Sherrone Moore hopes he has his next great offensive lineman.
In the last few seasons, we have seen offensive linemen at Michigan have to wait their turn to see significant playing time. The time has come for Giovanni El-Hadi to take the next step and be a prolific starter on a Michigan Wolverines ’ offensive line that has consistently been one of the best in college football for about a decade.
The story so far
El-Hadi was a top-100 recruit in the 2021 class and attended Stevenson High School in Sterling Heights. At 6-foot-5, El-Hadi played tackle in high school and held several D-I offers before deciding to stay home and play for the Wolverines.
Immediately, Jim Harbaugh saw El-Hadi as a guard at the collegiate level. He appeared in his first game as a true freshman in the blowout win over Northern Illinois in 2021, but redshirted the remainder of that year. He quickly saw more playing time in 2022, appearing in all 14 games (three starts) and playing a big role on the special teams unit.
Last season, Michigan had the deepest offensive line in the country. El-Hadi likely would have been a starter had Zak Zinter and Trevor Keegan not returned. Harbaugh said on countless occasions it felt like he had two starting units (or 10 guys) who should be starters.
That unheard of depth meant El-Hadi was going to be on the second unit. Although he played in all 15 games and appeared on the offensive line in 11 of them, he never had the opportunity to start because of the health and depth the team boasted.
Outlook for 2024
Grant Newsome takes over as the offensive line coach and in February, he had nothing but glowing remarks for El-Hadi.
“It’s one thing that was encouraging for us to see from Gio last year was to really see him start to find his voice, and the maturity and the other pieces that come with that,” Newsome said on In The Trenches . “The exciting opportunity for a guy like Gio will be to step into that leadership role. Hey, you got to learn from five, six really, really good players the last three years. Hey, it’s your time to go step up, not only on the field but also in the room, in terms of having your voice and being one of the leaders of the offensive line.”
The sentiment around El-Hadi is he is going to take over rather seamlessly as a starting guard this season. Northwestern transfer Josh Priebe will be opposite of him at the guard position, while Myles Hinton, Greg Crippen, Raheem Anderson, Andrew Gentry and Jeffrey Persi compete for the other three spots.