What do Drake Nugent, Myles Hinton add to Michigan football’s offensive line?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As the losses piled up at Stanford, Myles Hinton’s body kept the score.

Hinton, a four-star tackle and top-100 recruit in the Class of 2020, dealt with his share of pain, including a shoulder injury that limited him to seven starts in 2022 and required offseason surgery. Mentally, the toll of back-to-back three-win seasons affected him in ways that only became apparent when he took the field at Michigan Stadium for Saturday’s season opener against East Carolina.

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Hinton has played in front of rowdy crowds but almost always on the road. Getting used to the sound of 110,000 fans in his home stadium required a bit of mental reprogramming.

“Having people cheer for you is kind of crazy,” Hinton said. “I still get anxiety when the crowd goes wild, like, ‘Oh God, what went wrong?’”

A lot went wrong for Stanford during the past two seasons. The losses weighed on Hinton and Drake Nugent, starters on the Cardinal’s offensive line who transferred to Michigan during the offseason. As Hinton put it, losing that many games will “do stuff to you that you never imagined.”

“You get real, real salty,” he said.

As a captain, Nugent took Stanford’s struggles as hard as anyone. He was grading out as one of the best centers in the Pac-12, but Stanford’s offense didn’t have much to show for it. He vowed not to let the losing affect his effort or motivation, but as the season wore on, it was tough to keep apathy from creeping in.

“You can give yourself that excuse,” Nugent said. “I’d like to say I didn’t, but it’s there.”

Players who have been in Michigan’s program during the past two years are accustomed to winning and all that comes with it: the lofty ranking, the packed stadium, the postgame celebration. For Hinton and Nugent, all of this is new. If apathy was a temptation at Stanford, stepping into starting jobs for a team with national championship aspirations was the cure.

“I just feel like, personally, I needed a change,” Nugent said. “It almost sparked my love for football again.”

Stanford wasn’t the obvious place to look for transfers who could upgrade Michigan’s offense. The identity of the Stanford program, forged under Jim Harbaugh and carried on by David Shaw, faded in recent years, culminating with Shaw’s decision to step down at the end of last season.

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Stanford averaged 3.43 yards per rushing attempt last year, 107th in the FBS, and ranked 109th in scoring. To assess what Nugent and Hinton bring to Michigan, the first step is to look beyond the stats and the Cardinal’s record during their time with the program.

“Michigan got, in Drake Nugent, one of the best centers in America last year,” said Terry Heffernan, who coached Stanford’s offensive line in 2021 and 2022 and started his career as a graduate assistant at Michigan. “There’s going to be growth and improvement for him, too, but they got a great football player the first day he stepped on campus. In Myles, they got an amazing talent who’s been out there and gone through some hard times. I’m very much hoping he can make the next jump.”

Hinton and Nugent have played together at two different schools, but they come from different places. Hinton, listed at 6-foot-6 and 340 pounds, was a big-time recruit with offers from Alabama, Ohio State, USC and others. His brother, Christopher, played at Michigan, and his dad, Chris, was an All-Pro left tackle who played for the Colts, Falcons and Vikings.

Myles Hinton studied human biology at Stanford but enrolled in the general studies program at Michigan because of difficulty transferring his undergraduate credits. He has passions for art and marine biology, which he combines by drawing pictures of fish.

“You start thinking, ‘My gosh, this guy spends a lot of time thinking about fishing,’” Heffernan said.

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Coming out of high school in Colorado, Nugent was a three-star prospect ranked outside the top 1,000 in the 247Sports Composite. The knock on him was his size: Listed at 6-2, Nugent often gives up several inches to players on the other side of the line of scrimmage. He makes up for it with his tenacity and competitiveness, traits that made him one of the most respected players in Stanford’s locker room.

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“He could have shrunk back in the shadows or said, ‘I’m doing really well, I’m grading out as one of the best centers that PFF has in the country every week — this isn’t my problem,’” said Heffernan, now the offensive line coach at Virginia. “He never, ever did that.”

Hinton and Nugent didn’t come to Michigan as a package deal. In fact, they didn’t talk much at all about their plans aside from acknowledging their mutual interest. Having each other to lean on has helped with the transition, as have the similarities in terminology between Stanford’s offense and Michigan’s.

Shaw and Harbaugh have roots in the West Coast, pro-style offense. The Wolverines don’t huddle before every play and signal some of their audibles from the sideline, but much of the verbiage is similar.

“We do a lot more motions here than we did at Stanford last year, but call-wise, on the O-line it’s basically the same,” Nugent said.

The smooth transition helped Nugent and Hinton earn starting jobs in Week 1, despite both missing spring practice while recovering from injuries. Nugent, a fifth-year senior, is closer to being a finished product, which helped him edge Greg Crippen for the starting center spot. Hinton, a fourth-year junior, is considered more of a raw talent who’s battling Trente Jones for the right tackle job.

After appearing in four games in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Hinton broke into Stanford’s starting lineup in 2021. His performance was up and down, with injuries contributing to his inconsistency. Even though Hinton is a massive tackle, quickness isn’t an issue, Heffernan said. Sometimes the opposite is true: Hinton can be too quick with his footwork, which leaves him off balance or out of position.

Hinton wasn’t dominant in every game, but Heffernan recalls a matchup in 2021 against Oregon and top-five pick Kayvon Thibodeaux that showed Hinton’s potential.

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“For that day, it kind of clicked,” Heffernan said. “He played probably his best game for me in two years, just using his length and moving his feet. … For Myles, a big part of that was just working that consistency and him having belief. I don’t think he looks in the mirror and sees 6-8, 325 and super talented. He didn’t, but I hope he does now.”

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Hinton’s battle with Jones could continue, but the decision to make Hinton the Week 1 starter shows what Michigan’s coaches think of his potential. Hinton wasn’t happy with his play, describing it as out of character and below the standard he set in preseason camp.

If Hinton’s mind was racing, it was because everything looked and sounded different from the last time he stepped onto a football field. Everything except the player snapping the ball.

“Having (Nugent) here has been awesome,” Hinton said. “We can bounce off ideas, bounce off shared experiences from Stanford and Michigan and see if we see it the same way. Having him here has been really good for me and hopefully for him.”

(Top photo of Myles Hinton: Paul Sancya / Associated Press)