The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 — 19
With three weeks until opener,
offensive line hoping to find stability
Offensive line, by nature, is
a position rooted in contact. So
this fall, when Michigan had to
practice without pads until last
Wednesday, it was perhaps the
position group hardest hit.
A year ago, the Wolverines
would have been well equipped
to handle such adversity. Their
offensive line was returning
four starters from a unit that
had gelled down the stretch in
a 10-3 season.
This year, not so much. All
four of those returning starters
are gone. Even Jalen Mayfield
— the only returning member
of last year’s starting five — was
away from the team training for
the NFL Draft before reversing
his decision when the Big Ten
reinstated its season.
As such, Michigan is left
with an inexperienced line that
has never played together at a
time when continuity is more
important than ever.
According
to
redshirt
sophomore Ryan Hayes, the
starting unit as of Sept. 3
was himself at left tackle;
either senior Chuck Filiaga
or redshirt freshman Trevor
Keegan at left guard; fifth-
year senior Andrew Vastardis
at
center;
redshirt
junior
Andrew Stueber at right guard
and redshirt freshman Karsen
Barnhart at right tackle. Two
weeks later, Mayfield’s return
vaulted him into the starting
right tackle spot.
“These guys are going into
their third and fourth years
in the program,” offensive
coordinator
Josh
Gattis
said this month, eschewing
requisite preseason confidence.
“They’re
not
your
typical
freshmen or first-year players
that you’re looking to replace
a lot of your offensive linemen
with.”
Still, only Mayfield, Stueber
and Hayes have started a single
college game — a daunting
proposition
regardless
of
preparation time. And now,
missing
so
much
contact
practice only adds to the
uncertainty.
The
least
experienced
members
—
like
Keegan,
Barnhart, freshman Zak Zinter
and redshirt freshman Trente
Jones — haven’t been able to
catch up to the physicality
of college football. Even the
returners
have
only
been
able to build their chemistry
in contact-less drills, a far
cry
from
game
situations,
where the offensive line will
be required to protect a new
starting quarterback from 300-
pound pass rushers.
So without being able to
build
up
the
Wolverines’
physical
aptitude,
offensive
line coach Ed Warinner has
focused on the mental game
in hopes that the physical side
will follow.
“The biggest problem with
an offensive line is learning on
the fly,” Stueber said. “You may
get a base look but then when
it starts changing, that’s when
an offensive line can truly fall
apart.
“If you don’t understand the
concept of the defense, who
needs to be blocked, where
the run is aimed — where the
aiming point is — then it can
really fall apart. But now that
we have the mental aspect of
the game locked down, when
the picture changes on the fly,
we can quickly adapt to that
and I think that’s a big aspect
that offensive linemen struggle
to grasp.”
Still,
there
are
a
few
technical pointers Warinner
has been able to instill in his
team. Without being able to
fine-tune his players’ power
and balance — two skills
reliant on game-like reps — he’s
focused on their first few steps,
eyes and hand placement.
Couple that with the mental
aspect and Stueber believes
the Wolverines are uniquely
prepared
to
turn
pad-less
practices into success on the
field.
“I feel like as far as the
mental side of the O-line, like I
said, I think we’re pretty much
there,” Stueber said. “We have
a whole understanding of the
offense, a whole understanding
of how it can change and how
we can adapt to it. I just think
the next piece is the physical
side.”
THEO MACKIE
Managing Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
The Wolverines will enter their season and full-pad practices with an inexperienced offensive line.
Meet Marlin Klein, Michigan’s
unlikely 2022 commit
It doesn’t make much sense that
Marlin Klein would be here, even
under normal circumstances. Not
many talented, athletic Europeans
drop everything and move to
America to play American football.
Fewer get college offers. Fewer still
deal with a pandemic that upends
the entire process.
Klein, a high school junior,
became Michigan’s third class of
2022 commitment on Sept. 22. The
announcement drew little fanfare.
The tight end has three stars to his
name and no one on the Wolverines’
coaching staff has seen him play.
He got on their radar when his
coach at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee
School in Georgia, Joe Sturdivant,
edited a highlight video to better
show off his abilities. He wanted
coaches to see him running.
“Sometimes you get those big
guys, they don’t see how fast you
are,” Sturdivant said. “So I just put
the first one of him catching it and
taking off and accelerating. Making
a couple big time catches over the
shoulder. What I would want to see
when I was recruiting.”
By the time Michigan tight
ends
coach
Sherrone
Moore
reached out, Klein was back at
home near Cologne, Germany due
to the pandemic. The two built a
relationship that culminated in
the closest thing to a visit currently
allowed under NCAA rules — Klein
came up to Ann Arbor and walked
around campus himself, seeing
the outside of some buildings and
getting lunch with tight end Luke
Schoonmaker and defensive end
Julius Welschof. Following the
visit, Klein, who said he speaks
with Moore two or three times a
week, committed.
His
reasoning
for
picking
Michigan, though, goes beyond
that. When he started watching the
game, the Wolverines were one of
the few teams he knew.
“It was always Michigan, it’s the
Big House, big stadium,” Klein said.
“It was kinda like the only team my
parents really knew about.”
So, here he is.
Klein’s parents have supported
him in this endeavor, one that —
as of now — looks like it will pay
off in a college scholarship. It’s
only been three years since Klein
attended his first football practice.
He had played soccer for eight
years, usually in goal because of his
height (he now stands 6-foot-7) and
quickness, then played basketball
for two. That opened the door to
American sports. One day, Klein
went to his local football club, the
Cologne Crocodiles, and started
playing for them.
“I just really spent a lot of
time getting to know the game of
football, on my weekend, during
my free time,” Klein said. “That
made it a lot easier. It was just so
different from all the other sports
I’ve played before, but I really got it
quickly, I would say, just because I
really wanted to play football.”
Within a year or two, he was
the best prospect in his class in all
of Germany. That drew the eye of
Bjorn Werner.
Werner, a German-born former
defensive end for Florida State and
the Indianapolis Colts from 2013-
15, started an organization called
Gridiron Imports after his playing
career ended. The goal is to find
European talent, get them to high
school in the U.S. and, hopefully,
Division I and the NFL. He met
Klein at a camp in Cologne and sent
out his tape.
“They really saw talent and all
the coaches talked to my parents,”
Klein said. “They just supported
me because they knew I want to do
this. And I feel like that’s my future
and that’s what I want to do for the
next years.”
By September 2019, he was
touching down in Georgia. In
Germany,
he’d
taken
English
classes, but now he had to learn the
language fluently and live on his
own at a boarding school.
“All my friends, my family,
everything’s
back
home
in
Germany,” Klein said. “... So it was
really hard, but I just had to take
this step, just to get to where I’m at
right now.”
Four games into his high school
career, he already had an offer
from Arizona State. The list grew
from there, culminating in the
commitment to Michigan.
In the two years between now
and stepping on campus, Klein will
need to fill out his frame and gain
blocking ability to match his 6-foot-
7 height.
“I think teams are really
counting on him to be blocking
tight end that can separate and
run
routes,”
Sturdivant
said.
“Especially
for
coach
(Jim)
Harbaugh, he’s a 12 personnel, 11
personnel guy, You gotta be able to
block.”
Klein is matter of fact about the
whole process. He went through it
because he wants to play football
against
the
best
competition
possible, he says, and this was the
way to take it as far as he could.
“That’s why I came here and
that’s who I want to play against,”
Klein said. “So I got used to it. And
I’ve handled it pretty good, I think.”
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
A
s I wrapped up a
Zoom interview with
Benjamin Becker on
Friday, it occured to
me how odd this must all be for
him. We’d just finished watching a
36-year-old Andre Agassi in tears
after Becker
had beaten
him at the
2006 U.S.
Open, in the
last match
of his career.
Becker, now
an assistant
coach for the
Michigan
men’s tennis
team, agreed
to watch some of the match over
Zoom and talk about a moment
that is more defining and more
significant for his opponent than
for himself.
Unless you follow the ATP Tour
closely, Becker’s name won’t stand
out. He played professionally for
12 years, climbing as high as the
top 40 and winning one title, the
2009 Ordina Open — a 250-point
grass court tournament on grass
held in Rosmalen, a town in the
Netherlands’ North Brabant prov-
ince. So, since that fateful day in
2006, Becker has been asked about
that Agassi match. When you
end a Hall of Famer’s career, the
moment can overshadow your own
accomplishments.
“Sometimes it is annoying that
you always get kind of, everybody
looks at this match and always
talks to you about that match and
also compares you to that match
and expects something,” Becker
said. “... During my career, to be
honest, it was getting annoying
because everybody would just talk
to you about it and it’s all they ask.
But now afterwards, now I can sit
down and talk about it a little bit
more as well and get to enjoy the
match.”
The match itself, a 7-5, 7-6, 4-6,
7-5 win for Becker, is more com-
petitive than Agassi describes in
his book, “Open.” After devoting
the opening pages to a five-setter
against Marcos Baghdatis in the
second round and the physical
debilitations he was suffering at
the time, Agassi gives this one just
a few cursory paragraphs. “Becker
takes me out in four sets. I can
feel the tape of the finish line snap
cleanly across my chest,” Agassi
writes.
It’s quite a good summary of
Agassi’s standing as a beloved
20-year veteran. So imagine
Becker, an up-and-comer of 25 to
Agassi’s 36, walking into a packed
Arthur Ashe Stadium to face one of
the game’s all time greats in front
of a crowd that is rooting against
him. Almost immediately, Becker
was facing break point at 0-40,
needing Agassi to make a mistake
to stay on serve. And somehow, the
game’s great returner did just that,
hitting a forehand into the net.
“I didn’t play aggressive at all,”
Becker said. “I was very passive. I
knew how much, how important
this is. How much of an impact
this can have. I feel like once I
saved the first break point, I kind
of had confidence I could come
back in the game, and so this was
a big opportunity for him that he
didn’t take advantage at all.”
On-screen, Agassi reacts to the
miss visibly. “He knew it right
away,” Becker says. “... He missed
the big chance.”
The match rolls on to a sec-
ond set tiebreak and Becker has
already lost a point on serve. He
goes down 6-4 and nets a fore-
hand.
“You can tell, I wasn’t loose
enough in my arms,” Becker says.
He’s vastly overestimating my abil-
ity to glean from a pixelated video.
“I didn’t go to the ball enough. Just
moving parallel to the baseline and
miss it in the net, which is obvious
that I was a little bit too tight in my
forearm and too nervous.”
I ask if he can make that diag-
nosis in real time. “Yes,” he says.
“You feel it.”
There’s something to be said
here for the level of ability it takes
to have even a relatively pedestrian
professional tennis career — this
fourth round appearance at the
2006 U.S. Open was his best ever
at a major and he was never ranked
higher than 35th in the world.
That resume is easy to overlook. In
reality, it takes incredible skill to
get that far.
He says his serve was a weak-
ness in juniors, but here it’s a
weapon. He’s throwing one of
the great returners of all time
off his game, winning 13 straight
points on serve during the first set.
By the time we get to the fourth
set, with Becker facing a fifth
down 5-4, he’s telling me how
tired he was, cramping up in the
August sun. On the screen, Agassi
is hunched over and barely moving
— he had collapsed walking to his
car after his second round match
— and they’re still playing through.
Becker watches his own second
serve just hit the line. He’s down
set point. After a few ground-
strokes, Agassi sails a forehand
out.
“I got really lucky,” he says.
“You can see I’m not moving at all.
... He was kinda surprised by my
mishit and just doesn’t move to the
ball at all and just frames it as well.
I got really lucky on this point for
sure.”
On screen, it looks like Agassi
has missed his chance. In the pres-
ent, Becker is talking about how he
didn’t want to call out the trainer
for cramps or show weakness. He
comes back to win the game and
tie the set at five, then decides to
go for it. To that point, he’d been
conserving energy on Agassi’s
service games, but now he gets
handed a point to make it 15-0.
“You have more in you than you
think,” Becker says, describing his
mindset. “You can do more. I know
you’re trying to be a little bit con-
servative if you have energy on his
service games, but now is the time
to make a push.”
He wins the game and serves
out the match. The crowd gives
Agassi an ovation. The younger
Becker is shuffled off screen. Now,
despite recalling exactly how he
mishit a forehand in the second
set of this match, Becker doesn’t
remember this part especially
well.
“I don’t know what we said
at the net,” Becker says. “I don’t
know what happened after. I
remember the interview, just bare-
ly. I remember they kind of told
me to leave and go into the tunnel,
just to kind of give him room for
his speech and then I came back to
sign some autographs. I remember
this part, but it’s all more of a blur.”
Soon after, Becker lost to Andy
Roddick, an eventual finalist in
the tournament that year and its
champion in 2003. A few months
ago, he watched back the whole
match for the first time when a
German TV station asked him
to participate for Agassi’s 50th
birthday. He wasn’t irked by the
request.
“I learned a lot from the match
to be honest,” he said. “But I enjoy
(it) way more now than I did dur-
ing my career.”
Sears can be reached at
searseth@umich.edu or on
Twitter @ethan_sears.
Looking back at Benjamin Becker’s most memorable moment
ETHAN
SEARS
COURTESY OF MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY
In 2006, assistant men’s tennis coach Benjamin Becker defeated Andre Agassi in four sets at the U.S. Open.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan tight ends coach Sherrone Moore worked to secure Marlin Klein’s commitment to Michigan.