Thrust Into an Uncomfortable Role, Jake Guarnera is Ready to Lead Michigan Back to the Top

Jake Guarnera is not new here, and he’s not shy.

“I think our offensive line can be a Joe Moore offensive line,” Guarnera said. “We have to work at it and work everyday towards that. We have to work at it and work everyday toward it, we can’t just let off the gas because everyone is giving us high expectations.”

Guarnera is in line to be the team’s starting center, a position that has been very important at Michigan over the years. It’s a leadership position, and one that Guarnera is beginning to grow into.

All of these accolades and responsibilities headed toward Guarnera almost didn’t happen. When Sherrone Moore was let go in December of 2025, Guarnera began to explore his options, and briefly entered the transfer portal with teammate Andrew Sprague.

Guarnera was likely a highly sought after target as he was Michigan’s best interior lineman a season ago, but chose to return to the Wolverines to be part of the change he wanted to see in the program.

Proud Tradition

The Joe Moore Award is not something that is thrown around lightly. Michigan was the winner of the award in 2021 in 2022 as their offensive line bulldozed through Big Ten play and catapulted the Wolverines into the College Football Playoff in each of those seasons.

They were a finalist in 2023, but lost out to Washington, who they ultimately beat in the national championship game in January of 2024.

They’ve steadily declined since then. The group was good in 2024, but not great. 2025 was a similar story.

Now, they’re trying to reach the top of the mountain again and feel like they have the personnel to do it.

Jim Harding was brought in to be the stabilizing force as Michigan’s offensive line coach. They’re very talented with the addition of former five-star recruit Andrew Balabola to the lineup this year. He could either start at left tackle or be a swing man. Guarnera and some combination of Evan Link, Nate Efobi, Blake Frazier, or Brady Norton will round out the interior next to one of their rocks, Sprague at right tackle.

"And so, like I said, the five best football players are the five guys that we got to find a way to get out there. And to answer your question, I believe he can do that,” Whittingham said.

Whittingham has also noted he believes his team is 10-deep on the offensive line. Depth and talent are hard to come by, but that’s something that Michigan is used to up front.

Special Players

Of course, depth and talent are great things to have, but it’s the truly special talents that help elevate a team from good to great. The 2023 team, for example, built its entire offense around Zak Zinter and Trevor Keegan. Zinter and Keegan were both either a captain or leader within the group.

The 2022 offense was spearheaded by Olu Oluwatimi, another great player who took on a leadership role.

That’s the hope for someone like Guarnera, who has been at the forefront of taking on the leadership for this group, even if that’s not the most comfortable position for him.

“"I don't think, naturally, I don't see myself as a vocal guy, but just being able to like work on it throughout the spring and just making myself uncomfortable has been something that's helped me start being more of a vocal leader rather than just someone that comes in and works every day and just puts his head down," Guarnera said in the spring. "I knew a lot of things that I needed to fix. And also, I spent time like when I was getting, I guess, recruited back here by Coach Harding, talking about things I need to work on and how he would be able to help me improve those things. So I've just been like focusing on one thing each practice that I need to work on, or I want to perfect, and being able to do that and emphasize that one practice will help me get better for the next."

When Whittingham was hired, he was brought in with a stated mission of making the team more disciplined.

Change started at the beginning, and Guarnera was at the forefront of helping hold the rest of the team accountable as part of their leadership council.

“They’re actually very intense,” Guarnera said about the coaching staff in February. “Now we have a team run. We do more acceleration work and technique stuff. And then we’ll have a lift, as well, which will contain more of olympic lifts, like barbell weights and cleans and squatting. We’re really focused on our technique and detail and just getting after it in the weight room, which is something I really like. We team run at 6:30, and then we have a lift in the afternoon at 4 o’clock.”

The best teams are player-led, as almost any coach will say. Jim Harbaugh used to talk about how he had to hold his best teams back rather than talking them into doing extra work.

Guarnera is finding his way to the top of the mountain in terms of leaders on the team. Soon, he’ll start trying to lead his team back to winning the Joe Moore Award

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