There were a lot of questions about the wide-receiving corps for Michigan football entering the 2024 season, and plenty of consternation about the talent in that room. Despite some fall camp hype indicating that the Wolverines were confident about what they had, the wide receivers have significantly underperformed through seven games.
Part of that could be Michigan not having a viable starting quarterback, but to this point, the wideouts have a total of 38 catches for 342 yards. There are some teams that get that kind of production from their wide receivers in one game, let alone over the course of seven games.
On Wednesday, Wolverines wide receivers coach and pass game coordinator Ron Bellamy said that the lack of production this year is something that’s surprised him.
“I am. I mean, obviously, two of your top receivers having that low of a production,” Bellamy said. “But, ultimately for us, in our receiver room, the one thing we constantly talk about is, when opportunities present themselves, you got to make the plays. And most importantly, do what you can do or do what you got to do for us to win. And we haven’t done enough thus far this year. I haven’t done enough. Collectively, we all gotta better.”
But why is that? Bellamy parroted the same thing we’ve heard throughout the course of the season. Much of what’s supposed to happen on a specific play does, but one player doesn’t do what they’re supposed to.
“Well, one-eleventh — it’s usually a breakdown somewhere,” Bellamy said. “We just all got to play collectively. We got to play together. And obviously, I say that word, and as a coach, we got to do a better job just not on executing. I challenge myself every day to take a long, hard look in the mirror and self-reflect and how can I be better? How can we be better? And just to make sure we execute at a higher level.”
WolverinesWire asked junior receiver Tyler Morris on Tuesday if the pass game looked better in practice than it had in games and he answered affirmatively.
Bellamy somewhat concurred, noting that part of it is lack of experience, but there’s clearly something missing with this group that isn’t translating what’s happening in practice during the week compared to Saturdays.
“I don’t know. I mean, we got to take it from State Street and bring it to Main Street,” Bellamy said. “That’s the biggest thing. And I do know, like I said, having played here, having been around, played the receiver position, it’s usually you got to carry that over. You got to carry that over to the stadium. And usually experience comes with that. But we’re going to keep attacking it. There’s no doubt about it.
“We understand it. We’re not shying away from it. And we understand we have to be better. We have to be better because it makes the offense better. And then collectively it makes the team better.”