Minnesota 20, Michigan 14
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.
