In the last post, we got to one of the four touchdown passes thrown against Rutgers. Now, it’s time for the last three. 

McNamara to Nick Eubanks

The Context: Michigan entered the second half down 17-7. Regardless of the time left, being down by 10 against Rutgers should always prompt some urgency. Right away, Giles Jackson pulled the Wolverines back into the game with a 95-yard kickoff return touchdown, but they fell right back out of it after Michigan’s secondary gifted the Scarlet Knights a 61-yard touchdown pass three plays into the next drive. 

For McNamara’s third drive of the game — the first two having ended in a passing touchdown and a missed field goal — the rushing offense finally decided to make an appearance after tallying just 17 yards the whole first half. After a mix of runs and passes pushed Michigan past midfield, Hassan Haskins found a big hole on a trap play that went for 25 yards and set up a first down at the 10-yard line. After a short run on first down, McNamara picked up his second score of the day: 

Why it Worked: Just a straight play action here (i.e., no RPO). The linebacker responsible for Eubanks jumps up to cover … something (the run, I guess, but that is an awfully hard bite on a straight PA). On the far side, the bubble screen route pulled the safety over enough that he was a non-factor. The throw is a little short, but Eubanks has enough space where it doesn’t really matter. Beyond that, there’s not much to the play’s success, though I do think there are some avenues the offense can explore in the future out of this same look. In the defense we see here, that bubble screen on the far side looks pretty open, and there could even be options on the near side if the defense starts to cheat toward that bubble. 

What it Means: There’s not too much to learn from this one play, but the drive as a whole did offer some takeaways at the time. It was McNamara’s third drive of the game and the second that ended in a touchdown (FWIW, the missed field goal drive had been cut short by halftime). Yes, it was helped by the run game finally coming to life, but the fact remains that the offense was hitting a rhythm under McNamara that it struggled to find with Milton. To the fanbase especially, this drive solidified the idea that McNamara was the better quarterback and deserved most of the snaps moving forward (more on that later). 

[after THE JUMP: We cheated]

McNamara to Mike Sainristil

The Context: After Michigan’s last touchdown pulled it within three, Rutgers’ beautifully named kicker Valentino Ambrosio made a field goal to extend the Scarlet Knights’ lead to six. The Wolverines took over at their own 29 toward the end of the third quarter and worked their way into Rutgers territory on a mix of short gains and penalties. From there, Michigan gets into the red zone on a 21-yard pass to Chris Evans (lined up as a receiver!), and inside the 10 on a nice throw to Ronnie Bell. After an incompletion, McNamara finds Mike Sainristil for the go-ahead score:

Why it Worked: Offensive pass interference, but who cares? 

Bell isn’t even pretending to run a real route here. He runs straight into the man covering Sainristil, then stops. McNamara knows where he’s going the whole time — because the play’s designed like that — and goes right to Sainristil. Yes, going by the rules, this is offensive pass interference. But… 

What It Means: Look. Cheating in sports is cool and good. Give all the batters steroids. Put Elmer’s glue on the pitchers’ hands. Sure, it may be “morally wrong” and “completely antithetical to the very concept of sport,” but it also makes for a more exciting product, so it’s impossible to say if it’s bad or not. 

In all seriousness, what you should hope this means is that Michigan uses more of these pick plays moving forward. If referees aren’t going to call it OPI, teams are going to continue to abuse it. Don’t let yourself fall behind because of how the game “should” be called. 

McNamara to Cornelius Johnson

The Context: Rutgers followed up the last touchdown with a punt, giving Michigan a chance to extend its lead. On this drive, there aren’t any big or flashy plays, just a strong, sustained drive from McNamara and Co., especially for having started at their own 15. The run game got involved, too, with both Haskins and Charbonnet picking up first downs on the ground. On the 11th play of the drive, Haskins picked up 12 yards to set up a first-and-goal from the nine, where McNamara cashed in for what would be the final passing touchdown of the season:

Why it Worked: It’s a straight WR screen, and both receivers on that side do their jobs. Ronnie Bell’s able to seal his guy off to the inside, and even uses him to obstruct the other DB’s path to Cornelius Johnson in the backfield. Johnson, for his part, doesn’t try to dance around too much in the backfield (something a lot of receivers will do that ends in a loss) and instead makes a quick cut to the outside, breaks the tackle, and beats the safety to the pylon. 

What it Means: Again, since this play was pretty straightforward, I’m gonna use this drive as a whole as a sign of McNamara’s ability to lead the offense. Of course, it wasn’t all him — the run game once again picked up some meaningful yards and made life a lot easier for McNamara — but he consistently showed good pocket presence and mobility, and he made the right decisions to keep the drive going even without any huge gains. With any luck, he could show even more of that with a better offensive line in 2021. 

A Final Note: Only Nine Touchdowns? 

The fact that I’ve been able to break down six games worth of passing touchdowns in three posts begs an important question: Why? Even in an abbreviated season, nine passing touchdowns is a tragic number. 

The first thing that people tend to jump on is the quarterback play (and, more specifically, Joe Milton’s performance and the decision to start him), and I think there is something to be said for that argument. Milton showed flashes during the season, but he was never really able to find any real, consistent rhythm. When McNamara stepped in to replace him, it was pretty obvious that McNamara was the better quarterback. It would be hard to argue that starting Milton was the correct decision based on the in-game performances we saw. 

But I also think there are limits to that argument.  Number one, none of us were at the practices that earned Milton the starting spot. Harbaugh and Co. aren’t perfect — they’ve made plenty of baffling decisions on offense over the last couple seasons — but they do have eyes. For them to have chosen to start Milton at the beginning of the year, I’m sure there was at least some justification in what they were seeing in practice. Number two, the offensive line play made it much harder for Milton to perform, especially as a first-year starter during the cobbled-together shitshow that was the Big Ten’s COVID season. Under normal circumstances and with a competent, healthy O-line, maybe he would have gotten more chances to show off his arm. Yes, McNamara had to deal with it, too, but taking over mid-season behind a weak line is different than dealing with the wear and tear of standing behind it all season long. Overall, yeah, I do think McNamara was the better quarterback, but it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as fans tend to think. 

So if it wasn’t just quarterback play, why did Michigan score just nine passing touchdowns in 2020, and how can it do better in 2021? The somewhat unsatisfying truth, in my mind, is that there is no one answer. A whole bevy of factors — from, yes, the quarterbacks, to the offensive line, the playcalling, the unexpected departure of Nico Collins, and the circumstances surrounding COVID — contributed to the Wolverines’ poor passing offense. Harbaugh already started working on remedying one of those factors when he hired Matt Weiss to coach the quarterbacks, and the offensive line play should improve if players can stay healthy and if Sherrone Moore doesn’t turn out to be too much of a downgrade from Ed Warinner. 

Whether those improvements are enough to save Michigan’s passing offense is yet to be seen. Like everything else, changes are probably going to be incremental; don’t expect to see Joe Burrow-esque plays from the Wolverines in 2021. But for Harbaugh’s attempted rebuild of his program to work — and, frankly, for J.J. McCarthy to stay in Ann Arbor more than a year or two — there will need to be significant progress. 

Otherwise, you might see three more of these posts next summer.