Tag: Josh Gattis

Michigan 33, Northwestern 7

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FIRE MCNAMARA! OR DON’T! After the game yesterday, I hopped on Twitter and came across a tweet saying “Cade [McNamara] has missed almost everything today.” I found that to be a very odd statement, considering he completed a season-high 74% of his passes. McNamara finished 20/27 for 129 yards, 0 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. He averaged 4.8 yards per attempt, which is a pitiful number. After I called the Twitterer out for being factually incorrect, he relented and lamented the fact that McNamara missed the deep shots down the field. Which leads me to my next thought.

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Michigan 20, Rutgers 13

Well, that was an unexpected nail-biter. I was spot on with my prediction of Rutgers scoring 13 points, but I thought Michigan would have a bit easier time on offense (I predicted 34 points). For two years in a row, Michigan has beaten Rutgers by just one score (they won 48-42 in triple overtime in 2020), and it’s frustrating to an extent that the Wolverines can’t play better despite being significantly more talented, especially on offense. Rutgers has mediocre players on the offensive line, at quarterback, and at tight end, yet they manage to scheme their way to a modicum of success. But a win is a win. We’ve seen these games turn into losses, so I’ll take it for now.

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Michigan 31, Washington 10

Run, run, and run again. Michigan fans on Twitter were getting pretty grumpy about running the ball, but I don’t have a problem with it.* It turns out that despite the rumored good defense that Washington was bringing to Ann Arbor, they couldn’t fit the run properly. Michigan ran 56 times for 343 yards (6.1 yards per carry) and 4 touchdowns. The offensive line didn’t provide a ton of gaping holes, but they provided enough room for slippery backs like Blake Corum and Hassan Haskins to make hay. The last time Michigan ran for more yards was in the rain during the 2017 game against Minnesota, when Chris Evans and Karan Higdon ran wild to the tune of 370 rushing yards. You do what you have to do to win the game, and Michigan was obviously destroying the Huskies with the run.

*Except I do have a problem with it. I know I lied above. And I apologize. I don’t have a problem with running the ball like mad when it’s an attempt to win an individual game, but it’s going to be very hard to recruit good receivers on the edge if you don’t throw the ball. Josh Gattis came in with the “speed in space” mantra and that borrowed some time for the Wolverines, but now they’re reverting to the Jim Harbaugh days of yore. If I’m a good wide receiver, I have zero interest in playing for Michigan. Michigan wide receivers caught just three (3!!!) balls on Saturday night in a comfortable, three-touchdown win. The leading receiver was Blake Corum with 3 catches himself for just 11 yards.

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Anatomy of a Running Back Substitution, Part 3

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For previous posts in this series, click here (part 1) or here (part 2).

Having addressed the similarities between Tyrone Wheatley and Jay Harbaugh on distributing carries and then the reasons for rotating running backs, here’s the final piece on how a coaching staff might handle the weekly rotation.

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Addressing Michigan’s Coaching Situation

Following a 2-4 season and five straight losses to Ohio State – plus an embarrassing loss to Michigan State in 2020 – questions about Jim Harbaugh’s status as head coach have been non-stop. I have a hard time calling for coaches’ jobs, because as a (lower level) coach myself, I know some of the struggles with coaching.

Of course, college coaches have a different situation than high school coaches, because they have more power and more control over which coaches and players enter their program. But there are similarities in that your team’s success is subject to injuries, off-the-field behavior of young people, administrative limits, etc.

So here I would like to address which coaches I would prioritize bringing back, from highest priority to lowest:

Sherrone Moore (Tight Ends): Moore is Michigan’s top recruiter, especially in-state. According to 247 Sports, he’s the #6 recruiter in the country and #2 in the Big Ten (behind Ohio State’s Brian Hartline). I have not been extremely impressed with the performance of Michigan’s tight ends over the past couple seasons, but I think that’s more of an issue with the structure of the offense than the individual players. Regardless, tight end is a position where you can hide a mediocre X’s and O’s/technique coach if the guy coaching them can recruit his butt off. And Moore can. He’s listed as the primary recruiter for QB J.J. McCarthy, OT Giovanni El-Hadi, C Raheem Anderson II, TE Louis Hansen, LB Tyler McLaurin, and WR Andrel Anthony, and he’s the secondary recruiter for RB Donovan Edwards.

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