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ANN ARBOR, Mich. — One reason why Michigan could or should feel confident about the offense in particular in 2020 is the offensive staff.
While there’s a lot of turnover in terms of starting players moving on with their careers, there hasn’t been so much of a constant in staff in the Jim Harbaugh era. The only year that Harbaugh had essentially the entire offense, staff-wise, return intact was 2016 with Jedd Fisch, Tim Drevno, Jay Harbaugh and Tyrone Wheatley. But after that season, Fisch and Wheatley departed, Jay Harbaugh was shifted from tight ends to running backs and the Wolverines brought in Greg Frey to work with offensive tackles and TEs and Pep Hamilton replaced Fisch as the pass game coordinator.
But there was attrition, again, the following year. Frey and Drevno departed and were replaced by tight ends coach Sherrone Moore and offensive line coach Ed Warinner. The next year, 2019, Hamilton was supplanted by Josh Gattis, who was hired to oversee the entirety of the offense. Ben McDaniels, once an offensive analyst, became the quarterbacks coach once the NCAA allowed ten on-field coaches.
So while players came and went, the staff had just as much turnover, especially on the offensive side of the ball. 2020 is the first year since 2016 that the maize and blue will return all of the coaches on that side of the ball in the same exact positions as they were last year.
Gattis is entering his second year as the offensive coordinator, with Michigan being his first destination in that role. So while he now has a year under his belt calling the shots, he also feels that having a strong, returning support staff is invaluable to the Wolverines offensive efforts.
“Retaining the offensive staff is very, very important,” Gattis said. “The ability now to go back through – we’re doing a lot of offseason studies – and making sure they understand all the details, thought process, what I’m thinking. Kinda getting those guys on the same page as me in alignment I think is very key and critical. It’s different when you’re coaching something for the first time as compared to coaching it for the second time. And so I think for a lot of our coaches, their comfort level is extremely high now going into year two in the system.”
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And Gattis feels like Michigan is closer than ever from breaking out on the offensive side of the ball.
With the team at their individual domiciles due to the state’s ‘stay-at-home’ order, this time spent in quarantine hasn’t just been about imparting schematic and playbook knowledge to the players, it’s also been a pivotal period of self-scouting — looking back on what went right and what went wrong.
While Michigan was No. 11 in the country in red zone scoring attempts per game — 4.5 red zone appearances per game, up 10 spots from 2018 — the Wolverines were No. 81 out of 130 FBS-level teams only converting 81% of those attempts into scores, touchdowns and field goals combined. Breaking down that number further, of that 81%, 61% were touchdowns, 20% were field goals and the other 19% were flat-out missed opportunities.
Gattis feels like the offense should be better — can be better. And with the time available to self-reflect, he sees a lot of times where Michigan shot itself in the foot.
“We’ve got a great offensive staff,” Gattis said. “We’ve done a lot of studies this offseason on ourselves where we’re breaking down everything. I’ve been meeting with our offensive staff every morning. I think areas for growth are – I’ve been looking at a number of different things. I think we’re right there on the cusp of really kinda scratching the surface of being something special last year. When you look at it, we had some self-inflicted wounds, but we left some big-time opportunities.
“Two areas that particularly: are touchdown drive percentages and scoring drive percentages. That’s an area of growth that I think, we, as a unit, we were about 4% off from being in the top ten in touchdown drive percentage. We had 16 drives last year that ended up in the red zone that we didn’t score on – or we didn’t score touchdowns, that we had to settle for field goals. Our scoring drive percentage, we were another 3.5% off from being in the top-tier of top ten teams and we had another 17 drives on that deal where we didn’t score and had turnovers in the red zone or had fourth-down stops. I think that seven turnovers in the red zone and four missed field goals and four turnover on downs. I think there are some areas we can improve offensively. And that’s not just players, that’s how can I help them with the call, how can we help them with the situation? Are we too aggressive? Are we not aggressive enough?
“Those are all types of things that go through these studies and that mindset for me, it’s been valuable. Because you want to try to figure out a way to put your kids in a position to be successful.”
Still, there are a lot of ways to improve, beyond just figuring out what went right and what went wrong a year ago. There’s a difference between being reactionary and forward-thinking.
As Gattis notes, football is constantly evolving, especially as offenses innovate and defenses create solutions to those perpetual problems. One of the ways that defenses have adapted is by utilizing a traditional third down set on second down, thus putting offenses at something of a disadvantage come actual third down, if the defense does its job.
Gattis has been seeking answers from the top football minds in the country as to how he can flip that script. And he feels like he’s getting somewhere in that regard.
“That’s been something that’s been encouraging for me as far as second down calls,” Gattis said. “It’s something I’ve really dove into some deep studies, talked a lot of NFL offensive coordinators about different things they’ve been studying. It’s changed in the game of football. You see a lot of teams now with the second down study. A lot more teams are playing third down defense on second down to keep you at second-and-long. You want to help yourself on third down scenarios by having better calls on second down. Whether that’s eliminating the third down and being aggressive and trying to get the first down on two downs or trying to cut the distance.
“I kind of rattled off a lot right there, but a lot of different studies we’re doing offensively. It’s been engaging getting everybody on Zoom meetings in the morning, getting everyone on the same page, talking philosophy, talking thoughts. I probably watched every play of the season now 50 times. That’s how much football we’re watching. You gain a ton of information, you gain a ton of knowledge about yourself, you’re studying your self-scout, just looking for ways to improve.”
Regardless, Michigan will have a lot of holes to fill personnel-wise. But given the offensive success of 2016 — a year when over half the games were essentially over by halftime — having the consistency on the coaching staff like it had that year is certainly a reason for optimism that the offense can have similar, if not better, results.
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