Michigan fired offensive coordinator Jason Beck after last week's Michigan State game, and it was about time. Michigan lost 15-6 against a miserable Spartans football team and didn't even squeeze out those six points until a touchdown with about two minutes left in the game. Here are Michigan's current offensive rankings:

Passing efficiency: #107 (123.44 QB rating)
Rushing offense: #109 (128.7 yards/game)
Yards per carry: #119 (3.57 yards/carry)
Passing offense: #125 (173.9 yards/game)
Scoring offense: #126 (19.6 points/game)
Total offense: #132 (302.6 yards/game)

Michigan doesn't do anything well. Not one player is having a standout offensive season other than perhaps wide receiver J.J. Buchanan (40 catches, 644 yards, 5 touchdowns), and even he is #17 in the conference in receptions. The three leading rushers (Jordan Marshall, Savion Hiter, and Bryce Underwood) are all averaging around 3.6 yards per carry, and the only guy with decent numbers is former walk-on Bryson Kuzdzal (30 carries, 166 yards, 1 touchdown), who fumbled away the ball on one of just a couple decent runs last Saturday. Kuzdzal is a decent player who's performing above expectations, but when he's arguably the only bright spot in a rivalry game against a beat-up, awful Michigan State team, you have major problems.

The big problem with Beck - aside from a confused and poorly coached offensive line, an inability to coach up a quarterback wearing a Michigan uniform, and a lack of understanding of how to create open receivers - was his insistence on using the "Rhino" position, which is basically an extra lineman wearing an eligible jersey number. It has mostly been German converted defensive tackle Manuel Beigel, along with a little bit of second-year offensive guard Avery Gach. Neither one has caught a pass, and the only time they were even on the way to being targeted was when Tommy Carr took a sack on a poor play call at the end of the Indiana game. The Rhino has been employed on nearly 50% of snaps in some games, including 37% of the time against Michigan State. Despite numerous games of it being proven not to work, Beck went to his gimmick one more time and got smoked against an inferior rival.

People on the radio and the internet have said "Well, that's all Beck knows how to run" while ignoring that Beck didn't use the Rhino very much during stops at Syracuse and Virginia. It was supposedly named for fullback Chris Elmore at Syracuse (Beck's place of employment in 2022-2023), but Elmore was a 6'0", 286 lb. fullback on Bruce Feldman's "Freaks List" who literally played in just one game before suffering a career-ending injury; Elmore was also a long-time contributor for the Orange(men) at fullback, even before Beck arrived.

Ryan Swoboda was a 6'10", 325 lb. offensive tackle who started literally one game - against MAC team the Ohio Bobcats - at tight end in 2018 for Virginia.

Jamari Peacock was a 5'11", 245 lb. fullback who played for Yulee High School - whose claim to fame is it's the alma mater of Derrick Henry - and ran for 1,800+ yards and 33 touchdowns as a senior in high school. Peacock played some fullback for Virginia in 2019.

The concept that Jason Beck was tied to the Rhino position and that it was in his DNA is a myth, and even the name of it stemmed from a guy who only played one game for Jason Beck's offense. Beck played at BYU in the mid-2000s and coached there from 2013-2015. He presumably has tons of connections he could call upon for help - including NFL quarterback Taysom Hill, football content creator and former quarterback Kurt Benkert, and former coach Bronco Mendenhall, whom he coached with at BYU and Virginia - and he chose to just stick with the Rhino until his demise after nine games as Michigan's offensive coordinator.

Now I'm not saying an extra offensive lineman can't be helpful. Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore used a sixth offensive lineman with aplomb, but they used those guys about 5% of the time, max. In certain situations and/or against certain teams, putting an extra 300-pounder on the field and making a team adjust can be effective. Outmuscling smaller teams can work. Forcing teams to sub in different defensive packages can help. Tricking teams into over-adjusting so you can take advantage of the adjustment is smart.

It's not often that I get totally fed up with a coach, but Beck's inability to put together a cogent offense out of Michigan's offensive personnel was mind boggling. I thought he would figure it out after a time, and I was willing to give him some grace. Three or four games to figure out the Big Ten and his new personnel.

There's no good reason for Andrew Marsh to be averaging less than 10 yards per catch.

There's no good reason for Jordan Marshall to be averaging 3.6 yards/carry.

There's no good reason for the offensive line to have regressed. (And that might be the fault of the newly named offensive coordinator, Jim Harding, who hasn't fared much better.)

Goodbye, Jason Beck. You seem like a nice dude. Good luck at your next gig as a QB coach for a Big 12 school.

I have been thinking about creating a post like this for a while, but it seemed a little too personal in some ways and perhaps self aggrandizing. I have never been a college coach, and I can guarantee that every single offensive coordinator in FBS football knows more than me about designing and building an offense.

But none of them work here at Touch the Banner, so what you're going to get is how I have built game plans for high school offenses. Some of it definitely translates, and some of it might not. But considering all the criticism of offensive coordinator Jason Beck recently - and he deserves it - I thought this might be an interesting task.

So here's my step-by-step look at how to plan the offense from week to week.

Step #1: What personnel is available?
In any given week, a team can be limited in what personnel is available. You start off the year - even going back to the previous winter or spring - with a grand idea of what type of athletes will be on the team in August, and you build from there. But week by week, injuries and illnesses and discipline issues change what personnel is available. I have mentioned several times before that I like to think about "getting the best 11 athletes on the field" as much as possible. Now that includes figuring out your best five linemen - and maybe they're not the best "athletes" - but football needs at least five relatively big/tough dudes who can play up front. Once you figure out those five guys, you find the other six best athletes who aren't injured/sick/suspended and try to fit them into the game plan. If you're normally in 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight ends) but your #2 tight end has a bad shoulder, maybe you need to focus on running plays from 11 personnel (1 running back, 1 tight end) and put another receiver on the field instead of the #2 tight end. Regardless, one of your best athletes shouldn't be standing on the sideline waiting tor a turn to play while an inferior athlete plays every down just because they fit the "body type" of the personnel grouping you want.

Hit the jump for more.

FORMER PLAYERS

Devon Baxter, DE (Virginia): No stats to report.

Jeremiah Beasley, LB (Missouri): Beasley made 3 tackles in a 27-6 win over Texas A&M.

Tristan Bounds, OT (Arizona): Bounds is the starting right tackle for Arizona.

Hit the jump for more.

Michigan and Penn State are two storied programs, but they didn't play each other until 1993, when the Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten. Immediately, Michigan ripped off a couple of the biggest plays in series history, with a 48-yard punt return touchdown by Derrick Alexander and a 47-yard touchdown run by Tyrone Wheatley. Wheatley had Michigan's longest play in series history in the second meeting.

1. Tyrone Wheatley 67-yard TD run (1994)
2. Donovan Edwards 67-yard TD run (2022)
3. Brandon Watson 62-yard interception return TD (2018)
4. Blake Corum 61-yard TD run (2022)
5. Denard Robinson 60-yard TD pass to Kevin Koger (2010)
6. Devin Gardner 59-yard TD pass to Devin Funchess (2013)
7. Hassan Haskins 59-yard run (2020)
8. Jourdan Lewis 55-yard kickoff return (2015)
9. Walter Cross 53-yard kickoff return (1999)
10. John Navarre 53-yard TD pass to Ronald Bellamy (2001)
11. Jabrill Peppers 53-yard punt return (2016)

Hit the jump to see video of some of the longest plays.

I have so many thoughts about Michigan vs. Minnesota and not much time to write them, so I'm just going to barf them up here.

Jason Beck needs to go back to the drawing board. I don't think anyone on Michigan's offensive staff is ready to step in as offensive coordinator, so I don't think Jason Beck is going to get fired. Micah Simon, Jim Harding, and Koy Detmer, Jr. aren't really offensive coordinator types, at least not at this stage in their careers. But Beck needs to go back to the drawing board and clean a lot of things up. The overall structure of the offense is not working for a lot of reasons.

Reason #1. The base run play of the offense should be inside zone/duo. Michigan ran zone and gap scheme stuff under Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore, but the switch to gap scheme isn't working. There are too many moving parts, and there are too many young guys who aren't ready to identify who to block on the move. You can run everything Beck wants to run - jet sweep stuff, RPOs, etc. - from a zone based scheme. Michigan has a lot of moving parts (injuries, guys shifting positions, etc.), and they're not ready to do everything Beck is asking them to do right now.

Reason #2. The offensive line isn't getting vertical displacement. They're not setting the line of scrimmage. They're allowing penetration. They're moving laterally too much. There are all kinds of ways to say it, but they're playing too high and they're playing too passive. The identity of Michigan football was pushing people off the line, and they lost that identity. I refuse to believe they can't do it, because these guys were all recruited to do it, and they were doing it in 2024 and 2025. The coaching system has de-emphasized that aspect of Michigan's run game. They took what Michigan did well and changed it, and it's not going well. Beck and company should have kept what Michigan did well (inside zone/duo) and adapted to the personnel. Again, Beck can do the things he wants to do basing his plays on zone. It's just an unnecessary change.

Reason #3. The jet sweep stuff is dumb. I love jet sweeps. I've run offenses using jet sweeps with great effectiveness. It's not effective at the Big Ten level for a reason. Defenses are too fast for it to be a base play. On top of that, Michigan doesn't have the personnel for it. Semaj Morgan would have been okay at it, but he plays for UCLA now. Jordan Marshall isn't that guy. Neither is Andrew Marsh. Beck is trying to do too much with the jet sweep stuff. We're five weeks in and it doesn't work. Use it as a change-up, not a base play. Jordan Marshall wasn't f***ing recruited to run jet sweeps. He was recruited to run downhill. Square peg, round hole.

Reason #4. The Rhino is dumb. Beck is forcing a concept he likes (a jumbo tight end) without the personnel to achieve it. Avery Gach is a redshirt freshman/sophomore offensive lineman who is NOT one of Michigan's best eleven offensive players. He shouldn't be on the field for 20+ offensive snaps per game. It's borderline ludicrous. Michigan is missing multiple injured linemen (Andrew Babalola, Andrew Sprague) already, and the staff is going even deeper down the bench to put like the ninth best lineman on the field. The Rhino wasn't a bad plan when we thought it might be Andrew Babalola or Blake Frazier, whoever was the loser of the left tackle job. Now it's a bad idea.

Reason #5. The play designs and/or execution don't line up. I can't say whether certain motions or alignments were called and weren't executed, but there are some things that just don't make sense. For example, on Bryce Underwood's interception where he was hit as he threw, that's not Underwood's fault. It's a play design issue. Hogan Hansen can't go from a wing position on the left all the way across the formation and block an edge defender before the edge gets to the QB on an RPO. It's an impossible ask. Underwood was reading the playside overhang defender to his left, not the defensive end to his right. Hansen either has to be lined up tighter or he needs to be coming in motion. It's a stupid play design, and unless Underwood forgot to motion Hansen or something, that interception is on the play design. Underwood correctly pulled the ball and was going to throw to J.J. Buchanan on a glance post, and the overhang defender was stuck in mud with his eyes on stopping the run. Underwood made the right choice, but people think he screwed up. He didn't. Jason Beck did.

Reason #6. Underwood is making mistakes, and they are numerous. I can't outline them all here or summarize them. HOWEVER, we all knew coming into this season that Michigan would have a good running game to take pressure off of Underwood. We knew it. It was bound to happen. Michigan always runs the ball well. So a slight uptick in QB play would help this team immensely. Except now Michigan sucks at running the ball. If you make defenses fear the run, it's going to make things easier for the QB. Right now Michigan doesn't scare anyone running the ball, so defenses can put six guys in the box and plan to stop the run.

The plan for this season was to hit people in the mouth with the run game and sprinkle passes to J.J. Buchanan and Andrew Marsh, largely on play action and/or RPOs. Instead, Michigan is running jet sweeps, the line is standing straight up, and Michigan isn't good at anything.

On the flip side, Bryce Underwood played the best game of his career against Iowa last week. Now everyone wants to push him to the bench. What have you done for me lately? I don't think Underwood needs to be benched, but maybe Tommy Carr is playing great in practice and deserves a shot. Jason Beck (and Kyle Whittingham) failed Underwood on Saturday against Minnesota, and I hold them more accountable than the 19-year-old quarterback.

Michigan has played Minnesota 106 times throughout history and has a 78-25-3 record against the Golden Gophers. They first played in 1892, and the winner of the game after each meeting earns the Little Brown Jug Trophy.

Here are the longest plays for Michigan in the history of the rivalry:

1. Steve Breaston 95-yard kickoff return TD (2005)
2. Chris Howard 86-yard TD run (1996)
3. Gilvanni Johnson 85-yard punt return TD (1985)
4. Carlos Brown 85-yard TD run (2007)
5. Darrell Harper 84-yard punt return TD (1959)
6. Courtney Avery 83-yard fumble return TD (2011)
7. Karan Higdon 77-yard TD run (2017)
8. Tom Brady 76-yard TD pass to Tai Streets (1998)
9. Lowell Perry 75-yard punt return TD (1951)
10. Steve Smith 75-yard TD run (1983)
11. Scott Dreisbach 75-yard TD pass to Amani Toomer (1995)

Hit the jump for videos of Breaston and Brown.

FORMER PLAYERS

Devon Baxter, DE (Virginia): No stats to report.

Jeremiah Beasley, LB (Missouri): No stats to report.

Tristan Bounds, OT (Arizona): Bounds is the starting right tackle for Arizona.

Hit the jump for more.