olu Oluwatimi and Nugent over the past couple years. I have some doubts because I’m not sure why the coaching staff would recruit over him if he was that good, but he’s also two years older now than he was when Oluwatimi swooped in, so perhaps his improvement in that time has been significant.
Despite losing six offensive linemen to the draft, Michigan goes into spring with 15 other scholarship linemen on the roster. That’s somewhat mind-boggling to consider, since a team might have carried just 13 linemen a few years ago. In that bygone era of like 2019, we would be looking at 7 returning players and 6 true freshmen arriving sporadically in January and then June. Instead, there are 12 returning players, a transfer, and 2 early enrollee freshmen available for the spring, not to mention further reinforcements arriving this summer.
Some projected backups to keep an eye on are Raheem Anderson, who was reportedly ahead of Crippen early in their careers but has since appeared to be more of a factor at guard; Gentry, who could potentially start at tackle over Persi; and Herring, who’s a powerful offensive guard option that looked good in the spring game in 2023. Aside from Gentry possibly starting, Anderson and Herring are almost certainly backups for this season. Another players I’ll also be watching closely is Tristan Bounds, a behemoth of a player whose balance has been questionable in limited field time.
Name: Giovanni El-Hadi Height: 6’5″ Weight: 318 lbs. High school: Sterling Heights (MI) Stevenson Position: Offensive guard Class: Redshirt sophomore Jersey number: #58 Last year: I ranked El-Hadi #58 and said he would be a backup offensive guard (LINK). He started three games at left guard. TTB Rating: 84
El-Hadi didn’t get much experience as a freshman in 2021, playing in just one game. So it was a pleasant surprise when the coaching staff turned to him to start three games in 2022 when starting left guard Trevor Keegan had some injury issues. El-Hadi stepped in to start against Maryland, Nebraska, and Illinois, and handled himself pretty well. The offense didn’t skip a beat, and he was out there moving people, not just holding his own.
El-Hadi has already exceeded my expectations for 2023, because I think he’s the lone player on Michigan’s roster whose height and weight have both remained the same from 2022. But the former 4-star and top-100 recruit looks like a starting quality player, with the only problem being that Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter both returned for 2023 instead of testing the NFL Draft waters. Aside from being able to fill in this fall if an injury were to happen, El-Hadi’s chances of starting in 2024 are pretty good. So he should be a top backup as well as play on the field goal protection unit.
