Michigan football lost starting tight end Marlin Klein and fullback Max Bredeson to the NFL Draft, continuing the program's growing legacy of the position group at the next level.
The Wolverines will unveil a new-look offense this fall, with Freddie Whittingham taking over as tight ends coach. He'll lead a group featuring Zack Marshall (16 catches, 199 yards, 1 TD in 2025), Deakon Tonielli (8 catches, 72 yards) and Hogan Hansen (6 catches, 74 yards), plus fullbacks Jalen Hoffman and Eli Owens.
Freddie Whittingham broke down his position group this week on "In the Trenches" with Jon Jansen. Here's what he said about his room:
Freddie Whittingham on his initial reaction to the Michigan tight end room:
There was a familiar face in there. Zack Marshall is a kid I recruited out of Carlsbad High School, and actually at Utah, thought that we might be his selection. And then Michigan came in kind of late and offered him, and he couldn't say no to the business school and the program and everything. He said, 'Coach, you're in my top two.' And I knew at that point that, okay, he was probably going to Michigan.
Came in, first thing that I did, first day here, was watch film. Pulled up all the snaps that each one of the guys in the tight end room had from last season and watched those. Talked to the coaches that were here. Tony Alford was here, Lou Esposito was here. Coach Coombs had been here for just a bit. And Freddie Jackson — can't forget him. He probably had the most information on the guys and so got their description of what type of players they were.
I've got two fullback types and three true traditional tight end types. Liked some of the stuff I saw on film. I knew they were graduating — or at least two guys moved on to the Draft — Max Bredeson and Marlin Klein, and watched their film as well and kind of wished that both of them had chosen to stick around. But I'm excited about the room.
On the depth of the Michigan tight end group:
I think the depth is strong. The two guys that are the fullback types — Jalen Hoffman and Eli Owens — both had great springs, both had a lot of production this spring. Feeling good about where they are to be able to help out in their role.
And then Zack was not able to practice, recovering from a shoulder surgery that he had in January. But Hogan Hansen, he came on really strong. He showed himself to be a threat in the passing game. Big target, good hands, goes up high and gets the ball. And then Deakon Tonielli also, he has some real physical traits. He can run, he's athletic. He put some good tape out there too, so felt really good about the depth of the position.
On what he saw from the tight ends and fullbacks in spring practices:
Coming out of spring, I saw some things that we improved at, got good at. With a lot of our offense, we're going to be blocking perimeter runs. We're trying to circle the defense in one direction, other direction, using a QB read and power or counter. And so they need to be good at fitting up in space. Saw a lot of progress with that type of blocking.
In the throw game, a tight end really has to get open in tight spaces and also be physical at the top of the route in those tight spaces. I thought we got made a lot of progress in that area too. When you to catch those quick six-, seven-yard routes that can turn into eight, nine, 10 yards with a good run after catch, that was something we made a lot of progress in.
And then in pass protect, we kind of have a unique pass protection here where we get six-man pass pro using an additional tight end. Sometimes that can be a sixth O-lineman, sometimes it can be a tight end. So we worked a lot on pass pro so that the tight ends would be in a position to do that. And yeah, play-action pass is where the tight ends really eat in the passing game. So that, to me, is going to be the core of what we do.
On fitting Michigan's personnel to the offense:
No transfers in the group. We came in and there was not really a spot for a tight end transfer, so I didn't feel the need to go out and get one late in the process.
It's kind of a two-way thing. If a player can do something really, really well — let's say it's running a seam bender route — then you're going to design the offense to utilize that player in a concept that uses what they do really well. And on the flip side, you look at what they do well and build scheme around that, build plays around that. So you're going to have a clustering. There's six guys who are going to remain the same always, pretty much — the five O-linemen and then the quarterback. And then from there you've got the five skill players and you can mix and match two backs, two tight ends, four receivers, however you want to do it, and really utilize what the guys that are in that personnel group do best.
It's kind of a back-and-forth between identifying what they do really well and making sure we leverage that with the concepts that we design around them. And then also designing concepts around what we already know that they can do.