Article written about Josh Gattis prior to Orange Bowl Semi Final game this year:
In the Wolverines’ 13 games, Gattis didn’t just prove he belonged. He and the rest of Michigan’s staff blended a mix of ideas and influences to create an offense that has been one of the most explosive in college football while maintaining Michigan’s core identity as a physical running team.
How did they do it? Let’s examine a few of the keys.
More explosive plays + fewer negative plays
When Gattis talked in August about committing to the running game, some people heard it as an about-face on his core philosophies. What happened to speed in space? What happened to having an explosive offense? What happened to the run-pass option? Was it all a bunch of empty talk?
Actually, it wasn’t. Particularly after
Ronnie Bell went down, the strength of Michigan’s offense wasn’t the downfield passing game. The recipe for generating explosive plays was to get the ball to
Blake Corum,
Hassan Haskins, A.J. Henning,
Roman Wilson and
Donovan Edwards — explosive players who can line up in the backfield or carry the ball on reverses and jet sweeps. The diversity of Michigan’s running game allowed Gattis to use all of those players in ways that accentuated their strengths without becoming stale or predictable.
“When you look at how we’re creating those explosive plays, it’s getting the ball in the hands of explosive players,” Gattis said Monday during a video call with reporters. “When you’ve got guys like A.J. Henning, Blake Corum, Roman Wilson, Donovan Edwards, those guys are going to create explosive plays. … We’ve got some of the most dynamic players in all of the country. It doesn’t take coaching at that point, it takes players, and our players have done a tremendous job executing assignments.”
Those changeups, building off Michigan’s downhill running game, have worked all year. Many of these concepts show up in Michigan’s offense going back to Gattis’ arrival in 2019. The difference is that Michigan is executing at a higher level, with players who can hit home runs when the blocking is there.
Here’s a succinct way to sum up Michigan’s offensive success: The Wolverines have the fewest negative plays in the FBS and the most plays of 50 yards or longer. Both of those elements — the ability to hit the home runs while avoiding negative plays that throw the offense off schedule — have been crucial.
Decision-making at quarterback
Looking back at Michigan’s 2020 season, it was striking how many plays ended with quarterback Joe Milton throwing an incompletion, committing a turnover or scrambling for a minimal gain. In basketball terms, it was like watching a point guard attempt a bunch of difficult shots while the best scorers stood around on the perimeter. For the offense to work as designed, Michigan needed a quarterback who could get the ball in the playmakers’ hands and get out of the way.
That’s where McNamara came in. He doesn’t have the strongest or the most accurate arm, but he’s a high-level processor who gets the ball out quickly and keeps the offense on schedule. This year, more than half of Michigan’s plays have ended with the ball in the hands of a running back, while fewer than a quarter ended with the quarterback. That’s a sign Michigan’s offense is functioning as designed, with the ball going to the most dynamic playmakers.
The idea that Michigan could build an explosive offense while minimizing the role of the quarterback prompted more than a little skepticism, but thanks to McNamara and the players around him, the Wolverines have made it work.
“Cade has done a tremendous job leading our team,” Gattis said. “He’s very smart in how he approaches everything and his preparation. His leadership skills are phenomenal, and he’s a guy that really makes everyone around him better because they have tremendous support and faith and belief in him.”
The role of the tight ends
Gattis considers the tight end to be the most important position in Michigan’s offense, even more than the quarterback or the running backs. Why? Because the tight ends do everything. They catch passes. They are lead blockers in the running game. They line up all over the formation: in the backfield, next to the offensive tackle, split out wide.
“They allow us to do everything that we want to do,” Gattis said. “They allow us to be the physical, downhill run-game team. We ask those guys to go out and catch passes but also protect for passes. They’re really the Swiss army knife to get us going.”
We will not ever line up in a six-offensive lineman formation,” Gattis said. “No one has to worry about that. We don’t have that (in the playbook).”
According to Pro Football Focus, Michigan runs about 54 percent of its plays out of 11 personnel, with one back and one tight end. For the most part, that number has held steady throughout Gattis’ three seasons calling plays. The percentage of plays with multiple tight ends has ticked upward, from about 32 percent a year ago to 44.4 percent this season.
You can file all of this under Michigan’s commitment to being more physical at the line of scrimmage. Gattis uses the acronym “PSP” (physical, smart, precise) to encapsulate Michigan’s goals on offense. That is most apparent in the play of Michigan’s offensive line, which went from being a liability in 2020 to winning the
Joe Moore Award as the nation’s top unit in 2021.
Some of Michigan’s bread-and-butter plays are power and counter runs during which the back follows a lead blocker through the hole. The Wolverines have the perfect player to execute those plays in Haskins, a powerful runner who is at his best when he’s going north and south.
“When you talk about a physical back, he’s the exact prototype of what you want to build your running back room around. He’s done a tremendous job carrying the load for us,” Gattis said.
The Wolverines had the ingredients for an explosive offense, but to make it work, they needed something else: trust. Trust between players and coaches. Trust between position groups. Trust that they had the right person calling plays.
