Javon Gopie was taken aback by Mason Graham’s opening message when the two initially met.

Gopie, more commonly known on social media and in football circles as the Sack Sensei, is a former Division I football player-turned-South Florida-based pass rush specialist. He runs a system known as Sack Club, which has a number of programs for aspiring defensive linemen — pre-draft training, offseason training, pass rush summits —and Graham was recently in town for the college offseason training regimen.

Graham connected with Gopie prior to heading down. After all, the specialist has worked with multiple Michigan football linemen in the past year, from Jaylen Harrell and Braiden McGregor ahead of April's NFL draft to current teammate Derrick Moore.

But in that first discussion with Graham, it was not as much what the junior said to Gopie as it was how he said it.

"The exciting part was when we spoke, I asked him what he wanted to continue to work on and he told me ‘I want to, got to, become a better pass rusher,'" Gopie told the Free Press. "Watching his film, he made a lot of big plays (last season). On that (second) down, overtime in the Rose Bowl, made a huge tackle for loss.

"He has the opportunity to be really good. Like, special."

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Gopie knows exactly what "special" looks like: He has worked with some of the best pass rushers in the NFL, such as Miami's Bradley Chubb, who has 39½ sacks in his seven-year NFL career, as well as Detroit's James Houston, who had eight sacks in just seven games as a rookie out of Jackson State.

More recently, he prepared a handful of first- and second-round selections ahead of April's NFL draft, including Alabama's Dallas Turner (No. 17, Minnesota), Pitt's Calijah Kancey (No. 19, Tampa Bay) and Florida State's (and formerly of Western Michigan) Braden Fiske (No. 39, Los Angeles Rams).

Even with them in mind, Gopie, aka the "Sack Sensei," told the Free Press he has never trained someone quite like Michigan's 6-foot-3, 318-pound junior defensive tackle.

"It’s hard for me to compare him to anyone because I don’t think I’ve seen an athlete of his size and speed with his intangibles just yet," Gopie gushed. "I think he’s one of those guys who’s going to be one of one."

'So slippery, so twitchy'

When Graham first arrived in Ann Arbor after a standout career at Servite High School — capped by a 2021 campaign in which he was named the Los Angeles Times' high school football player of the year — then-head coach Jim Harbaugh referred to an unnamed freshman as a 'gift from the football gods'

Only later in the year did Harbaugh admit he was speaking of Graham, after the baby-faced bulldozer had burst onto the scene. In his first year of college football, Graham played in each of U-M's 14 games, finishing with 27 tackles, 2½ sacks, one pass breakup and one quarterback hurry en route to being named a freshman All-American by Pro Football Focus.

“He played a lot as a true freshman — and the production will come — but his movements, his block destruction, his pass rush, has all improved,” then-defensive line coach Mike Elston said in September of Graham's sophomore year. “He’s a phenomenal, phenomenal player.”

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It precipitated another huge leap from Graham.

Despite breaking a bone in his hand, which caused him to miss a pair of games and play with a club on his hand for two more, Graham still finished the 2023 season with 36 tackles (7½ for loss), three sacks, three quarterback hurries, one pass breakup, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.

He was named first-team All-Big Ten, and PFF's "wins above average" metric had Graham as the fourth-most valuable defensive tackle in the nation, as well as sixth in pass-rush win rate (15.9%). He was also one of two defensive tackles in the nation to post top-10 grades against the pass and the run.

Even with that, Gopie sees room for improvement.

'I was super excited to get the chance to work together. Man, when I tell you it was a delight, I was very surprised to see how athletic and twitchy he was," Gopie said. "For him to be so good on film, he’s still so raw, and that’s the exciting part because his ceiling is so high.

"As a pass rusher he’s slippery, super twitchy," he said. "Has great functional movement and that’s so important for us on defense to be able to plant, bend and change direction. He is Tier 1 in respect to his movement and he still has more room to grow in respect to defining what he does best."

'Just keeps getting better and bettter'

That's what the next 2-5 months are about for Graham: Identifying a truly dominant pass-rush move, then creating enough of a repertoire to work off of it and beat interior linemen in a variety of ways.

Michigan, the defending national champion, is scheduled to open its 2024 campaign against Fresno State under the lights in Ann Arbor on Aug. 31, but before then, Gopie says he will go over at least three games of the Bulldogs' offensive line film from last season.

After the two watch separately, they will sit down together and go over notes to put together a game plan.

"That will help me get more insight into his football mind," Gopie said. "He’s a bright, intelligent guy from our encounters so far, but we want to break down film (now and) in the season which will help elevate his game tremendously."

There are several new faces around Graham this year after the Wolverines turned over the entire defensive staff from last year's team. Lou Esposito is in charge of the defensive line after serving as Western Michigan's defensive coordinator. It didn't take long for him to marvel at Graham.

“I haven’t watched everybody else, but if there are two D-tackles better than them, I’d love to see ‘em, playing as a group,” he said in the spring. "Mason is a guy where you can see he was a high school wrestler. He plays with great leverage, he understands the transfer of weight and he understands his hands.

"He just keeps getting better and better and better."

It's a scary thought for anybody lining up against Graham, who already this offseason was projected as a top-10 pick in the 2025 draft. With upside as high as anybody in the class, Gopie said he absolutely expects Graham to finish with a first-round grade, just one reason PFF recently named him the No. 1 DT in America.

As a junior, Graham might not be named captain. As a defensive tackle, Graham might not lead the team in tackles or sacks. As an understated lineman, Graham might not move the needle in the way big names such as J.J. McCarthy or Blake Corum did, but his importance cannot be overstated — nor can his chances of becoming a household name, in Michigan and beyond.

"He's not far," Gopie said. "On top of the athleticism he has, I want him to be a truly effective pass-rusher. I want him to win nine out of 12 reps, not two out of seven.

"But he’s not far, I expect a first-round grade — I’ve seen them already — but I expect that to come to fruition."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football’s Mason Graham: 'One of one,' says 'Sack Sensei'