Cade's passing in second half--not as bad as it looked?

It was bad. He throws off his backfoot and doesn’t go towards the target. Unless a pass is tipped, there is no reason Cade should be 2 hopping the ball to receivers doing a 5 yard out.

1st and goal, right before halftime, Schoonmaker slips and Cade's pass is far in front of him. Could the inaccurate pass have been due to the slip?

No, McNamara is looking right at him. Schoonmaker is 4 yards deeper than the defender and in front. A little more air and a little less in front. That is totally on Cade whether it's a timing play or not.

Passes 2 and 3 weren't great but catchable. The ball was in front of All so not sure watch you are seeing there.

This wasn't actually a pass attempt,  3rd and 10 from same spot. Flushed from the pocke, Cade scrambles for a short gain. I didn't see any other options since receivers appeared covered.

Not sure what you are watching. Corum is the check-down guy 8 yards up field. When Cade starts to scramble the lb leaves Corum and rushes the QB. A short easy pass and that could have been a huge gain. 

Cade seem like a one read guy right now. Honestly watching this makes me feel worse about the passing game. 

Working backwards..

3rd and 5, Cade throws an out pattern to AJ Henning, this is where route running and timing is very important.  AJ rounds that route rather than a hard cut to the out.  Didn't set his route well and wastes a couple steps drifting out.  The throw likely complete with a good route from Henning.  Why are our WR's still not running precise routes?   WHY...........why.. why.. 

    Note, on this play call given the defense, it should have been a slant or under route.  Out route is much harder to throw for a QB/REC that don't have great timing.  This looks like AJ and McNamara need to work on this a ton!  LSU, Joe Burrow and the Summer of 1000 throws..  AJ will never be an elite receiver if he doesn't run precise routes! 

The pass before, the 3 man rush crushed the oline, what were they doing?  Also, Cade flushed and hard to know without the coaches film to judge what was down field.  Ended up being a solid pick up by Cade, i call this a win when 8 were dropped into coverage and he still had to scramble....  bad for the oline on protection. 

2nd and 10 throw to All, this was a missed throw, not by much.  Just off enough, led a bit to much that All couldn't get to it.    He wasn't expecting All to sit down as he cuts behind the defender to the inside.  Just a missed throw.  Timing did seem a half second off as he waited to throw till All cleared his defender when he should have seen the defender couldn't react to All's cut. 

1st and 10 from own 21 throw to Sainristil, This was the play right before the last one, Sainristil should have caught this ball and didn't sell out to get it.  Low yes, very catchable.  A better throw hits an in stride Sainristil  is a first down and possibly a lot more if he is able to beat the other defender. 

Jumping to the first and goal, The slip might have affected it but it shouldn't have.  Cade put a little to much juice on that throw for no reason.   That's a touch pass every time due to how wide open he is.  Take a tad off on that throw and it's a TD.  I thought the TE recovered well after the slip.  There was no defender back and they couldn't have recovered to defend the pass.  Little touch tiny bit less zip and it's a TD putting the game away going into the 2nd half... jmo. 

Just my nonprofessional analysis.  Passing game has no rhythm and that's likely why they tried the back to back passes to get the passing game going.  Hard to get qb's and receivers in rhythm when they don't operate.  This is why I wanted them to run the passing offense last week more than they did.  It's not fair to ask them to bail out the offense when the run game is struggling.  And the run game struggled because we didn't force Rutgers to defend the entire field, horizontally or vertically.  Didn't attack the edges, didn't attack them throwing.  

Offense needs greater balance for success.  Needs to throw somewhere around 25 times per game regardless of how well the run game is going.  These receivers and the qb need bones thrown to them as well. 

WR and Routes, timing matters and AJ Henning needs to be a big part of the passing game.  Don't care what anyone thinks when I say this.  It was my big issue with Pattersn / Black / DJP..  run better routes, precise routes now practice them with the qb.   AJ Henning is the best athlete on the team and needs to be running routes daily and the coaches need him to have timing with either qb! 

Actually, after looking at these clips (and hearing some of Devin Gardner's commentary on this morning's MMQB), I don't think Cade was making the right reads.

Based on your clips:

1. Despite Schoonmaker's slip, he was still open. Pass should have been there. HOWEVA, Erick All was also wide open and was a safer throw. Cade missed it.
2. The throw to Baldwin was fine, but if you freeze it at 6:24, Cade is still scanning the field looking for a throw. Schoonmaker is WIDE OPEN crossing the field and would have had a big gain if Cade had thrown it. Hard to be too down on Cade on this play since he completed a pass, but MAN. Blown opportunity, not sure what he was seeing.
3. Not a great pass, but agreed that Sainristil should have caught it.
4. I think this was a bad pass to All. Should have been there. HOWEVA, freeze it this time at 7:06. Again, Cade is scanning the field and Schoonmaker is again WIDE OPEN, and it even seems that Cade is looking right at him. That was a case of taking what the defense is giving you, rather than trying to force the ball down field. All was still open, so it wasn't a terrible decision, but again, had an open guy for an easy completion and he just didn't throw the ball.
5. Tough to see this OL give up a pressure on a 3-man rush. Cade made the right call to bail out and scramble, but he had an opportunity to throw it over the defender's head to Corum! Would have been a first down.
6. Gotta have that throw.

On closer look, this reflects more on Cade than on Gattis to me. At least in terms of having open receivers to throw to. Guys were open, Cade was either not seeing them or not hitting the throws in the second half. 

Now, maybe that reflects on Gattis in terms of what he's coaching Cade to be looking for. Hard to say. But in a game where he needed some easy completions to gain yards and build confidence, he left opportunities on the field. 

You keep saying he’s throwing the ball low to be “safe.”  While throwing the ball two feet above the ground does make it less likely to be intercepted, it accomplishes that by making hard for anyone to catch it, including the receiver.  I don’t think trying to skip the ball off a receivers foot is an intentional strategy.

At least were facing a Wisconsin team with nothing to prove or chip on it's shoulder.

(As I look for a very full bottle of Glenlivet to break open Saturday)

I like Cade, and I know everyone's favorite player is the backup QB, but now is the time to play JJ in some form or capacity.  I am no expert, but we have not had a difference maker at QB since forever, and that is a huge reason why we can't beat ohio.  I believe JJ to be that guy.  IF your plan is to run the ball 80% of the time, then why don't you get him in there.  I was only able to watch some of the 3rd and 4th quarter.  On the drive that I did get to see, Cade threw two consecutive balls that hit our receivers in the hands.  Those need to be caught. 

Throw 1 - Horrendous throw. Has nothing to do with the almost slip. Cade's arm slot is terrible and he throws a bad ball because of it. This should have been a touchdown. A competent QB puts this ball on him.

Throw 2 - The throw is low, but not completely terrible. I'm fine with it.

Throw 3 - Another terrible throw. Regardless if he catches this or not, it's a short crossing route and needs to give him a chance to catch and run. No excuse for throwing a dirt ball here. 

Throw 4 - It's a terrible throw. There is no miscommunication. Cade short arms it. If he puts that on him, it's a catch with yards after.

Throw 5 - Doesn't matter. He ran

Throw 6 - Another bad throw he short arms. I don't mind this being down and away a little, but he is short on top of it. We have separation here. Get the ball to a catchable spot. Deep outs are possibly the hardest throw to make, but a Michigan QB should be able to make them. 

you give your qb 5 chances to do well in an entire half. he hits on 1 pass. so you pack it up and go uber-conservative. that doesnt speak to confidence in your offensive game plan or your QB. Cade threw for 19902843 yards in hs - he's not milton. Yet, they appear to be turning him into milton.

Completely agree on the consecutive throws to Sainristil and All.  Both balls hit the receivers hands and while moderately difficult catches, they should be made.  Hands have been an issue before.  
 

I want to see CJ and Baldwin featured more.  They haven’t had hands issues.

The passing in the 2nd half wasn't really the problem.  It was the 35 yards rushing that was the problem.  We did a pretty lousy job making yards rushing between the tackles on 1st and 2nd down and if you're facing 3rd and long all the time, your conversion rate is not going to be great.

I appreciate the analysis and the time & effort which went into it, but i'm sure we could go back and dissect every Michigan QB over the past 20 years and find a lot instances where there is shared blame for poor performance.  But at the end of the day, it is poor performance and it needs to be better.  In the second half, he had an incredibly happy set of feet...with totally clean pockets his feet were bouncing all over the place and he just looked flat out jittery.  Maybe there was a good reason, maybe not, but it was definitely a problem.

there was the one dropped pass. the rest were either poor decisions or bad passes. 

Why are we always making excuses for the inept plays of our team? Harbaugh needs to be held accountable. The team he has fielded this season has many problems and they are about to be exposed if they don’t make some changes. If Cade is the guy harbaugh his hanging his job on then so be it. But if this season fails (9-3 or worse) then he needs to be canned. 

The offense isn't productively using PAP. That is the most effective play in football. They did use it for a couple of gains in the first half, but you have a limited package in this game. Why do you not run some end around? Why not screens? Then you can fake the inside give and end around and give those receivers time and space? It's like once JG loses the flow of the game he doesn't have another answer, but this has been the case for years. 

The best offense under Harbaugh was in 2016. I think that offense incorporated the run and pass game well. This team has a better run game, but it's not linked to the passing game. They seem to either be passing or running, which takes away the advantage of calling plays. 

Honestly, I don't think JG has it. I'd love to see Michigan politely move on at the end of the year, move Bellamy to receiver coach and try and get more juice in the offense and more connectivity  between run and pass game. 

Edit

Corum was open in that 3rd down run. 

I'm still in the pro-Cade camp.  He was great last years against a Rutgers team that won 3 Big Ten games, very good this year against NIU and WMU, and good in the first half Saturday.  That's not a massive data set, but includes still more good than bad.  In my history a Michigan fan quarterbacks who aren't spectacular physical talents (Griese, Rudock, 2016 Speight) can be very successful if that are accurate and put the ball in the right place.

After the roughing the passer call, Cade's footwork turned to crap. He got happy feet and couldn't put a drive on the ball. I'm 100% sure that Wisconsin will see the same thing and like the past 3 years will be head hunting quarterbacks

Why not ask Kirk Herbstreit?

Without having a defined understanding on the route (e.g. reads to sit-down in zone, etc), it looked a bit like some slight misses, but my memory in watching the game was that it appeared Cade  was not stepping into all of his throws which led to slinging the ball a bit more 3/4 or sidearmed than normal. 

Many of those just felt a bit like a small slice on a golf drive as the best direct example I could think of, so my unprofessional read is that slightly better routes and cleaning up a few mechanics should clean those up fairly quickly.

Interesting perspective and some of it seems feasible.

And, unfortunately, Sainristil just isn't good at catching footballs.

And that playcalling is barfola...