Despite Michigan blowing UTEP out in the second half and winning 52-17 on Saturday, the Wolverines have some health concerns entering their first Big Ten game on Saturday against Iowa . And the main concern is starting RT Andrew Sprague .
Sprague was held out against the Miners due to an undisclosed injury that Kyle Whittingham revealed occured within 24 hours of the game. Evan Link started at LT and Blake Frazier slid to RT against UTEP.
Appearing on 'I nside Michigan Football ', Whittingham said Jim Harding learned about Sprague's injury before he did and he said he hopes to get Sprague back.
"What happened between half hour ago and now," Whittingham said his response to Harding was. "It was just a weird thing, but hopefully we get Andrew back. That's the major concern right now. The primary concern is his health and making sure we can get him back to where he needs to be."
The key phrasing there is "hopefully we get Andrew back", and that's the major concern. Sprague has started at RT for the Wolverines the past two seasons and he is a big building block along the offensive line. Michigan is already without five-star lineman Andrew Babalola , who is battling injuries over the past two seasons.
How long might Sprague be out this season? According to Whittingham it might be week-to-week and could last up to several weeks.
"Andrew Sprague, gosh, that's a tough question. I think it could be anywhere from this week to several weeks," Whittingham said. "And so we just don't know and we're trying to sort through that, not we but the medical staff and making sure that we get the exact diagnosis and treat this thing the right way.And but he's a big part of what we're doing. So we hope to have him back sooner rather than later."
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The offensive line hasn't lived up to the billing as a whole through three weeks. The Wolverines have struggled to block for the run game, but pass blocking has been good enough to give Bryce Underwood time to throw.
But for Whittingham, he couldn't have been happier with how things came together quickly after Sprague's injury popped up on Friday before the game. Link has had a lot of reps at LT, but Blake Frazier has repped more at LT than he has at RT. However, Frazier held his own and Whittingham believes it's the best the line has looked this season.
"Couldn't be prouder of what they did, and we had zero reps during the week with that configuration, so we didn't find out about Andrew until late on Friday, and practice, you know, all the preparation was over as far as practice time," Whittingham said.
"And so to see them without playing in that configuration at all during the week to function like they did was very proud of them. Now, Evan Link, to be fair, he played a ton of snaps at left tackle last year, so it wasn't new to him, but Blake going over to the right side, which he had some experience, I guess he was the first guy in last year on either side of the tackle.
"So it's not like they were just doing something that was completely foreign to him, but still not to have any reps in the game plan and all the subtle coaching points that you missed during the week because you're in a different spot than you were for the first five days. Then that's something that really credit to those guys, credit to Jim Harding for making it work."
Michigan's offensive line will have to come to play this weekend as the Wolverines will take on the top defense in the country when Iowa comes to town. It's certainly concerning not having Sprague in the lineup, but Michigan will go with the 'next man up' mentality for however long he is out.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/michigan as Andrew Sprague Injury Update: Kyle Whittingham Has Concerning Remark Over Michigan's RT .
