Just not at Michigan.

But there he was, all 6 feet, 6 inches and 298 pounds of him, emerging from Schembechler Hall on Sunday in a uniform he grew up despising. Now it's part of a a new beginning that's helping him slowly replace tragedy.

Mealer's new football home has provided solace 55 miles from Wauseon, Ohio, the small town where Mealer learned to love football and where last December, his life was changed.

There isn't a day when Mealer's mind doesn't flash back to Christmas Eve, when the Mercedes sports utility vehicle he was riding in was struck by another car. The crash killed Mealer's father and 17-year-old girlfriend and paralyzed his brother.

"Whenever I'm in a car I think about that," Mealer said. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I guess you learn to move on and it's something you have to live with."

Mealer will likely redshirt this season because of a shoulder injury from the crash. On the ride home from church, a vehicle ran a stop sign and slammed into the Mealers' vehicle, flipping it and landing it upside down.

Mealer's 50-year-old father, David, was killed along with Hollis Richer, whom Mealer had been dating for two years.

David and Elliott Mealer were best friends. Elliott had always told his father that he would grow up to play football at Ohio State and eventually land in the NFL.

As a sophomore, Mealer met Vic Cales, a minister and former offensive lineman at Bowling Green. Cales told Mealer that if he was serious about playing college football, he would help him get there.

Their time was spent talking not only about football, but about faith. Mealer visited Ann Arbor and almost instantly, knew he had found his new home.

"I remember him getting into the car and saying, 'God wants me to go to Michigan' " Mealer's mother said in a telephone interview.

By February, when he signed his national letter of intent, Mealer knew he had to take the leap of faith, focusing on his future -- not the past.

Football has provided him with a therapeutic outlet, giving him something to focus on as he adjusts to life as he has come to know it.

"His father's dream was to watch him play college football and so the first time he comes out of the [Michigan Stadium tunnel] and the first hit he takes, it's going to have a different meaning than it would have," Michigan offensive line coach Greg Frey said. "I don't think it's so much that he's putting up a brave front -- I think he's a brave person. I think he's a courageous person and I think he's a faith-filled person.

"I think that's what's carried him."

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