{"id":87146,"date":"2025-04-02T15:33:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T20:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/why-giovanni-el-hadi-switched-back-to-left-guard-and-believes-michigan-will-have-a-scary-o-line\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:33:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T20:33:18","slug":"why-giovanni-el-hadi-switched-back-to-left-guard-and-believes-michigan-will-have-a-scary-o-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/why-giovanni-el-hadi-switched-back-to-left-guard-and-believes-michigan-will-have-a-scary-o-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Giovanni El-Hadi switched back to left guard and believes Michigan will have a \u2018scary O-line\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan Wolverines football<\/a> <\/strong>graduate lineman Giovanni El-Hadi<\/a><\/strong> spent there full seasons \u2014 practices, games, training sessions \u2014\u00a0as a left guard. He moved to right guard last season, though, with U-M bringing in a transfer in Josh Priebe<\/a><\/strong> from Northwestern to start on the left side.<\/p>\n

El-Hadi loged 473 snaps at left guard from 2021-23, including making three starts in 2022. He never earned a full-time starting job, stuck on the depth chart behind future NFL players, before becoming the team\u2019s right guard in 2024. <\/p>\n

Michigan\u2019s offensive line didn\u2019t meet its lofty standards a year ago and will look to make major improvements in 2025. El-Hadi, the 6-foot-5, 310-pound Sterling Heights, Mich., native, sliding to the left side could help those efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going good,\u201d El-Hadi said. \u201cIt\u2019s going really good. I feel a little bit more natural on the left. I played my first [three] years on the left side, and then Priebe came, and I moved to the right to change positions. And then I asked to go back to left, and it\u2019s going good.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be good at something, you gotta be consistent. And I was pretty consistent on the left side, did it for a lot of years. Before that, I only ever played right, and then I came here and played left, and you kinda get used to it. It\u2019s like second nature. That\u2019s why I feel better on the left side.\u201d<\/p>\n

The center playing alongside him \u2014\u00a0graduate Greg Crippen<\/a><\/strong> \u2014\u00a0is slated to be the same. And with junior Evan Link<\/a><\/strong> also moving from the right side to the left, he might actually play alongside the same tackle this season (though it\u2019s very early and Link is viewed as a player with versatility). Junior Brady Norton<\/a><\/strong>, a Cal Poly transfer who joined the team this semester, is also working in at left tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good,\u201d El-Hadi said of the chemistry between he and the left tackles. \u201cWe got Evan, the transfer, Brady. He\u2019s really good, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can feel the natural jelling, kind of like the end of last year, how we started jelling really well together. I think it\u2019s gonna be really good. It\u2019s gonna be a scary left side \u2014\u00a0scary O-line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScary\u201d is a high bar to reach, but El-Hadi has been part of lines that would qualify, with Michigan having won back-to-back Joe Moore Awards in 2021 and 2022 and been crowned the national champions in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna be nasty,\u201d El-Hadi said. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna impose our will like we know we can. We\u2019re not gonna take no \u2014\u00a0I can\u2019t cuss \u2014\u00a0but we\u2019re not gonna take no anything from any team. We\u2019re not gonna worry about anything but doing our jobs and doing it until the whistle blows.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou finish plays \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s how you become a nasty O-line. You finish until the whistle blows. You push the pile, and you don\u2019t stop until the referee pushes you off. That\u2019s how I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Hadi, Crippen and Link are the three returning starters on Michigan\u2019s offensive line, and the other spots will have to be determined. Junior Nathan Efobi<\/a><\/strong> has stepped up and is in contention for the right guard job, and El-Hadi has been impressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looks really good,\u201d the Michigan lineman said of his teammate. \u201cHe\u2019s understanding the game more. I think that\u2019s the most important thing for all young players is to understand the game before you truly try to get better at the game. Yeah, you could be the strongest, you could have good feet, but if you don\u2019t understand what you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re not gonna do it well.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, he\u2019s understanding it. He\u2019s a strong kid, and he\u2019s getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Why Giovanni El-Hadi switched back to left guard and believes Michigan will have a \u2018scary O-line\u2019<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan Wolverines football graduate lineman Giovanni El-Hadi spent there full seasons \u2014 practices, games, training…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}