Michigan had nine players compete at (or at least show up to) the 2025 NFL combine. Here are the results for the participants:
RB Donovan Edwards
5’11”, 205 lbs.
30″ arms, 10″ hands
4.44 forty-yard dash
38.5″ vertical
23 bench press reps
DT Mason Graham
6’3 1/2″, 296 lbs.
32″ arms, 9 1/8″ hands
24 bench press reps
DT Kenneth Grant
6’4″, 331 lbs.
33 1/2″ arms, 10 1/8″ hands
22 bench press reps
OT Myles Hinton
6’7″, 323 lbs.
34 1/8″ arms, 10 1/4″ hands
31.5″ vertical jump
4.96-second 20-yard shuttle
CB Will Johnson
6’2″, 194 lbs.
30 1/8″ arms, 9 1/4″ hands
TE Colston Loveland
6’6″, 248 lbs.
32 3/4″ arms, 10″ hands
RB Kalel Mullings
6’1 1/2″, 226 lbs.
31 3/4″ arms, 10″ hands
DE Josaiah Stewart
6’1″, 249 lbs.
31 7/8″ arms, 9 1/2″ hands
LS William Wagner
No measurements publicly available
I was hoping to see more players participate in drills, but the growing trend is for players to wait for their pro days (or not work out at all). It would have been fun to see Kenneth Grant run the 40-yard dash and for Will Johnson to do a variety of drills, etc., but alas, we’re left to wonder.
Michigan did have running back Donovan Edwards test, and his results were pretty outstanding:
Donovan Edwards is a RB prospect in the 2025 draft class. He scored an unofficial 9.60 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 78 out of 1909 RB from 1987 to 2025.
Name: Myles Hinton Height: 6’6″ Weight: 342 lbs. High school: Norcross (GA) Greater Atlanta Christian Position: Offensive tackle Class: Fifth year senior Jersey number: #78 Last year: I ranked Hinton #45a and said he would be a backup offensive tackle (LINK). He played in thirteen games and started five. TTB Rating: N/A
Hinton is a former elite high school recruit who struggled to realize his potential in three years at Stanford. Michigan rescued him from Palo Alto after David Shaw resigned following the 2022 season, and Hinton came in with a chance to win an offensive tackle job in 2023. It wasn’t quite meant to be as Arizona State transfer La’Darius Henderson won the left tackle job and Karsen Barnhart won the right tackle job, but Hinton managed to start four games on the right side and one on the left. He was generally good as a pass blocker and improved throughout the year as a run blocker, and he even won Co-Offensive Player of the Week when he started against Maryland after Henderson got injured. Overall, Hinton was significantly ahead of Barnhart when it comes to Pro Football Focus grades, but . . . well, Michigan won the natty, so I guess they made the right choice.
I feel a little queasy about not putting any linemen in the top ten for most important players in 2024, and Hinton was a tough choice to put here at #11. I wanted to rank him higher, but lots of other spots are missing quality backups, too. I think Hinton has the potential to be a very good tackle this year, and I have high hopes for him if Sherrone Moore and Grant Newsome can help him get rid of some of the mental/technique mistakes he made at Stanford. But Michigan does have some veteran tackles vying for playing time – as well as redshirt freshman Evan Link – so I think they might be able to weather an injury to Hinton without a terribly devastating impact to the offense as a whole.
Prediction: Starting offensive tackle; Third 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.
Defensive Tackle U. Michigan is putting together a nice crew of defensive tackles, and the least heralded one is the guy making plays most consistently, it seems. Sophomore Mason Graham made 5 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 0.5 sacks against UNLV, eating up the interior offensive line repeatedly. The Rebels ended the game with 61 rushing yards on 31 attempts, which includes sacks, but still . . . the middle was stuffed up all day. Kris Jenkins made 5 tackles and 0.5 sacks and Kenneth Grant made 4 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, and 1 pass breakup. The title of this section is a little facetious, but the defensive tackle play has been terrific.
Let’s see more of this guy on offense . . . Trente Jones. I really like the way Trente Jones plays football. On Saturday he was used mostly as an extra lineman or a tight end, reprising his primary role from 2021. But he just bullies people in the run game and does a great job with his body positioning. I think his pass protection might be a little questionable at tackle, but I think he deserves to be on the field more.
Let’s see less of this guy on offense . . . Myles Hinton. Hinton earned the start in game one even though Jim Harbaugh suggested that he would start a different set of tackles in week two, presumably La’Darius Henderson at left tackle and Jones on the right side. Hinton is a mammoth at 6’6″ and 340 lbs., but he appeared to make several mental mistakes on Saturday, especially in the run game. He said in the post-game that he did not play well. I do still think he can be a good player, but perhaps he needs a little more time to adjust to Michigan’s scheme.
