WR Situation, Passing More, Recruiting and More

It's an interesting question. I agree that with the amount that Sam has brought it up this week, he is hearing it from somewhere. Probably players on the team or recruits. I am pretty sure earlier in the year he mentioned receivers texting the coaches asking how they could get more involved. So, with all of that, I am inclined to think it's a real thing. 

The harder question though is if it's actually a problem. If Michigan's plan going forward is to just break teams' wills by grinding them to dust, I don't hate that. It is working over the last two years. So if you can do that to the point where you never have to punt, does it matter if you have top end QBs and WRs? My gut is that yes, it does matter, because if defenses aren't afraid of the threat of getting it in the face over the top, they will overplay the run and you won't be as successful running the ball. Regardless of whether it was a reasonable fear, Michigan's success running the ball against Iowa and MSU in particular was heavily reliant on the opposition playing in the parking lot. All things considered, it's my opinion that UM needs to get more balanced and putting it on Rutgers and Nebraska's face would be a good idea.

Good points. The lack of usage of our WRs is very concerning idc what anyone says. Whether it’s the qb, receivers, or coaches doesn’t matter they need to fix it asap

OSU has a balanced rushing and passing attack.  Also, being able to spread the field and have a downfield threat will make it easier to run the ball with Corum and Edwards. This is something for sure they should be focused on.

Unless...they are planning on rolling out 4-5 WR sets for the OSU game to completely wreck their gameplan. 

I remember one year when OSU did that to us (something that we hadnt seen them do all year) and our defense didnt have an answer.

In a good offense, there are yards to go around.

Those years that Chris Perry and Mike Hart were running for 1300+ yards, we still had 1000-yard receivers. 

Part of that is philosophy: WRs used to come along slowly, spend their first season or two primarily run blocking or running routes, and then get a year or two as THE guy. Things get spread around more these days.

Last 1,000 yard receiver we had was Gallon in 2013. Ever since, the highest anyone's gotten was Darboh in 2016, at 862 yards.

Are we passing less, yet you didn't compare to last year. Don't worry, I did the legwork. 

• Through 8 games in 2021, Michigan passed for 1733 yards and 10 TDs. 
• Through 8 games in 2022, Michigan has passed for 1790 yards and 12 TDs. 

VERY close in terms of overall production. However, 2021 Michigan did spread it around quite a bit more. 

Top 5 receivers in 2021 (plus 1 TE):

• Cornelius Johnson > 348 yards > 23 catches > 3 TD
• Erick All > 255 yards > 26 catches > 0 TD
• Daylen Baldwin > 219 yards > 12 catches> 2 TD
• Mike Sainristil > 209 yards > 13 catches > 1 TD
• Andrel Anthony > 155 yards > 6 catches > 2 TD (all against msu)
• Roman Wilson > 154 yards > 12 catches > 0 TD

Just to add back in Schoonmaker 2022, who has 299 / 28 / 2, since he's just a jumbo receiver ;)

Rushing totals:

• 2022: 345 carries > 1968 yards > 25 TD
• 2021: 359 carries > 1919 yards > 25 TD

As with passing, eerily similar, although we have been more efficient in both passing and rushing in 2022 compared to 2021.

So do we have a problem with our passing game? Eh, I don't think so. Do I wish our passing offense were more prolific? Only in the sense that I want to see that our passing game can really do it all, but has taken a backseat to our stellar running game (#5 in rushing yards, #5 in rushing TD, #8 in YPC). 

I don't think there is a problem. I think they've just been leaning on our strength. We're still #22 in total offense, averaging 470 ypg. That's pretty good. 

.6 catches is embarrassingly low

Just keep winning. Recruits will want to come join a winning program.

that said I hope we have 350+ days from the passing and ground attacks in the Shoe.

We have an identity, and that identity is we are going to pound the living $hit of you until you are lying bloody on the field begging for mercy.  I'd much prefer us trying to lean into that identity and recruit WRs and TEs who block like M'Fers and help us do what we want to do than by chasing stars to trying to cater to their talents at the expense of the team's success. 

1) Teams are begging us to run with 6 man boxes- seems like they're worried about the pass, even in spite of Corum/Edwards/our OL. As the Futurama meme goes, shut up and take my free yards.

2) We have the best M RB Brian has ever seen and a mashing OL to match. That seems to be working out pretty well for us, ride the horse that brought you there.

3) I think about all those "this close, just missed it" deep throws from McCarthy, particularly earlier in the season, that would juice up those stats. McCarthy remains an incredibly accurate passer, just because we haven't had to unleash the Rex Grossman "fuck it, I'm going deep" dragon (seems like we're playing from ahead all the time, never really have had to mount a comeback, especially paired with our smothering defense), doesn't mean we can't.

4) Playing a certain style to win recruits seems like a cart before the horse kinda deal. I'd rather win the games and have that speak for itself. Will it have an effect on recruiting/potential transfers?In the portal/instant gratification/play now era of college football, sure, absolutely. But that doesn't mean we should chuck it deep to address that. Plus, let's see how things look after we play more teams with a pulse: Illinois, OSU, potential B1G championship game, bowl game. I'm reserving judgement on our passing game here, since we haven't really had to lean on it. 

If there were a choice to be made between winning and keeping the WR room happy, I'm going with winning 100% of the time.  But of course it's not anywhere close to that simple.

In the age of NIL and fewer transfer restrictions, you're always going to have roster turnover.  Kids are going to leave for more money or better opportunities.  Even at Michigan, where Harbaugh recruits guys who want to be team guys, who will do the blocking dirty work he demands, who accept that they aren't going to play in a video game offense.  We may have less turnover than you'd expect given the relative lack of targets, but there will be turnover.

So what do you do about it?

Give up win equity and throw more?  Maybe, if the dip in win equity isn't that much.

But if you do that, will a modest increase in throwing really make a difference in a guy leaving?  I tend to think not, if a guy is thinking about leaving, an extra handful of targets probably isn't going to keep him around. 

I'm perfectly fine with Harbaugh doing things his way.  It's not like he's selling anyone a bill of goods, that we're ever going to run the Air Raid.  And I'm perfectly fine if players decide they don't want to buy into that and seek other opportunities elsewhere.  Recruiting never ends and no player on the roster is irreplaceable.

As for this week, I think Schiano will continue the trend of playing conservatively on D and the running game will mash again, at least for a while.  Maybe Nebraska or Illinois will take a different approach, I dunno.

It's Jim Harbaugh.  You know the answer.  

 at this point into the season, is JJ that much different from Cade? 

If the answer is no, or mildly different, then that is a problem.  

Xavier W

Now think about what he would be doing in this offense here.  Cut everything in half. 

Career Stats

STATS

REC YDS AVG 

2022  36 510 14.2 

2021  62 981 15.8 

UM can beat all but 1 team on the regular with their offense.  Battle 1-2 more.  This is Jim's way - we've been through how many coordinators including one preaching speed in space?  It comes from the top.  It's not changing.  5th round WRs suffice for what he is trying to do for 90% of the games.  And that seems to be fine for him. 

The Big 12 has been throwing it all over the place for years and they never win shit. LSU has put some of the best wideouts in the NFL over the past decade and had some of the worst QB play known to man until Burrow's magical season. M has typically recruited well at the receiver position for quite some time. Don't take the cheese dude.

As one of my youth coaches used to tell me, practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

I have no real issue with the offense winning games by grinding teams down with the OL and Corum. My problem is when that is not feasible or efficient, they do not seem capable of opening up the throttle. Even IF you assume Harbaugh has perfect foresight and knew the offense would wear Indiana down and the defense would sack Indiana's QB into an early grave, it was incredibly frustrating watching them run into stacked boxes with CORNERBACKS shooting down at run motion. You're playing with fire when the opponent isn't freaking Indiana.

Last year's OSU game is not likely to be repeated. I don't think Michigan is going to steamroll that DL and LBs to the tune of 297 yards and 5 TDs again and put up 42 points. And I don't know if the defense will be able to hold the OSU offense down long enough for Michigan to get a lead that they can maintain by grinding it out on the ground. Keeping OSU to 27 points might not happen again. But 42-27. Don't forget.

OSU gets up 2 scores or something and the slow rolling annihilation won't be feasible. Which then brings me to my next concern and what I opened with. Have you practiced the passing game enough in live situations against equal talent to be able to pull that out of the garage when called upon? Given what we've seen, I don't think so. Even if MSU was sitting in a 2 deep shell, there are things you can do to attack that down the seams, underneath, and even take a shot or 2. Instead they ran 3 WRs short of the goal line on 3rd and goal. Or they ran 4 verts against Maryland on 3rd and 6 leaving no one underneath even after they saw the defense drop everyone deep to protect against bombs.

If you're so confident that the offense will wear teams down and run them over, why aren't you confident enough to take a shot here or there? If you think back to last year, what was really sustainable in the passing game? They had some fleaflicker bombs and the same TE delay that ate Nebraska alive. Outside of that, they didn't have a ton of straight drop back route combinations that could beat Man, Cover 2, Cover 3, or whatever was called. They had a prescribed set of plays they could run and used them effectively. But most of that stuff wasn't sustainable over the course of 5-6 drives if they had to pass to keep up with an opponent.

Edit: Michigan has a combination of talent and skill that will win them ~10 games/year pretty consistently by just walking out there and running the ball 45 times. In games where the talent is similar like PSU, Michigan has Harbaugh and PSU has Franklin. In games where the coaching is more even, Michigan usually has better talent. But when you get to OSU/UGA/Bama, you cannot be limited by one component of your team. If you cannot threaten UGA and Kirby with a passing game, your talent will not win out and your run scheme will not win out.

More, more, more! How do you like it, how do you like it...

This is a feature, not a bug, of a Harbaugh offense.  If we use 2011 Stanford (Luck's final season there, where they had a top 5 offense) as the baseline, the offenses look very similar.

2011 Stanford averages 32.1 passing attempts/game and 278.7 yards/game.  They ran the ball 39.8 times/game for an average of 210.6 yard/game.

2022 Michigan averages 26.5 passing attempts/game for 223.8 yards/game and rushes an average of 43.1 times/game for 246 yards/game.

Replace 3-6 Corum runs with McCarthy passes and they're basically identical.  Both Andrew Luck in 2011 and JJ this year are averaging 8.7 yards/attempt.  Luck simply had a bit more volume (and admittedly a lot more TDs)

If we look at receivers, Stanfords leading receivers that year were WR Griff Whalen and TE Coby Fleener.  Whalen had 749 yards in 13 games for 57.6 yards/game.  Fleener had 667 yards in 13 games for 51.3 yards/game.
Michigan is led by Ronnie Bell and Luke Schoonmaker, who are averaging 60.25 and 37.38 yards/game respectively.

What does this mean?  In my opinion, Harbaugh is sticking to a formula that he knows will work because he's seen it work.  He's having more success running this year then he's ever had, so he isn't deviating from the plan.  The only thing I'd point out as a major contrast is the number of TDs Luck had vs. the number of TDs McCarthy has.  I'm too lazy to dig into old drive charts to see if this theory is supported, but I'd venture Stanford threw more in the red zone than we do currently.  Harbaugh probably had a bit more trust in his third year starter, future number 1 overall draft pick than he does in a true Sophomore who has less than 10 starts under his belt.  If you're expect a "fully weaponized" version of this offense to look much different than what we're currently seeing, even with JJ McCarthy at the helm, Harbaugh's history points to that not being the case. 


 

When teams stack the box they have been able to slow up our run.  Hell, Indiana did it.

At some point, we are going to have to win through the air.  We don't want to wait until that day comes to start repping it under live fire. 

We are not that far from the passing yardage of OSU and Georgia.  We are about 800 yards short of those teams which is only an average of three to four 20 to 30 yard completions per game over 8 games.  I truly believe that JJ and the WRs have it in them to do that and the coaches are smart enough to game plan for it, in addition to the underneath stuff we've been doing every game.  Adding deep threats to the passing game seems like more of a "small add on module" than a major software upgrade.

Along with stellar D, we have been paving with the running game, and we've been winning.  So, my opinion is that...we are fine and we will be fine.

We are tied for 11th in most WRs drafted since Harbaugh's first draft. We've had four (Collins, DPJ, Darboh, Chesson). The only teams with more WRs drafted during that time are: Ohio State (9), Alabama (8), Clemson (8), Georgia (7), LSU (7), Florida (6), Notre Dame (5), Oklahoma (5), Ole Miss (5), and UNC (5). 

Crazily, Western Michigan is one of the 11 other teams tied with us at four WRs drafted. 

The chances of us winning a national championship being 1 dimensional is very slim

I remember 2018.

Harbaugh covets 5 star qbs. He’s chased them since his arrival here.  He has one and another is really high on recruiting board for 24.  Those guys aren’t going to want to play in an offense that they hand it off all the time and pass for less than 2000 yards a season.  I thought last years numbers was in line with the Cade as a game manager narrative but. We could see him go somewhere and pull a Rudock.  If the plan is to keep the offense a suped up version of a Wisconsin Iowa love child, will need to recruit RB and OL better.  There is only 4 scholarship backs on the roster and we are one injury away from being in dire straits.  I like CJ stokes and his Karan Higdon comps are pretty good but hid we are to compete nationally players like Higdon should be complementary players not sole features.  That being said 8-0 speaks for itself im concerned with the future.  

1) Michigan's program has been built, especially of late, as an antithesis of Ohio State's. Dominant run game while limiting the number of possessions. This is going to limit the targets, and with Blake, Donovan and Hassan last year it's going to limit spreading the ball around (on top of being unnecessary given the program you want to counter Ohio State).

2) This reality doesn't seem to be limiting Michigan's ability to get top tier WRs in recruiting.

3) You could argue that Michigan is the bet place to play as a TE. There is only one ball to go around.

I don't think Michigan is a bad place to play WR, especially with the NFL in mind. Do I wish the running game was more complex and more connected to the dominant running game? Yes. That said, I think Harbaugh is building precisely the program that can chip away at the Bucks' weaknesses. 

I'll be curious what this all looks like next season as far as the balance of running to passing.

Blake Corum is almost certainly heading to the draft as he's already one of the best RBs in college football, so Donovan Edwards will be RB1 next year. He's a great runner but he's also extremely involved in the passing game, which make no mistake is a good thing. But right now it doesn't seem like there will be that bell cow "you need three yards, I'm going to get you four" kind of RB on the roster for next year. The kind that Harbaugh covets to no end, and Haskins/Corum have been so good at doing. Donovan Edwards is a great RB but I don't think he is that kind of RB. Maybe it changes in the offseason and he adds it to his arsenal, but so far I don't think he's that kind of runner.

We won't have a Haskins or a Corum that will be proven that they can move the pile unless Stokes or Dunlap take a big leap forward in the offseason, and while I haven't watched any of Cole Cabana's tape, I doubt Harbaugh wants to place that much responsibility on a freshman. 

So, with that in mind, does Harbaugh shift more next season to passing to set up the run? He'll have plenty of quality receivers to throw to, a junior, seasoned McCarthy, and a still very formidable OL. But the RB room will not be as strong as it normally is. Or at least not as deep.