Michigan football needs offensive production. Could it come from unsung names in TE room?
Michigan football has a ton of offensive production to replace from last season.
Between Blake Corum, Roman Wilson, Cornelius Johnson and AJ Barner, the Wolverines are losing more than 1,700 receiving yards and 1,300 rushing yards, along with 42 combined touchdowns.
That's not to mention replacing the signal caller, J.J. McCarthy, the Big Ten Quarterback of the Year who's projected to be as high as a top-five selection when next week's NFL draft kicks off in downtown Detroit.
Even though it's the tight end room with Colston Loveland that boasts the only returning starter on the entire offensive side of the ball, there are a couple of other players in the unit who could help pick up the slack.
Take Marlin Klein, for example; the 6-foot-6, 250-pound junior from Germany. It was Loveland — a man not short on confidence himself — who said this spring Klein is the fastest and "probably strongest" player in the room.
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Then, when new tight ends coach Steve Casula met with media last week for the first time since taking the job under new head coach Sherrone Moore — he was on staff in Ann Arbor as an offensive analyst from 2019-21 under Jim Harbaugh — he did nothing but continue to build the expectations.
“There’s nothing on a football field that Marlin probably can’t do,” Casula said. “We feel comfortable — I said this the other day in a staff meeting, if Marlin Klein had to go play every play in the game, we’d be good with that. We view Marlin very much as like he’s in a starting role."
The public will get its first look when U-M has its annual spring game on Saturday (noon, Fox).
The words from the former UMass offensive coordinator were eye-popping, especially considering Klein has just one catch in his career; an 8-yard grab in the second half of a lopsided win at Michigan State last season.
Klein was long considered a project, having played just two years of high school ball in Georgia after his family moved from his hometown in Cologne, Germany. It appears after two years in the system, he's coming into his own.
“Marlin has had an outstanding, exceptional spring," Casula continued. "I’m really proud of him for just hanging in there and stacking day after day after day. Not that every day has been perfect but Marlin is incredibly gifted. He’s serious about football. He trains hard. He goes about his business the right way each and every day.”
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Perhaps the only other person Casula gushed as much about is also in his room, and no, it wasn't Loveland, a potential first-round NFL selection in the 2025 draft, was Max Bredeson.
The younger brother of Ben Bredeson, a former four-year starting offensive lineman and two-year captain who currently plays for the New York Giants, and Jack, a former pitcher for Michigan baseball who played on the NCAA runner-up team in 2019, the 6-2, 240-pound tight end certainly has pedigree.
Max, a 6-2, 240-pound tight end, will also get his wish on the spring game roster and beyond as he will soon be listed at two positions on the roster: tight end and fullback.
"Whatever Michigan needs me to do to help win," he said earlier this spring of his anticipated role. "I love doing the fullback stuff. It's what I see myself as. It's really what I picture myself as in a role, using it more and more as we have with the offense, whatever facet we use it in, I'm always there to do it.
"Whatever they say, I'll do it."
He's not kidding. A former walk-on who was named a Burlsworth Award finalist in 2023 (given to the nation's top player who began their career as a walk-on), Bredeson played in just one game as a freshman, before a major leap as a sophomore. He caught five passes for 78 yards and more importantly, played in all 14 games.
Last season, he appeared in all 15 games and according to Pro Football Focus, played 242 snaps. Yet that translated to just two receptions for 19 yards and a 10-yard kickoff return. Still, he wouldn't have it any other way, nor would his coaches.
"Max Bredeson is as important of a player as we have," Casula said. "He might not show up on the stat sheet, but when you talk about someone who helps establish our identity in terms of running the football, Max is vital to that.
"He's awesome to coach, really gifted, really smart, about the right stuff."
Rayshaun Benny on the mend
The last time Rayshaun Benny was seen in uniform, he was being helped off the field at the Rose Bowl.
The senior defensive tackle injured his lower right leg the night Michigan defeated Alabama 27-20 in OT in Pasadena to punch its ticket to the national championship. He has not been an active participant in practice this spring, said his new position coach Lou Esposito, but he's still been a key piece of the room.
"Not available to play, but he's done an unbelievable job this spring of coaching guys and helping guys out," Esposito said. "If you watch him at every practice, he's grabbing guys. And that's the one thing I talked with him about is how do you keep guys involved when they're not able to physically go out there? And he's done an unbelievable job.
"He meets with me twice a week. We watch his plays from last year. And then when we're out on the field, he becomes another coach for some of those guys that we're trying to build depth with. And he's done a great job with that."
Benny, an Oak Park native who has appeared in 31 games across three seasons in Ann Arbor, comes off the best year of his career where he recorded 27 tackles including 5½ for loss with one sack, two pass breakups and one forced fumble.
The 6-4, 296-pound tackle is one of the key pieces of depth in the interior behind the mammoth starting combination of Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant in a room which is notably thinner after the departures of Kris Jenkins and Cam Goode from a year ago.
The silver lining is Esposito said Benny should be "ready to rock" come fall camp. Enow Etta, a four-star edge who moved to the interior this past offseason, is a name that's also come up frequently as someone to watch in the middle as well.
“The interior D-lineman, the reps, you don’t want to get their reps too high because then their level of play comes down,” Esposito said. “You want them playing at a high level. The reason why we were so good up front is because they were so deep (last season). They could just roll bodies in and not skip a beat. That’s what we’re trying to get to right now.”
Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football's tight end room full of sleeper candidates
