Tony GarciaDetroit Free Press
Michigan football offensive lineman Myles Hinton didn’t appear to realize what he said was noteworthy.
On Monday, Hinton formally met with media for the first time since he announced his intent to transfer to Ann Arbor back in December.
The 6-foot-6, 340-pound senior, locked in a heated battle with Trente Jones through the entirety of summer and fall camp, had earned the starting job in Week 1 and was answering the usual gamut of questions a newcomer would face after his initial appearance.
How's your time going? How would you grade yourself Game 1? What can you work on? Why did you pick U-M? Eventually, innocently, the question of his major arose.
"Right now, general studies, because they had like, transfer — like the credits kind of messed up,” Hinton began. “I was in human biology at Stanford and then for some reason, they didn’t take a lot of the credits. Like, all my bio credits dropped."
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While Hinton was ready to move on to the next topic, the throng of media around him wasn't ready to let that go. Michigan is a prestigious academic institution and has long had rigorous standards for transfer athletes, but Stanford is on the short list of schools even U-M will admit requires even more.
Beyond that, Hinton hasn't exactly struggled in the classroom.
In high school, he was a member of the National Honor Society and Beta Club and in his first year in Palo Alto he was named the "Most Outstanding Freshman." It's the main reason he couldn't believe the classroom he found himself in during the summer session.
"Yeah, it was crazy! I was like, ‘What in the world!” Hinton said. “I took an intro to writing class last semester, and I was like, ‘What’s going on? I took this class freshman year." It was crazy."
Per U-M admissions, “upto 60 credits may be transferred from other colleges and universities to count toward the 120 required for a U-M degree.”
So, why did Hinton choose U-M? Familiarity. His older brother, Chris, was a defensive lineman for the Wolverines from 2019-21 before he left for the NFL.
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“I knew people on the team, people on staff,” Hinton explained. “It was an easy transition (in that way) versus going somewhere completely new.”
As for the academics, U-M's right tackle is far from the only transfer to have troubles transferring credits.
It was early Oct. 2022 in Minneapolis.
Big Ten basketball media days had just kicked off and a reporter asked as many available players as possible and asked the same question: If you could play with one player in the Big Ten who is not on your team, who would that be?
Nearly every player responded something the lines of: nobody, I love the guys in my locker room. That is, except Michigan’s former outspoken center, Hunter Dickinson, who immediately had answer.
“Terrance Shannon,” he said.
Shannon, a one time Texas Tech standout, had been linked to Michigan's basketball program for some time in the offseason and those who know him say it was as good as a done deal. That is, until it became clear there were admissions issues.
So, he instead transferred to Illinois, where he became All-Big Ten first team selection. That was before this past offseason, when North Carolina transfer Caleb Love announced his desires to play for Juwan Howard in 2023-24, only to go through the same admissions troubles. He's now at Arizona.
Back in 2020, Nojel Eastern suffered the same fate with U-M admissions.
In the new era of the transfer portal, to have a highly coveted (Hinton entered college as at Top 250 prosper per the 247Sports Composite rankings) and accomplished student-athlete from Stanford casually say he had to take introductory classes again because his "credits dropped" is eye-opening.
"I’m trying to get into environmental science," Hinton said of his academic plans once they're sorted out. "I want to do marine biology — it’s what I want to do when I get out of football.”
Jack Tuttle up next for QB2
Jack Tuttle, the Indiana transfer, will be the second quarterback in the game for Michigan on Saturday against UNLV.
Starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy completed 26 of 30 passes for 280 yards and three touchdowns in the opener and gave way to Davis Warren who entered as QB2, but was never able to get into the same rhythm. The former walk-on was 0-for-1 passing and had minus-8 yards rushing while playing most of the fourth quarter.
“Davis had a chance and I thought he was doing good, (but) we got the penalties that stopped those drives," Harbaugh said. "Young mistake, lining up over the ball and the other false startGio(El-Hadi) had, might've been somebody else involved in the false start as well, get that cleaned up. Not really a reflection on him."
Now, it's Tuttle's turn. The Indiana transfer is 104-for-182 (57.1% passing) in his career for 901 yards, five touchdowns and six interceptions.
"Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to play Jack, Jayden (Denegal) and Alex (Orji) in this next game," Harbaugh said. "The other guys are going to get the opportunity.”
Contact Tony Garcia atapgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at@realtonygarcia.
