Michigan hires Bama OC Josh Gattis!!!!

[navamind]

I just hope he'll open the passing game up. The passing game was very effective when they did throw the ball (9th in passing S&P+, 8.0 Y/A, 64.4% comp%, 22/7 TD/INT), but they had 201 more rushing attempts than pass attempts. The running game was good in 2018, but I don't think it was particularly great and they did get completely shut down by ND and Florida (granted the latter was without Higdon).

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

I guess we'll see what happens moving forward. Gattis no longer has the ace up his sleeve of being able to basically guarantee kids they'll play for a national title every year while playing for the best college HC of all-time. Again, he also hasn't called plays once in his life, so it'll be a different animal for him.

I have to imagine anything will be better than Mr. run up the middle on 95% of first downs Pep and Mr. take our top 3 WR's out during a two minute drill. Just some obvious corrections would drastically help our offensive production. Like, passing to our elite WR's?

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

I just hope he'll open the passing game up. The passing game was very effective when they did throw the ball (9th in passing S&P+, 8.0 Y/A, 64.4% comp%, 22/7 TD/INT), but they had 201 more rushing attempts than pass attempts. The running game was good in 2018, but I don't think it was particularly great and they did get completely shut down by ND and Florida (granted the latter was without Higdon).

Yup. Passing to WRs. We have so much unused talent there and a QB room who can make those throws. The fact that Haskins had more completion this year than we had pass attempts should be alarming to our staff.

 

[Across The Field]

I have to imagine anything will be better than Mr. run up the middle on 95% of first downs Pep and Mr. take our top 3 WR's out during a two minute drill. Just some obvious corrections would drastically help our offensive production. Like, passing to our elite WR's?

You guys definitely have plenty of WR talent, which honestly is shocking. I cant remember the last michigan WR to do anything in the NFL. If Gattis is able to get something out of Patterson and your WRs stay healthy, your offense should be solid. Need to identify a stud RB though. Higdon was good, but Evans doesn't bring much to the table. His numbers this year were drastically skewed by his games against Rutgers, SMU, and WMU. He was a non-factor in the big games, and I don't know of any big-time RBs you've brought in over the last couple years to step up over him.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

You guys definitely have plenty of WR talent, which honestly is shocking. I cant remember the last michigan WR to do anything in the NFL. If Gattis is able to get something out of Patterson and your WRs stay healthy, your offense should be solid. Need to identify a stud RB though. Higdon was good, but Evans doesn't bring much to the table. His numbers this year were drastically skewed by his games against Rutgers, SMU, and WMU. He was a non-factor in the big games, and I don't know of any big-time RBs you've brought in over the last couple years to step up over him.

I think our starting back next year is Christian Turner; when Higdon declared and sat out the bowl, Turner took the #1 snaps over Evans and Wilson. Evans is a niche back. He's a good pass catching back with some speed. He's good at going out on the edge and that's about it. Definitely not someone you can run up the middle or expect to make cuts in those situations.

Or one of the guys in the 2019 class.

 

[Across The Field]

I think our starting back next year is Christian Turner; when Higdon declared and sat out the bowl, Turner took the #1 snaps over Evans and Wilson. Evans is a niche back. He's a good pass catching back with some speed. He's good at going out on the edge and that's about it. Definitely not someone you can run up the middle or expect to make cuts in those situations.

Or one of the guys in the 2019 class.

What's the feeling on this Charbonnet kid? Size-wise, it looks like he's built like a battering ram, but so was Ty Isaac and he never seemed to get used.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

What's the feeling on this Charbonnet kid? Size-wise, it looks like he's built like a battering ram, but so was Ty Isaac and he never seemed to get used.

We've had really bad luck with top rated RB recruits. Ty Isaac, Kareem Walker, Derick Green, Kevin Grady....all five star RB recruits....all fizzled into absolutely nothing. Charbonnet is like 8 spots away from a 5th star....on paper he seems like a perfect fit for our offense but it's hard to be excited about RB recruits given our history with the top guys.

Charbonnet enrolled early, so he's on campus already. That might help him take over the starting spot if he's actually talented enough to do so.

 

[navamind]

Yup. Passing to WRs. We have so much unused talent there and a QB room who can make those throws. The fact that Haskins had more completion this year than we had pass attempts should be alarming to our staff.

Throw more to Evans pleeeeeeeease. Even Gentry felt like he was pretty underutilized.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Throw more to Evans pleeeeeeeease. Even Gentry felt like he was pretty underutilized.

Throw to anyone. We had a senior slot receiver in Perry that had like 3 targets all year. It’s crazy.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

In more exciting news for UM fans, it looks like Harbaugh is actually going to hand the keys over and let Gattis call the plays:

Jim Harbaugh Handing Keys to Michigan's Offense to Josh Gattis

Not sure if the article is paywalled, but to sum it up -- Harbaugh is actually letting the OC be the OC. Which is huge and hasn't happened so far under Harbaugh at Michigan. Particularly exciting, this quote from Gattis:

“When you look at that whole style of play, are there times where we're going to be multiple? Yes,” Gattis added. “We're going to have the ability to be multiple. Whether that’s being in 11-personnel, 10-personnel (i.e. four wide receivers… a formation Michigan has rarely utilized), 12-personnel… whatever… you name it. Or multiple by formation. We're going to make sure that its personnel-driven. We're going to get our playmakers the ball, our speed out in space, allow our skill players to be skill players, and let them be active. But also having a physical presence where, you know what, we're going to have a physical tone each and every week with the guys up front, and everything is going to build off that. We will be as successful as our players will be.”

Michigan has almost never run 4 wide under Harbaugh.

 

[Across The Field]

In more exciting news for UM fans, it looks like Harbaugh is actually going to hand the keys over and let Gattis call the plays:

Jim Harbaugh Handing Keys to Michigan's Offense to Josh Gattis

Not sure if the article is paywalled, but to sum it up -- Harbaugh is actually letting the OC be the OC. Which is huge and hasn't happened so far under Harbaugh at Michigan. Particularly exciting, this quote from Gattis:

“When you look at that whole style of play, are there times where we're going to be multiple? Yes,” Gattis added. “We're going to have the ability to be multiple. Whether that’s being in 11-personnel, 10-personnel (i.e. four wide receivers… a formation Michigan has rarely utilized), 12-personnel… whatever… you name it. Or multiple by formation. We're going to make sure that its personnel-driven. We're going to get our playmakers the ball, our speed out in space, allow our skill players to be skill players, and let them be active. But also having a physical presence where, you know what, we're going to have a physical tone each and every week with the guys up front, and everything is going to build off that. We will be as successful as our players will be.”

Michigan has almost never run 4 wide under Harbaugh.

If they're smart, they run that and let Shea utilize this to pick up chunk yards on the ground, whether by RPO or designed keeps. The dude is a frickin DT QB, he should be used as such much more often. Your WRs are good enough to command serious attention from the defense. I have no idea how Harbaugh was so dumb as to not use that formation this season.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

If they're smart, they run that and let Shea utilize this to pick up chunk yards on the ground, whether by RPO or designed keeps. The dude is a frickin DT QB, he should be used as such much more often. Your WRs are good enough to command serious attention from the defense. I have no idea how Harbaugh was so dumb as to not use that formation this season.

I don't know. It was frustrating to watch them waste that talent all year. There was some "insider" stuff on 247 from Sam Webb that said something like -- Harbaugh and Co had these big gameplans to use guys more often going into big games, then the game would break down or we'd find ourselves in a deficit and it would be scrapped; IE not having an offensive coordinator to manage that part of the game was a bad idea. The game broke down into our offense running our most basic plays and we were killed because of it.

 

[Across The Field]

I don't know. It was frustrating to watch them waste that talent all year. There was some "insider" stuff on 247 from Sam Webb that said something like -- Harbaugh and Co had these big gameplans to use guys more often going into big games, then the game would break down or we'd find ourselves in a deficit and it would be scrapped; IE not having an offensive coordinator to manage that part of the game was a bad idea. The game broke down into our offense running our most basic plays and we were killed because of it.

I don't understand how that wouldn't compel them to use those sort of plays more. If you're down, you can't afford to go conservative, especially not with 5* talent at QB and WR.

 

[navamind]

I don't understand how that wouldn't compel them to use those sort of plays more. If you're down, you can't afford to go conservative, especially not with 5* talent at QB and WR.

Conservative *and* took their sweet ass time.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

I don't understand how that wouldn't compel them to use those sort of plays more. If you're down, you can't afford to go conservative, especially not with 5* talent at QB and WR.

Like when we ran out our own clock against Florida going into halftime? The game was 13-10 at that point, we had over two minutes left with 3 TOs. Plenty of time to score. When averaged out, it was taking us almost 17 seconds a snap in a 2 minute drive situation. On the 3rd play of the drive, we ran out almost 40 seconds of our own clock running the ball up the middle and then taking the play clock down to nothing. Just maddening stuff. Oh, and on the majority of those plays we rarely had our top 3 WR's on the field together.

 

[Across The Field]

Like when we ran out our own clock against Florida going into halftime? The game was 13-10 at that point, we had over two minutes left with 3 TOs. Plenty of time to score. When averaged out, it was taking us almost 17 seconds a snap in a 2 minute drive situation. On the 3rd play of the drive, we ran out almost 40 seconds of our own clock running the ball up the middle and then taking the play clock down to nothing. Just maddening stuff. Oh, and on the majority of those plays we rarely had our top 3 WR's on the field together.

Yeah you guys definitely ran a neutered offense for a large part of the year. Makes no sense that you wouldn't utilize your weapons to the max. You could've easily had a top 10 offense this year with the right playcalling, given the talent you put on the field.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Yeah you guys definitely ran a neutered offense for a large part of the year. Makes no sense that you wouldn't utilize your weapons to the max. You could've easily had a top 10 offense this year with the right playcalling, given the talent you put on the field.

I keep using this stat because it gives me heartburn, but Haskins had more pass completions this year (373) than Michigan, as a team, had passing attempts (347). And by 26 fing pass completions. That's crazy shit.

 

[Across The Field]

I keep using this stat because it gives me heartburn, but Haskins had more pass completions this year (373) than Michigan, as a team, had passing attempts (347). And by 26 fing pass completions. That's crazy shit.

Holy shit, that's ridiculous. Not only that, but we had 21 more carries, too. Good lord, Harbaugh, get it together.

 

[MAIZEandBLUE09]

Also interesting to note:


apparently Saban wasn't too happy he was losing him

 

[navamind]

I keep using this stat because it gives me heartburn, but Haskins had more pass completions this year (373) than Michigan, as a team, had passing attempts (347). And by 26 fing pass completions. That's crazy shit.

I'd be happy if Michigan was even 55/45 in run/pass plays called though I'd rather be closer to 52/48. Michigan had pass plays on only 40.33% of their overall plays (105th in FBS). Michigan's only been above 100th once (60th in 2015 when they threw 46.86% of the time). Michigan's running game was very meh though.