ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Now playing left tackle after starting at right for most every game last year, junior Evan Link looks like a player reborn. Link struggled mightily in his first year starting, but through three games in 2025, he’s played much better thus far.
Link said in fall camp that he was somewhat blinded by the lights last year, but now that he’s gotten acclimated and used to playing high-level college football, he’s settled in. And this season, thus far, he feels a lot more comfortable.
“A lot different,” Link said. “It’s a lot more confidence. I think it personally and in the whole unit as a whole. I think I have more confidence in our abilities as well, too. So, I’d say it’s night and day, really. And I think the last game was a great set for that direction, where we had some different guys in there, and it was still the same level we wanted to be, and we played really well and put up 63 points. So, that’s something we can be proud of, and I think the unit is proud of that.”
Through three games, Link’s PFF grades have improved across the board, even if they haven’t quite risen to an elite level. In fact, he posted his worst grades of the year against Central Michigan this past week, but had stellar blocking grades in Week 1 and decent ones in Week 2 at Oklahoma.
But the offensive line isn’t just up to Link’s performance, even if he was, well — the weak link last year. Now that he’s improving, he says the big thing for this group is that all five players perform up to task. In Norman, it didn’t quite work out as such, but he says that against the Chippewas, the whole unit worked well together, as a whole five.
Given that there are two starters out with injury, it’s impressive that the O-line improved, even if it was against lesser competition in Week 3.
“I think it was a lot more of just playing as a unit, because there was guys playing individually well in that game,” Link said. “I know Sprague played really well, and he’s a great player, and a few of the guys had a great game as well there. But it wasn’t always everybody at the same time — all five doing exactly what needed to be done. And so I think kind of CMU was a difference in that it was maybe the play of the game before, it was four guys doing right, and then this time it was five guys doing right, which is what you need to be a successful offensive line. So I think that was really a difference that I can name.”
The line will have yet another huge challenge on Saturday as the Wolverines are set to travel to Nebraska for a 3:30 p.m. EDT kickoff. The game will be broadcast on CBS.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan’s Evan Link opens up about his move to left tackle and O-line improvement in 2025
Reporting by Isaiah Hole, Wolverines Wire / Wolverines Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
