Rutgers Snowflakes: The Offense

JJ made some great throws and his receivers just weren’t coming down with them. 

Fortunately it didn’t cost them today, but there’s a game in three weeks where it could cost them then. 

Wins are wins, and there is still some time, but that game is rapidly approaching. 

Rutgers was hitting hard in the first half.

Hit that Anthony pass in the first and the narrative changes. Need those live fire reps to get timing down. 
Lots of hobbled players this game. Glad Nebraska is next.  

Great adjustments at half as always. my only wish is to see these adjustments and team fire a little earlier in games. 
 

…also good to see JJ make a legit passing TD

Passing game is still sketchy.   It’s not for lack of experience….Bell, Johnson, Roman Wilson, Schoonmaker have all been around at least three seasons.   And Antrel  Anthony, who looked electric at times last year, is a complete non-factor this year.  The lack of productivity out of the WR corp is baffling.  

Lots of unfortunate drops by the receivers today but there seemed to be a lot of timing issues. This makes me concerned that the lack of emphasis on the passing game over the last month has made some of the QB-WR connections rusty. Not a lot of time to fix that before OSU.

As far as the run offense, I think it was fine, if perhaps a notch below PSU/MSU in the first half. Second half of course was domination on the ground. Corum looked wore out or sick -- word was he was vomiting / dry heaving on the field after being used as a battering ram on the goal line.

Pass offense? Well, this is why you can't just say, "well, the run is working so let's run". JJ showed some accuracy issues, though I think he was better today than in some prior games. That said, he was done zero favors by his receivers. Little separation and drops all over the place. Schoon going out with injury put our WRs front-and-center and they showed they need to get better. I'd honestly say Edwards is right up there with any of our other receivers, and he needs to be utilized in that role so much more.

A great deal of this, though, is probably a product of disuse. The receivers need to get their chemistry back with JJ, and that only comes with live game reps. We have two more games to get it together, and we definitely need to. 

I don't want to sound overly morose or negative, though. A surprise loss of Hayes and Wilson before the game (illness??) certainly hurt things, and it took the team a bit to adjust. Add to that the unicorn special teams issue and you get a halftime score that didn't reflect how the game was going. I was not surprised Michigan righted the ship in the second half and pulled away. Also, it's not necessarily bad to face some adversity and a hostile crowd -- we certainly will have to deal with that in Columbus.

9-0. Onward. All is well.

Running game was great again.  This was actually a good game for us.  We were on the road, had some adversity and then stepped on their neck.  I feel like we are getting closer on getting deep passing game going.  Having so many guys out of the line up was a challenge and we buried them in the second half.  

JJ played well and got some "seasoning".  Blake was solid though he might have been ill.  Donovan was terrific.  Rushing yardage was off the charts one sided.  Hope Trevor is ok.  

Is McCarthy's deep ball like a mechanical thing it's hard to train out of?  I have to think the coaches have been telling him to get 10 more feet of air on it after every single game.  For having such a strong arm he misses so many deep shots long by 1-2 feet. 

Also the offense still feels so predictable.  I'm afraid the run game is just so good because Corum and the OLine are so much better than everyone on these defenses, but when the talent level evens up against OSU that may not fly.  We've seen when the field shortens in the red zone and teams can neutralize that talent gap by stacking the box the success disappears, and until tonight there's been no changeup to make them pay.  At this point in the season the OCs are either not great playcallers, or Harbaugh is so intent on keeping his cards close for OSU that I'm starting to worry we just won't have the rest of the playbook perfected against game competition.

Running game good as usual. 
 

Catch the damn ball!!!!!

Terrible play calling. Terrible receivers. Oline didn’t protect. 

Could have had 60 too many dropped balls.But 45 ain’t bad.

That second half was the best half of offense I think we’ve played all season. Hopefully it was a sign of a step forward and not just a “because Rutgers” thing. Love the emergence of passing TDs in the red zone…FINALLY

Wide receivers seemed better under Gattis. Might need to think about a new wide receivers coach. There is enough talent there, something just seems off. 

I give the OCs credit this game for trying to establish a long vertical passing attack.  We hit a couple long-ish throws, close on a couple more.  All in all it wasn't great but I think we are making positive steps forward.  Good experience for JJ and the WRs that will pay dividends through the home stretch.

Really wish we would run the touchdown play a little more in the first half 

Remember preseason when the talented and deep receiver room, second only to OSU, was a major offensive strength

Brian will be happy about the red zone play calling (when the game was competitive) of shoving it up the middle until we scored.

Brian will be upset about the obscure special teams ratings.

We got beaten and battered up front, got McCarthy roughed up and Blake beaten and bruised.  We had a hard time with Rutgers quickness and blitz schemes.   Hope we didn't pick up any serious injuries.

Catch the ball WR dudes.

Michigan will have to work on their passing game before The Game!

I'm just going to go ahead and believe that in the first half, the team mistakenly used the 2021 Rutgers Game Plan, and only discovered their mistake at halftime.

People here always talk about "elite"- and almost always in the context that Michigan isn't.

Well, we have an ELITE rushing attack. The best in the country. Possibly the best we've ever had at Michigan. 

Michigan is a very good team with an elite rushing game. Why the fuck wouldn't we emphasize what we do best? 

IMO we need to pass well enough to avoid being completely predictable - but this team has a special running game, which:

- Wears down opposing defenses

- Keeps opponents off the field

- Rolls up massive disparities in yardage, TOP, FD

- Almost never turns the ball over

Running the damn ball is the strength of this team. Would it be great to be great at everything? Sure would, and I hope our passing game improves, especially against a team that decides it's going to completely sell out to stop our running. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with identifying your team's strength and leaning into it hard.

9-0. Another conference road win. It's all good!

Go Blue!

Only the TE’s and RB’s have fun

Is the running game Michigan’s strength and should that be our bread and butter? Of course. But there’s still several reasons why we often clamor for more through the air:

- there’s likely going to be a game where a team will with be able to slow down the running attack significantly and/or points will be needed quickly. That could be Ohio State, that could be a Georgia rematch. That’s where we want to be, of course, but when we get there we want to be fully prepared 

- it should only help the running game

- we have a talented QB capable of making all of the throws - repetition is necessary though. Let’s say you were a dominant baseball pitcher with a fastball good enough to get you outs vs 95% of hitters. But to ultimately win, you knew there were a handful of hitters outs there where you’re going to need your off speed stuff as well. You wouldn’t wait until until the end of the year when you face those hitters to throw your off speed stuff, because you need the consistent practice and repetition to make sure those pitches are still sharp

- recruiting

Btw, the Michigan Insider postgame show had a very telling stat. The redzone target and touch to Johnson tonight was the first redzone end zone target to a WR since the Indiana game. Michigan ran 55 redzone plays in that time frame - 46 were runs and none were an end zone target to a WR. So when you become that predictable it makes it easier to understand the red zone struggles and the fan grumbles. Hopefully they’ve learned from it and will continue to accordingly adjust.

I hope the receivers are challenged to step up in practice this week. The only guy that looked like a playmaker receiving was Edwards. When other receivers had a chance to make a play they didn’t do it. 

I just need JJ to hit wide open receivers streaking down the field. Overall I’m impressed with his command of the Offense and taking care of the ball.〽️

Wins are wins and the run game is fantastic, but you have to wonder if there are more to our passing game struggles than we initially thought. 

JJ had some very well thrown balls tonight that his receivers just flat out did not catch. Bell, CJ, Schoon (his ball in the end zone was contested but still catchable) just off the top of my head. 

I’m not smart enough to know what the real underlying issue is, whether it’s coaching or just natural regression, but those are catches they are going to have to make in Columbus. They can get away with this now, but the odds of getting away with it against OSU are much slimmer. 

Rutgers caveats and final score aside:

JJ needs to put more air under his deep balls. It's hard as hell to adjust to a ball thrown on a rope. Anthony made the right adjustments, he just didn't have time because their wasn't enough air under the ball. That one was on JJ

Holy shit the drops, cmon guys

Loveland is going to be the next great TE

Next man in on OL! 

I have no problems running the ball in the RZ. But for god's sakes, let's not just go with the goalline formation every time. Hell what about 5 wide sometimes? Mix up the formations more. We should not be having so many 4th down and goal attempts

Bottom line, Michigan's passing offense is not good enough to win a playoff-level game.  No way do you beat teams like OSU, Georgia, Tennessee going 13-27 with 150 yards through the air.

Interesting experience scrolling through this thread.

My take (which of course is worth exactly what any non-expert internet take is worth) is that particularly in the first half JJ's mechanics sucked.  Yes you have a cannon, but you aren't Patrick Mahomes.  When you throw off platform when you don't need to you're going to be less accurate.

While it wasn't a great day for the receivers by any stretch of the imagination JJ didn't make their lives easy.

JJ has definitely not been “on” like we’d hoped he would but he is also getting no help at all save Edwards. So you have a combo of a qb being a little off and a wr group that really isn’t making tougher or challenged plays and it’s leading to a lot of frustration. 

Between the two dropped end zone balls and the Anthony bomb, imagine if 2/3 of those were catches. That alone and we’d all feel much different right now. Every game seems to bring that where one component is slightly off. 

I was at the game and had a blast.  JJ was not himself after those first couple of big hits.  He is usually really good at protecting his receivers by placing the ball where they aren't exposed.  But last night he definitely exposed his guys a few times.  The Schoonmaker pass where he dropped it in the endzone was trouble right away.  That safety had Schoon in his sights.  BTW, that was absolutely targeting and I could not believe that Harbaugh didn't go bonkers.  It was helmet-to-helmet forcible contact on a defenseless receiver.  Really dangerous.