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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — This offseason, we’ve heard about all sorts of up-and-coming offensive linemen for Michigan.
On Monday, head coach Jim Harbaugh noted that second-year tackle Karsen Barnhart is essentially a starter, while on Wednesday, offensive line coach Ed Warinner shared that Trevor Keegan, Zach Carpenter, Reece Atteberry and Zak Zinter have gotten time with the ones before being relegated to the twos.
But what does that mean for some of the other players entering their second-year who we haven’t heard much about? Namely former four-stars Trente Jones and Nolan Rumler?
Hailing from southern powerhouse Loganville (GA) Grayson, Jones came to Ann Arbor rated the No. 108 recruit in the 2019 class, per the 247Sports Composite. Yet, he hasn’t gotten the mentions of the others, despite being rated higher than all of them.
Warinner shared where Jones is as far as his development, noting that he has superstar potential once he learns to be more consistent on a day-to-day basis.
“Trente is running with the twos and he’s really come a long way,” Warinner said. “His trajectory – the biggest thing we tell Trente is he has the ability, he plays fast – consistency. When he becomes the same guy every day, holy cow! I think we’ll have something there. But he’ll have days where he has wow days and other days, not so good. So we’re really trying to develop consistency. But you can see it’s in him. And it’s just a matter of coming in mentally and being consistent physically.
“He’s on a good trajectory. For a redshirt freshman, he’s right where most redshirt freshmen are. Kinda in the wings, kind of – not having a spring ball hurt him. It would have been fantastic for him to have a spring. But I see his future is still glowing brightly.”
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Rumler’s lack of press has had Michigan football fans wondering aloud what’s happened in his development.
Rated No. 174 overall in the 2019 247Sports Composite, Rumler came in as a guard, but many had him pegged as the future starting center. With Cesar Ruiz having moved on, it’s Zach Carpenter in his class who ended up in the middle, but Rumler hadn’t gotten any mention as someone contending for a guard spot.
Warinner says that he’s still on track, but has been somewhat hampered with injuries — especially as of late.
“Nolan was running and doing a lot of good things with the twos, but then he’s had a couple little injuries here that have set him back,” “He’s been slowed down just a little bit. But nothing permanent. He’s gonna start working into practice, but last week and this week, he hasn’t practiced much. Minor things have kind of slowed him.
“He’s doing fine, too. He would have a lot of quality reps with the twos in camp at guard, playing guard, playing right guard. His time will come, too. His time will come.”
For both, Warinner reiterated that the absence of spring ball did neither any favors, but it appears they’ll be factors down the road once they continue to progress in the system.
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