ANN ARBOR, Mich. — There’s just about no one in college football who doesn’t know who Michigan football will trot out as the top two defensive tackles. Juniors Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant are arguably the best duo of any team up front, but the question is: who is behind them?
Rayshaun Benny, who broke his leg in the College Football Playoff, is expected back by the fall, but considering that the Wolverines had a five-man rotation last year, they’re going to need more than the aforementioned duo and Benny to fill out the interior defensive line in 2024.
New defensive line coach Lou Esposito met with the Michigan media for the first time on Tuesday and WolverinesWire asked him who has impressed him thus far of those who are behind Graham and Grant on the depth chart.
“I think Ike (Iwunnah) has done a great job this spring for us, He’s played a lot of snaps,” Esposito said. “And then Enow (Etta) — we’ve had the ability to move him from outside to inside and inside to outside. He’s a 6-4, 292-pound kid that ran into 11.3 100 (meter dash) out of high school.
“He is a really, really good athlete. It’s just that he has to learn as you get closer to the ball, the hand combat becomes quicker, it gets on you faster. The further away from the ball, it kind of takes a little bit of time, and you can use your athletic ability out there. So I think the biggest thing with him is getting some of those inside reps — it’s really helped him on the edge. Because now when you put them on the edge, some of the weaknesses that he had, he doesn’t have any more in the physicality, because he’s been extremely physical all spring. And he’s a big part of what we’re gonna do moving forward.”
This is the first mention of Iwunnah from anyone on the staff or by his teammates this spring, so the fact that new eyes in Esposito have identified him as a playmaker is promising for his progress. As for Etta, he’s been a mainstay of conversation all spring ball and certainly looks to be a chess piece that Esposito and defensive coordinator Wink Martindale can use this fall.
But one name that got some mention last year that hasn’t really been mentioned this year is sophomore defensive tackle Trey Pierce.
Pierce arrived last fall looking like he could be an early contributor by his physical prowess, but he saw scant time in his freshman campaign. Despite the lack of mention, Esposito told WolverinesWire that he’s pleased with the progress that Pierce — a former four-star out of Chicago — has made in his short tenure.
“He’s done a great job,” Esposito said. “I got to come here, he’s practiced a couple of times, he got dinged up a little bit. He’s come back, I think back up, but he’s he’s really progressing.
“I think the biggest thing for Trey was just realizing what he can do. And I feel like for me, like I constantly talk to him and meet with him about the things he does really, really well. Let’s keep doing those things really well, and then work on the things that we need maybe to be a little bit better. And he’s been great. He’s a sponge. He’s been around almost two or three times a week meeting with me one-on-one.
“So he’s done a great job, I expect him to have a good fall. And we need him to have a good fall, we got to build that depth.”
