ANN ARBOR, Mich. — After Alex Orji emulated Jalen Milroe in bowl prep last year, it became scintillating about what may happen for the Michigan football quarterback.
It took awhile before he was thrust into action — though it had appeared that he was the likely starter in the preseason — however, the Wolverine coaching staff pulled the plug on Orji in Week 6 after Michigan got down 14-0 at Washington.
Orji sat on the bench for the entirety of the loss at Illinois and for the first half against MSU before he started coming in during the second half and creating a spark using the wildcat package we’ve become more accustomed to seeing him in. However, instead of it being one play here or there, it was multiple plays within a drive, while Davis Warren would still come in to run the offense throughout.
The trick from here is to continue to use both Warren and Orji without getting predictable — something that the coaching staff is working on behind the scenes, offensive line coach Grant Newsome says.
“That’s always a balance — with anything, you have a big indicator, a big tendency,” Newsome said. “It’s something that we were conscious of last year. And, Coach Casula has done a better job than I did last year of, with Max, of, hey, every time it’s Max in the game it can’t just be it’s a direct fullback run — even though he’s obviously elite at it. So that’s always a balance and it’s a balance with receivers and alignments and splits and personnel groups.
“So that’s something that you look at and Coach Campbell looks at every single week. And, in multiple different respects, looking at tendencies, looking at trends, because defenses look at them. So, the good thing is that it’s not like you’re bringing a wildcat tight end (with Orji). He’s still a good thrower of the football. So, you hope defenses respect that and then if they don’t, then it’s on us to make them pay for it.”
The other thing that fans noticed in Saturday’s game was the use of more trick plays. Whether it was the flea flicker pass to Tyler Morris for a big gain or the touchdown that Donovan Edwards threw to Colston Loveland, a little trickeration went a long way for the offense.
Given how many Michigan fans are also Detroit Lions fans, they’re used to seeing the pro team in the area constantly dig into the bag to try to catch the opponent off-guard. So are the Wolverines looking to do the same?
“Practicing them a lot,” Newsome said. “Truthfully I try to stay off social media, but I’m sure a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, why does this get saved to this game?’ or ‘Why does this get to this game?’ Naturally, the reality is a lot of those have been on the call sheets for multiple weeks and Coach Campbell, every single week, has however many on the sheet ready to go. And a lot of times they get pushed the next week.
“And it’s one of those things where we got to execute as position coaches and as players to allow him to be able to position to call some of those things. Cause it’s one of those where, hey, it’s second-and-15 on your own 15-yard line. That trick play from Donovan’s probably not coming off the sheet. Whereas if you can get a drive going. And that’s kind of what I was mentioning earlier — hey, we sustain one of those first two drives at the level we’re capable of, the level we expect to, the level we should, that probably comes off earlier.
“So I think it’s a joint effort. He does a great job of getting creative (looks). Let’s get our best players the ball. And all of us collectively — coaches, players — got to control the games that those can come off the sheet. Cause obviously we all like it when that happens. And as you guys can imagine from watching the last couple of years, there’s no one who’s a bigger fan of trick plays than Coach Moore and Coach Campbell. So, it’s a collective effort of executing and putting ourselves in a position where we can all feel comfortable with him calling those and enjoying the success.”
Michigan is going to need both to work on Saturday with the No. 1 team in the country, Oregon, coming to town.