Michigan football TEs feel 'a little bit disrespected,' but focus on quiet production

As Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh lamented how his team hasn’t run the ball at a high level through the first two weeks off the season, he emphasized one point: The issues are multifaceted.

An offensive lineman missing a seal. A running back not quite hitting the cutback lane. Even on the plays when ballcarriers have been able to get through the first level, Harbaugh pointed out, wide receiver blocking hasn’t held up quite long enough to spring the big plays.

However, in the middle of his diatribe about each position group not quite doing its job, he slipped.

“Tight ends," he said, "are playing really well."

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Michigan’s tight end receiving production has been relatively quiet. Colston Loveland had four catches for 57 yards in the opener, but just two catches for 6 yards last week vs. UNLV. After not catching a ball in his Michigan debut, AJ Barner caught a 12-yard pass last week for his first reception as a Wolverine. Max Bredeson also had a catch for a first down Week 1, but none last Saturday.

Add it up and the tight end group has combined for eight receptions for 89 yards through two games — arguably pedestrian numbers considering the boon the passing game has been for the offense this season.

“We have flown under the radar a little bit, but as the season continues to go on, we're gonna make plays when the opportunities come," Barner said. "We’re going to continue to block extremely hard and you know, sometimes that doesn’t show up in the stat book, but when you turn on the tape, you’re gonna see that.

"We get plenty of love from the coaches and what not, but I think right now, yeah, we are underrated."

As Barner alluded to, U-M has long had a "no block, no rock" philosophy for its tight ends room, and through two games, they’ve seemed to take it to heart. On Monday, offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore said he thought UNLV was “the best blocking game” the tight end room has had in the past two seasons.

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“They were all willing and physical,” Moore began. “Now, they’re being dominant and really moving guys off the ball.”

Tight ends coach Grant Newsome doubled down on Wednesday. He said he challenged the group following their Week 1 showing — which they all determined was not up to the standard of the room — and he was pleased with the result he got out off it.

"One of our better blocking games as a tight end room in the last 18 months," he said. "It's encouraging, but obviously we still got big challenges ahead of us, starting this week."

Although the pass numbers aren't eye-popping, the run-blocking has buoyed an offense that has surprisingly struggled to get consistent push in the run game.

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To this point, it's Barner (an 80.8 Pro Football Focus grade in 34 run-blocking snaps), and not anybody along the two-time Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line, who has graded out as the best run blocker on the team.

Michigan has 23 players who’ve been on the field for at least 10 run plays: Barner grades out first, followed by center Drake Nugent (72.9), and fellow tight end Max Bredeson (70.3) is third.

While Barner and Bredeson have been similarly productive, each seems to have a specific style that suits his game.

Bredeson has been on the field for 16 zone-blocking runs and his 80.2 grade from PFF is the best on the team. In his 12 gap-oriented runs, though, Bredeson got a 53.5, on the lower end of the spectrum. It's the opposite for Barner, who has graded significantly better on 17 runs with a gap-block scheme (80.8) than 16 zone-oriented runs (63.2).

Newsome is well aware of their various strengths: He called the combination of personnel and play-calling "a balance."

"There's definitely different guys with certain skill sets and we try to put them in position to showcase those skills," Newsome said Wednesday. "But at the same time you've got to keep them honest, so when the same guy's in, it's not always this or it's not always this. ... But I think they're all capable of doing everything."

"They," thus far, has largely been Barner (71 snaps), Loveland (58 snaps) and Bredeson (41 snaps).

However, Newsome said Matthew Hibner, who was out Week 1 and but returned Week 2 for eight snaps, will be in the rotation when healthy; another goal is to get sophomore Marlin Klein — who has run seven plays with one pass route in two games — on the field more this week as well.

It's more than Newsome's belief in his players' ability or that, as he said, they've "earned it" in practice. But it's because he saw what happened last season when Erick All went down with a back injury and he had to ask Luke Schoonmaker to shoulder the load.

"One thing I wanted to focus on this year, not playing those guys 70 plays a game like I did last year, something I didn't do very well," Newesome said. "I know I overloaded Schoony a little bit, and it caught up to him towards the end of the season.

"So, just focus on distributing those snaps and making sure we keep those guys healthy the entire year."

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football TEs feel 'a little bit disrespected' despite blocks