Michigan football isn't worried about run game, but thrilled to have J.J. McCarthy
Whether he was sitting on offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore's couch or his own, Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh has loved much of what he's seen from his team during his three-game suspension.
The electric pass game led by J.J. McCarthy and Roman Wilson. The defense which hasn't surrendered a point with its two-deep on the field. The coaching staff shuffling around to make the beginning of an abnormal season feel as normal as possible.
In some ways, the Wolverines’ head man couldn't ask for anything more.
"It's darn near a walk in the park to coach these guys," Harbaugh said Monday.
That said, if he were going to ask for something more, it would be for Michigan's run game to look like, well, Michigan's run game.
Through two weeks, the Wolverines rank No. 74 in the nation in rushing, averaging just 150.5 yards per game. It's a stark contrast to a year ago, when U-M was top five in the nation and averaged 251 yards per contest.
So what gives? It’s not health — even though Blake Corum comes back from offseason knee surgery while Donovan Edwards had a broken thumb repaired and had to rehab from a partially torn patella tendon — running backs coach Mike Hart said Saturday both were "100 percent."
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While Harbaugh said it's too simplistic to point to one unit individually as the source of the issue, the problem, is quite clear.
"The thing I’m looking at, is the inefficient plays," Harbaugh said. "They’re outnumbering the efficient runs."
By Harbaugh's definition, inefficient plays on the ground go for 3 yards or fewer, anything between 4 to 9 yards is considered efficient while runs that go for 10 or more fall under the category "explosive."
On Saturday, Corum ran 15 times for 80 yards and two touchdowns, but had just two "explosive" runs; an 11-yard run up the middle on third-and-7 in the first quarter and a 19-yard scamper in the middle of the third quarter.
His other 13 carriers netted 50 yards, seven of which the staff deemed "inefficient," which includes all four of his carries in the second quarter.
Edwards has struggled even more. He ran six times on Saturday for a total of 9 yards — five "inefficient" rushes and one carry that netted 4 yards.
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On the year, Edwards has 18 rushes for 46 yards, just two "explosive" plays and 12 "inefficient" plays.
"It’s a combination of everybody," Harbaugh explained. "We’ve got to block on the perimeter, we got to get the safeties better blocked by our wide receivers. Tight ends are really playing well, offensive line, yeah, it’s we’re missing a guy here or it’s one guy on a play.
"And running backs, when I say a guy here a guy there, it’s a missed cut here or a missed cut there. But it’s something we’re very focused on and emphasizing.”
The less-than-stellar numbers could be considered surprising, given Michigan returned perhaps the most decorated backfield in America not to mention four players who started at least half-a-dozen games on last year’s Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line.
In case that wasn’t enough, U-M brought in three more starters from Power Five teams up front, two of whom (Drake Nugent and LaDarius Henderson) were captains at their previous stops.
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But as Moore pointed out, chemistry doesn’t happen overnight.
“No, I mean, when you have new guys in there, that’s something that’s going to happen (over time),” Moore began. "I always tell them, ‘we do this all together’ so I’m not gonna put the blame on them and say its just the players.
“As coaches we got to do a better job executing the plan that we have and then planning the right way.”
Part of that might be solidifying a line in place, which as of Monday, Moore said is official: Karsen Barnhart, Trevor Keegan, Drake Nugent, Zak Zinter and Myles Hinton are the starters from let to right.
LaDarius Henderson, Gil El-Hadi, Greg Crippen, Jeff Persi and Trent Jones are the backups.
Moore believes as the chemistry grows, the run game will too, but he also pointed out while U-M hasn’t moved the ball in the ways people are used to, the offensive line has still been productive.
“Positive is, I mean, we’re fourth in the country in negative plays — we’ve only given up three total and haven’t given up any sacks,” Moore said. “Obviously, people were expecting us in the run game, so we just have to do different things to help us and help the players as well.”
The main reason there’s not more concern? The pass game, led by McCarthy and Wilson, is off off to the best start through two weeks of the Harbaugh era.
McCarthy is 48-for-55 passing for 559 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions. Harbaugh about ran out of superlatives when praising him.
“J.J. is phenomenal,” he said. “So on fire, so on point, the throws he’s making from the pocket. I mean, doing severe damage; when he leaves the pocket, keeping his eyes downfield and getting big chunk plays and yardage
“The kind of throws he’s making, too, they’re NFL caliber throws into tight windows. The accuracy is off the charts; I mean he’s putting balls six inches in front of the number.”
There are only two players in the Big Ten who meet the 90 snap minimum and still have an "elite" PFF Grade (90 or above). One is U-M defensive tackle Mason Graham, exactly at 90.0.
McCarthy has weapons in Wilson and Cornelius Johnson, who has 10 catches for 153 receiving yards, with a deep understanding of the offense. His tight end targets, namely Colston Loveland, are as talented as he's ever had and the passing game, rather than being something Michigan thinks it can turn to when it wants, is a legitimate weapon.
That's why even though U-M hasn't made headway on the ground thus far, the staff isn't losing sleep over it. Yet.
"The goal is for J.J. to be the best quarterback in the country on the best football team," Harbaugh said. "And we've got to get that with the running game too. I want the best backs on the best team as well.
"And I know we're going to get there, so I'm excited to make that happen."
Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football not worried about run game; 'It's ... everybody'
