Trevor Keegan’s path to Michigan, outlook for 2022

We’ve been going through the offensive line in this series over the past several days, and one of the best of the bunch is left guard Trevor Keegan. A returning starter from a season ago, Keegan was an All-Big Ten honorable mention after starting 11 games.

He committed to staying in Ann Arbor for another season via social media before the NFL Draft, and the Michigan Wolverines are thrilled to have him back as a starter in 2022.

The story so far

The four-star recruit from Illinois gained a lot of attention for his size. At 6-foot-6 and 310 pounds, Keegan was one of the biggest offensive line recruits in his class. For that, he earned some attention from plenty of blue bloods — Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Penn State, to name a few. But he visited Ann Arbor in Oct. 2018 and committed in the July the following year.

After redshirting his freshman season, Keegan competed for the starting left guard spot in 2020 but lost the battle to Zak Zinter. However, in a blowout loss to Wisconsin, Zinter went down with an injury and Keegan played the remainder of the game. He also played most of the game in the season finale against Penn State in a coronavirus-shortened season.

In his third year in Ann Arbor, Keegan was all but set to be the starting left guard in a new-look offensive line. He started 11 games and appeared in all 13, helping the unit win the Joe Moore Award for the best offensive line in college football. With the Wolverines focused on moving the ball up the middle, Keegan was a major factor in the team’s success.

Outlook for 2022

Michigan added the service of center Olu Oluwatimi via the transfer portal, making the interior that much better. Keegan will all but surely start at the left guard spot and Zinter will be opposite of Oluwatimi on the right side. During the spring, the interior was already garnering the praise from their co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Sherrone Moore on the In The Trenches Podcast.

“Both those guys (Keegan and Zinter) had a really, really good spring, and both those guys picked up where they left off,” Moore said. “Both of them changed their bodies even more. Credit to (Michigan nutritionist) Abigail (O’Connor) and the strength staff. The guys eat up the weight room, they eat up the nutrition part of it. They look even better, they’re slim, they’re toned, but they’re still strong and twitchy and athletic.”

If everything goes right, they may form the best interior trio in the Big Ten this season. The Wolverines will likely rely heavily on those guys to move the ball on the ground in hopes of repeating as Big Ten champs.

That’s a challenge Keegan is taking head on. He told the Michigan Insider in May, “We were the hunters last year. We’re Michigan — we know everyone wants to hunt us down. We’re the biggest game on the schedule. We get their best every week and we’re ready for it.”