LOOK: Three Michigan football players to participate in the Reese's Senior Bowl

With the college football season over and the NFL playoffs winding down, NFL Draft season is fast approaching. That process kicks off, unofficially, this week with both the Reese’s Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine Bowl holding their camps and games this weekend.

And as always, former Michigan football players will take part in the festivities. Saturday, offensive tackle Ryan Hayes, center Olu Oluwatimi and wide receiver Ronnie Bell will participate in the Reese’s Senior Bowl, which will air on NFL Network Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Hayes, a three-year starter for the Wolverines, has measured in as a 6-foot-6.5, 305-pounder at Senior Bowl camps in Mobile, Alabama. He started 29 games along Michigan's offensive line, and was a key cog in the Wolverines' back-to-back Joe Moore Awards for having the nation's best offensive line.

Joining him this week will be his line-mate Oluwatimi. A one-year starter at Michigan as a graduate transfer from Virginia, Oluwatimi won both the Rimington Award (nation's top center) and the Outland Trophy (nation's top interior lineman) this season, and was a consensus first-team All-American.

Also participating will be Bell, who led Michigan in receiving in 2019, 2020 and 2022. A former Division-I basketball recruit, Bell caught 62 of 97 targets this season, for 892 receiving yards and four touchdowns this fall, coming off a season-ending ACL injury in 2021.

In addition to the three former Michigan players participating in Mobile, kicker Jake Moody and tight end Luke Schoonmaker will partake in the East-West Shrine Bowl Thursday in Las Vegas.

Several other Michigan players are hoping to be selected in April’s draft. Defensive tackle Mazi Smith and cornerback DJ Turner are projected top-100 NFL Draft prospects, while Mike Morris is a commonly projected fourth-round pick with Oluwatimi. According to theNFL Mock Draft Database, Hayes, Schoonmaker and Bell are consistently viewed as fifth-round prospects, while kicker Jake Moody and punter Brad Robbins are perceived among the better specialist prospects in this year’s draft pool.

The NFL Combine will take place March 3-6 in Indianapolis, and will be aired all four days on NFL Network. The NFL Draft will take place April 27-29 in Kansas City.

Michigan is one of the more storied programs in terms of producing NFL Draft picks, producing 392 picks to rank fifth all-time. The Wolverines’ 50 NFL Draft picks rank seventh all-time. Michigan has also had at least one player selected every year since 1939, the longest streak in the country.

After something of a lull to open the 21st century, the Wolverines’ draft success has picked up under Jim Harbaugh. Since 2017, Harbaugh’s second NFL Draft class, Michigan has produced an average of 5.85 NFL Draft picks per year, a figure that ranks fifth in the country. Michigan is also sixth nationally having produced eight first-round NFL Draft picks in that time.

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