Tag: Alex Orji

2024 Ex-Wolverine Player Updates: Post-season

Andrel Anthony, WR (Oklahoma Duke): Anthony had injury issues over his time in Norman and made just 1 catch for 4 yards this past season. He transferred to Duke after the season.

Jeremiah Beasley, LB (Missouri): Beasley made 7 tackles while playing in eleven games as a freshman.

Tristan Bounds, OT (Arizona): Bounds played just one offensive snap for Michigan this year and transferred to Arizona after the season.

Hit the jump for more.

Illinois 21, Michigan 7

Bad game plans are the norm. After Saturday’s 21-7 loss to Illinois, Sherrone Moore said he needs to re-evaluate himself as a head coach. I’m not ready to throw Moore out after half a season with no functional quarterback, but I am very disappointed in him and offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell. There are all kinds of glaring issues with this offense:

• If ground-and-pound is your identity, stick with it. Michigan needs to be a run-first team. That’s the only way they’re going to win. Everybody has known that the entire off-season, even when we had higher hopes for Alex Orji or Jack Tuttle or Davis Warren or whoever. Early in the game, Michigan was using the passing game and Donovan Edwards. How are you going to wear down a team down the stretch by throwing the ball with a weak passing game and running Donovan Edwards? The bulls in the backfield are Kalel Mullings, Benjamin Hall, and Alex Orji. Pound the ball!
• Speaking of Alex Orji, he should be on the field. Probably the most frustrating thing about Michigan’s offensive personnel decisions is that Alex Orji – who played last year while J.J. McCarthy was here and who was deemed “one of the best 11″ by Campbell in the off-season – has disappeared from the offense for the past two games. How do you go from one of the best 11 to a guy who doesn’t see the field at all? I was not a fan of Orji as a starting quarterback who played the entire game, but he can be used as a mooseback runner. Hell, Michigan used Hassan Haskins in a wildcat role. You can put a 6’3”, 235 lb. guy back there with Mullings and/or Hall and/or Edwards and still do some things. Orji just can’t be playing an entire game as the only option.
• Donovan Edwards is both underused and frustrating. How did Michigan take one of the better receiving backs in the country and turn him into a guy who has 9 catches for 46 yards through seven games? He also had zero receptions in this game. Michigan needs to figure out ways to get him the ball. And then, of course, he had a very frustrating fumble on Michigan’s longest run of the day, a 19-yarder where the ball was punched out. He had 7 carries for 38 yards, but with the 19-yarder ending in a fumble, that’s basically 6 carries for 19 yards . . . which is nothing special.
• Plan for Jack Tuttle. Tuttle isn’t a guy who can do straight dropback stuff to win the game. He’s a game manager type who needs to be a complement to the run game. The offensive line can’t pass block – although I feel like they did slightly better in this game – and the receivers can’t get open with regularity. Michigan’s coaching staff should be using for Tuttle the game plan they used with Alex Orji, while occasionally mixing in a downfield/intermediate shot, maybe once a quarter.

Hit the jump for more.

Michigan 27, Minnesota 24

That’s an ugly score. I didn’t mind writing about a 27-24 victory when it came to the USC game, but I do have a problem with it after playing the Minnesota Gophers. In the game preview, I predicted a 38-13 victory. I had heard that Colston Loveland was likely to play, but I also assumed Will Johnson would play and I had no idea that Josaiah Stewart would miss the game. Regardless, Michigan has had some injury issues in past years against lesser Big Ten programs, and it didn’t have a huge effect. Michigan had to hang on in a nail-biter here, and that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season.

Hit the jump for more.

Michigan 27, USC 24

A win is a win. I always try to keep things in perspective. Herm Edwards famously said “You play to win the game,” and Michigan won the game. The Wolverines are 3-1 and their primary goals are still within play: win the Big Ten, beat your rivals, make the College Football Playoff, and win a national championship. Sometimes you win ugly, and sometimes you win pretty. It might help put things in perspective that star tight end Colston Loveland missed the entire game with an arm injury and Will Johnson was absent at the end of the game. This just happened to be an ugly victory, but oh well.

Hit the jump for more.

Michigan 28, Arkansas State 18

Just go away already, Red Wolves. I just wanted Arkansas State to quit. Michigan kept gashing them in the run game. Michigan kept stuffing their run game. And yet . . . Arkansas State wouldn’t quit. It was 28-3. And then it was 28-10. And then it was 28-18 after a touchdown and a two-point conversion against Michigan’s third- and fourth-stringers. So the final was closer than it should have been, because Michigan was trying to get its top players a rest going into the USC game next week. Those two teams are not just a 10-point differential away from each other. But the situation will be forgotten shortly and people will just look at the score. Good for Arkansas State for not quitting, but I wish they would have.

Hit the jump for more.