He spent seven years playing college football at Western Michigan seeing game action during five of those seasons both as a defensive tackle and offensive lineman.

After failing to see game action during his 2022 rookie year, French made his first career NFL start on September 24, 2023, on the road against the Baltimore Ravens.

[3] In December 2014, French decided to accept the scholarship offer of Western Michigan University, located in Kalamazoo,[3] where he enrolled as a freshman in the fall of 2015.

He finally cracked the lineup in 2016, playing in four games for a Western Michigan team regarded as among the school's best ever, finishing the regular season with an undefeated 12–0 record before falling to the University of Wisconsin in the January 2017 Cotton Bowl Classic.

[4] As a sophomore in the 2017 season, French was again relegated to reserve duty, appearing for just 35 snaps over the course of three games, including a contest against the #4 ranked University of Southern California.

He started all six games for the school at center in this truncated season, playing 397 snaps without allowing either a sack or a quarterback hit.