{"id":2986,"date":"2025-10-03T00:49:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/03\/for-michigan-tight-ends-the-time-to-gel-is-now\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T00:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:49:06","slug":"for-michigan-tight-ends-the-time-to-gel-is-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/10\/03\/for-michigan-tight-ends-the-time-to-gel-is-now\/","title":{"rendered":"For Michigan tight ends, the time to gel is now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Four games and a bye week in and the No. 20 Michigan football team is officially one-third of the way through its season. In the eyes of most people, that means there\u2019s still ample time for the team to further gel, for the players to fine-tune various aspects of their game and for the Wolverines to ensure they\u2019re eventually playing at the elite level they strive for.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But co-offensive coordinator Steve Casula is not most people. According to him, the time is now.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom top to bottom, I think this is as good of a tight end room we\u2019ve had here in some years,\u201d Casula said Wednesday. \u201cThe time for us to go play at an extremely high level is now, and what does that look like? It\u2019s no bad plays, and it\u2019s making the exceptional ones. You\u2019re not going to make every extraordinary play. You\u2019re not. You\u2019re going to strive to, but we got to make more of those, and we got to kind of limit our ties and losses, because I think we\u2019re capable of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Like Casula said, playing at a high level doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that every play or performance needs to be extraordinary \u2014 just some of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<p>When thinking about preeminent playmakers in the tight end room, senior Marlin Klein comes to the forefront. Against New Mexico in Week 1, Klein put forth an impressive performance with six receptions for 93 yards, one of which was a 15-yard catch in the endzone for his first career touchdown. As the No. 1 tight end, Klein\u2019s performance against the Lobos seemed to bode well for his role in offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/football\/chip-lindseys-nanners-country-playlist-and-the-prospect-of-a-balanced-offense\/\">revamped<\/a> offense. But the very next week, Klein sustained a lower-body injury and was unable to play against Oklahoma.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Such injuries are a part of the reason why Michigan\u2019s tight end room has struggled to generate serious momentum thus far in the season. While the Wolverines\u2019 second-string tight end still fluctuates between players, sophomore Hogan Hansen has emerged as the most likely candidate for the second spot. Hansen played against the Sooners and Central Michigan, but he was absent against Nebraska due to an undisclosed injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s uncertain whether or not both Klein and Hansen will take the field together during the Wolverines\u2019 matchup against Wisconsin this weekend. The duo\u2019s playstyle has yet to be seen, but it is an exciting prospect for Casula.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen they have been out there together, it\u2019s pretty good,\u201d Casula said. \u201cThey can do all the things that we would ask a tight end to do. Each one of them. Skill set is a little bit different from one another, but I think it puts a lot of stress on a defense when they\u2019re in there together \u2026 there\u2019s two of them out there that kind of constrict and control what a defense is able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Only those in Schembechler Hall have seen the duo together on the field, but their performance together could transform Michigan\u2019s tight end room into a room that makes those extraordinary plays \u2014 plays that will prove fruitful against conference opponents. And with the depth at the position combined with returns from injury, the Wolverines couldn\u2019t find a better time than right now to put all the pieces together.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<style><![CDATA[@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 250px;}}@media ( min-width: 728px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-2{min-height: 90px;}}]]><\/style>\n<\/aside>\n<aside>\n<div class=\"newspack-popup-container newspack-popup hidden  newspack-inline-popup      \" role=\"button\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000\" id=\"id_162162\" data-segments=\"\" data-frequency=\"0,0,0,month\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Please consider donating to The Michigan Daily<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four games and a bye week in and the No. 20 Michigan football team is officially one-third of the way through its season. In the eyes of most people, that means there\u2019s still ample time for the team to further gel, for the players to fine-tune various aspects of their game and for the Wolverines [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3110,3111,222,2615,403],"class_list":{"0":"post-2986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ends","9":"tag-gel","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-tight","12":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2988,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions\/2988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}