What Would It Take - The Offensive Line
As preseason practice quickly approaches, (Big Ten media days are Thursday and Friday), I thought it might be interesting to start some position group by position group discussions with a focus on the question, is realistic to expect significant improvement from that position group? It is sad to think that there is not a single position group that I think anyone would argue played well last year. Which position groups can thar realistically change for. I am starting with the offensive side of the ball, because that is the area that I think the most significant improvement is not only possible, but is likely. This first post will focus on the offensive line.
Last year, Michigan’s offensive linemen entered the season with a grand total of 17 games worth of starting experience (for comparison, the 2008 team had 14 games worth of experience, the 2019 team had 83) . Thirteen of those starts belonged to Jalen Mayfield and two more belonged to Ryan Hayes, so by the third game, Michigan only had one starter with starting experience from a previous year, Andrew Stueber, who had a grand total of two starts. As others have noted, this lack of experience made losing spring practice particularly tough.
It is also important to remember that the players who entered 2020 with so little experience did so, at least in part, because the players in front of them were very good. All five of Michigan’s 2019 class are NFL draft picks. Going into 2021, 6 players have four or more starts to their name. Many of those players have significant upside potential because they are relatively young.
Likely left tackle Ryan Hayes may be entering his fourth year, but between covid’s impact on 2020 spring practice and his injury, he lost significant developmental time. Fifth year senior, Andrew Stueber, who might have had a chance to break into the 2019 lineup, lost the 2019 season to injury, so in both cases, there practical experience are less than their years with the program would suggest Zak Zinter is only entering his second year in the program and Karsen Barnhart is a true junior.
Sixth year Andrew Vastardis and fifth year Chuck Filiaga who may be the least likely to start, may also be the two with the least upside of those returning with starting experience. In addition, a number of other players including: true junior Trevor Keegan, who does not have a start to his name, but who did get meaningful playing time in the last two games of last season and Trent Jones could also step up.
That is 8 guys battling for five spots. I don’t think it is a huge stretch to think that Hayes, Stueber and Zinter will be at a minimum solid big ten performers. That means 5 guys battling for two spots. Between Barnhart, Keegan, Jones, Filagia and Vastardis, we should be able to find two quality starters.
I would argue that the offensive line is not a place you need to be wearing maize colored glasses to see the potential pretty significant improvement.
To the extent there are big questions, I don’t think they revolve around whether we can find two good tackles and two good guards, I think they center on center and coaching. Can Zinter or someone step up at the center position and how good a coach will Sherrone Moore be? On the downside for Moore, he has spent his entire career as a tight end coach. On the positive side, the only transfer from the o-line, Willie Allen, can almost certainly be explained by playing time concerns. If the players had a concern with him as a coach, given the fact that many of them probably still have reasonable NFL aspirations, one thinks we might have seen a few transfers.
This post is well thought out but lacks the performance art of "Michigan hired a new coach?"
Center is a bit of a concern but given how much everyone has loved Zinter I'm hopeful there.
Feeling ok about a third tackle is another concern. Cade isn't the most mobile fellow and we have a bad run of tackles getting injured. Here's hoping Jones or Barnhart step up outside.
The suspense of not knowing anything about our new coach was gripping. Great thread.
Thanks for the football content post, and I agree with your sentiment on the O-line. I see the O-line being very strong next year. You even left off Honigford who is a senior who has played here and there over the years and likely has a floor of a decent Big Ten lineman.
It will be a dogfight for the last OL position or two and whoever wins the job(s) will be a quality player.
Yeah I find Honigford interesting because the coaches refer to him as a tight end. So they don’t consider him good enough to battle for a tackle spot but they also consider him so good they want to get him on the field as a 6th OL/ TE.
Honigford is the only TE jersey available at MDEN. #84.
If MDEN has anything to say about it, he’s locked in at TE. Some guys just don’t want to carry all that weight. If he can be an effective blocking TE at 305 instead of a RT at 330, and it gets him on the field, more power to him.
Here's a summary of last year's UFR grades for returning players(no MSU UFR?):
Takeaways: Not bad given level of experience. Vastardis was bad against Wisconsin and probably can't hold up against bigger defensive linemen. Need Zinter to take a large step forward.
This is a great post
This is what I come to mgoblog for
Fwiw I believe our offensive line will be very good this year
Back in 2018, Stueber was the one who stepped in for JBB at RT and not Mayfield. It was projected to be neck and neck for the starting RT spot in ‘19 between Stueber and Mayfield for the starting spot before Stueber’s injury.
Hayes has shown to be pretty good with great athleticism and length. If Runyan at his size could be All-B1G there is no reason to think Hayes can’t. Zinter could very well be the best of the group. Maybe Chuck could be like a late career Kalis? Vastardis has experience and I think he can be solid at C. We have 8 guys who can be plus OL in the conference.
Offense will not be an issue this year. Our running game will be great. We have a ton of decent to good options at WR. All has a ton of ability, and Cade can do at a bare minimum what Speight did in 2016 with potential to be able to replicate what Shea did in 2018
I'm an still deeply concerned about play calling, offensive design - in terms of building on core concepts so execution isn't a mess and taking advantage of opponents' weaknesses, and tempo. Being the slowest offense in college football and totally unable to run a 2 minute drill will probably lose this team games.
So while I can see the OL might not be an issue this year as it was last year, this coaching staff has a lot to prove before I can say I believe it's not going to be a mess on offense.
Our running game will be great.
Our running game has great potential, but declaring it's great before fall camp has even started is extreme optimism.
The OL is talented and fairly deep. Overall, the experience may be a bit lacking on half the line. Now it is up to the coaches for player development this season.
Agreed that the line should be improved. Just having an offseason to practice together is a huge advantage over last season. The talent appears to be there and it should be a strength for the offense.
I’m looking forward to the previews of the other position groups. Wide Receivers should be really good, our running back room has tons of potential, and it should all come down to our QB play. I’m really curious to hear if people think Cade will continue to develop and lead this team. Will JJ’s talent be too much to keep on the sidelines, or will Bowman step right in and take over?
As far as JJ goes, he’s clearly the future, but realistically expecting a true freshman QB to come in and make a meaningful contribution beyond garbage time is asking a lot.
My only true wish for him this year is that we see him in a lot of garbage time, doesn’t make many mistakes, and he shows why he was so highly regarded. If he is pressed into play more than that, then odds are that’s a very bad sign and that Bowman/McNamara are either injured or stinking up the joint. You don’t often see true game changing QBs who are still true freshman and are just leaps and bounds better than all the upperclassmen in front of them.
The injury to Hayes last year cost us much. A run game can assist the young qb getting his feet wet. But yeah, lets hope its lots of garbage time for JJ.
What will it take for the OL to be a strength? You basically said it:
- The center position must be solidified.
- The O-Line as a whole needs good development and coaching.
- We don't seem to be too deep, so health is important.
My concerns are breaking in a new center and the coaching ability of Moore. Bringing in DeVan as an analyst hopefully will help here.
I'll answer it in one word: philosophy. When the philosophy is right, everyone looks better especially the OL and QB. The beneficiaries are the WRs and RBs.
The longer comprehensive explanation is this:
Elite offensive teams try to generate 7+ yards on 1st down usually with a pass (though there are often built-in options for run plays like inside zone with dives and veers). If it works, they go quickly.
Our coaches are content if the offense get 4 yards on 1st down with a power run. And even if we get 4 or more yards, the offense does not use pace.
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This is akin to the difference between one basketball team trying to shoot a good balance of 3s and 2s while another trying to rely heavily on 2s in the lane. The latter is us.
In basketball, a 3 point shot is worth 50% more than a 2 point shot but the odds of making a 3 are not 50% lower than the odds of making a 2 point shot.
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Over the course of a game, it adds up.
There's a reason why our football team struggles to keep pace with high scoring teams. Our offense simply is not good enough. It's not the players. It's the philosophy underpinning the offense.
Reminder: In 2018, LSU was shutout 29-0 in Death Valley by Alabama while running a Les Miles-ian offense. That same players under Joe Brady (a Joe Moorhead and Sean Payton disciple) LIT UP Nick Saban's vaunted defense the following year in Tuscaloosa.
And that 2018 LSU team was STACKED with future 1st rounders (see 2020 Draft). Those players played in a shitty offense that made Joe Burrow look largely ineffective (though he was much better in the 2nd half of 2018). When paired with the right coach (who used the right system and philosophy), LSU had an unprecedented offense in college football history.
Just like space + pace is the name of the game in the modern NBA (see Eurofication of basketball), the same thing happened in college football.
BUT Space+ pace doesn't mean a team becomes finesse. For instance, when Oregon faced Ohio State in the 2014-15 CFB Playoff, Ohio State's players were bigger, stronger, and just as fast/quick.
Alabama has gone to a new level by adopting the power spread.
We've nominally adopted the power spread. But it's clear our coaches don't truly understand it.
To use a corny analogy, see Bane (re: today's spread coaches) yelling "You think the dark is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, MOLDED by it."
But it's disheartening to me that Nick Saban - a defensive coach - was able to change his stripes. But a former Heisman Finalist QB and pro QB in Jim Harbaugh can't...or at least has failed to so far (despite being mentored by one of the progenitors of space + pace in Bill Walsh).
/Broken record
When it comes to offensive pace, Harbaugh seems to be following the philosophy of his primary mentor at Michigan—his head coach. That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me for why our offensive approach is so frequently glacial. One of the things that drove me nuts about Schembechler was his insistence on putting the offense in turtle mode if we got the ball with two minutes to go in the first half, even if the offense had been doing well previously in the game. For a guy whose basic personality was pretty aggressive, the passivity was strange.
When you have five people arguing about what play to call it takes time.
Yep, years ago they out-and-out said this was the process -- there would be play suggestions and then a decision would be reached. All of this while the play clock was running. There is no possible way to use tempo when this is how things happen. I'm convinced it's still going on.
Even if that is your process is hard to understand how you can’t practice a two minute drill scenario and have it ready for when you need it. It seems inevitable.
During the Harbaugh era, the offensive braintrust does not utilize the two-minute drill well because they don't see it fitting into their careful, plodding, mistake-averse style. They clearly see the end-of-half scenario in the first half as a way to get safely to halftime. Thus, I don't think they practice it much -- because it requires a hurry-up offense -- and that leaves them lacking in two-minute drill skills when they are needed at the end of games.
TL;DR -- They don't use it as a weapon to score points. Much like the rest of their offense.
Wow! This is a very solid post!
Well done! ?????
This should be moved to the front page or diaries.
"On the downside for Moore, he has spent his entire career as a tight end coach."
His entire coaching career maybe but he did play OL.
My buddy’s son played for Moore at CMU and said he is a players coach, intelligent, and a good communicator. TEs work with the OL on blocking scheme and he played OL.
I would think this being a successful transition would not be a stretch but it’s certainly something to watch.
I'll get this out of the way since I haven't seen it commented yet, Willie Allen is gone. Secondly, this may be the hardest position group to predict this year because OL is so developmental and we have the Pandora's box of awful prior year because of inexperience, injuries and protocols we didn't handle well coupled with a brand new position coach who has coached nothing but tight ends thus far (yes I know he played the position but playing it 14 years ago and coaching TE the last 10+ years are two different things). I actually have high hopes that this year's group can be a solid unit and set the foundation for a sort of Renaissance for the program. Whether that be under Harbaugh or not doesn't matter in my eyes. I just have hopes we can and will see improvement. I think Sherrone Moore has shown he is a tireless coach in the way he recruits. Hopefully that translates to him absorbing all he could from Drevno and Warinner, being careful to absorb the right information, and turning out to be a genius move by Harbaugh.
Drevno wasn't here when Moore joined the staff.
Literally, the only two members of the entire coaching staff that were here, when Drevno was, are Jim and Jay Harbaugh.
I think there are reasons to be optimistic. The problem for me as a UM fan is there are so many areas like this with question marks where UM needs significant improvement to be effective (QB, CB, DT, play calling, new defensive scheme, ect). Yes, you can come up with reasons/excuses for why it didn't work out last year like Covid, lack of practice, opt outs, injuries, short staffed, etc. But, there are probably reasons you could also come up with for why '21 won't be any better like inexperience, new coaches, etc. At the end of the day you can have question marks that turn out great. But, with so many of them the chances of enough of them turning out great to have a better season than 8 wins seems unlikely. Maybe the o-line will be better, maybe not. Maybe the DTs will be better with Hinton & Mazi developing and Whittley making an impact, maybe not. Maybe McNamara will be more effective than Milton as he played better when healthy and he's having an entire offseason to be prepared to start, maybe not. Maybe Gattis with the help of Weiss will finally get an offensive identity that keeps the offense moving, maybe not. Maybe the new scheme will help out the CBs and/or we'll find another CB better than Gray like Seldon, Perry, Turner, DGW, maybe not. That's a lot of maybes.
I don't like the odds on more than half of them. We're a 7-5/8-4 team that will lose to all the quality opponents like OSU, PSU, Wiscy, and maybe Washington and/or Indiana. I hope they prove me wrong. I'd kill for a signature over an OSU or even a potentially top 15 PSU and/or Wiscy team even if that means some developmental losses to teams we shouldn't. I just don't want to see us predictably beat up on the bottom half and lose to the top teams in completely boring fashion with ball control, running, punting, and never scoring points without being able to the run the ball down people's throat.
If this UM team goes 1-3 against UW/UW/PSU/OSU… I’d be kinda happy?
If this UM team goes 1-3 against UW/UW/PSU/OSU… I’d be kinda happy?
If UM goes 1-3 against those 4, considering what they done since OSU in 2018 (10-11 overall and 2-8 vs ranked teams) I think UM needs to consider moving on from JH. Context is always important so I'm not going to make a blanket statement based on wins alone. If he loses all close games that's different. But, if they look ugly in them all, JH's last two season and the last two games of his UM tenure look pretty ugly. I would not be comfortable as a fan of that trajectory considering how successful he was in his first two years. That looks like the 49ers all over again.
While I agree with you that there are questions, I don’t think every maybe is the same. At QB, McNamara could continue to improve in year three with the same defensive coordinator, McCarthy could be ready to start as a true freshman, or Bowman could be more Jake Rudock and less John O’Korn. That is three realistic, semi-independent chances (obviously qb coaching is a common thread).
Contrast that with nose tackle, where the options are: Mazi Smith, who has all of three tackles in two year; Jordan Whittley, who is coming in likely over-weight and coming off heart problems; Jack Stewart, a converted offensive lineman and Donovan Jeter, who has been passable.
The odds of a positive answer on each of those two questions is very different.
Given x's and o's are cared for most of the plays, a big part of college ball is synergy on offense. We saw a flash of that with Cade at Rutgers. Though that team isn't the highest talent in the Big, they are well coached.
Synergy is the intangible element of football Michigan has lacked. The OL should grow into a strength. The guys up front could be a difference early on with Cade being a game time QB.
Who knows about the D? It looked so lacking up front last year as well as the secondary. We need to score points and the OL is a big step toward this IMO
I believe in Moore and I believe in the guys on the depth Chart. The question is will we put it to use.
Man, with all the hype big Chuck Filiaga got when he chose Michigan...sure thought he'd pan out. Total buster so far. Just crazy that 2017 class is basically an abortion....
Shhhhhh!!! We don’t talk about the class that never was…