Michigan football film review, the offense vs. UNLV — what’s wrong with the run game?
Michigan handled UNLV, 35-7, dominating defensively and getting another elite performance from quarterback J.J. McCarthy. The junior was on point with his throws and outstanding again in play action, an area in which he’s been on point the last two years.
It started on play one against the Rebels, and once again, the pass protection was very good. The linebackers were running downhill at the snap, had to stop and turn on a dime and were scrambling — that allowed senior Blake Corum to leak out of the backfield uncovered for a 20-yard gain. Great play design to get the linebackers thinking. You’d hope that would open up the running game a bit more than it did — we’ll have more on that in a moment. But sophomore tight end did a great job on a linebacker coming from the slot to give McCarthy time to throw.
The first running play, a play later, the right side of the UNLV line pushes Trevor Keegan and Karsen Barnhart back two yards so Corum has no room to run. On second down, it appears someone misses an assignment and leaves the linebacker alone. Michigan sophomore receiver Tyler Morris easily finds a seam in the zone on third down and McCarthy has all day to throw against a three-man rush, and play action on first down gets the linebackers scrambling again on first down. To their credit, the Michigan play callers are not banging their heads into a wall trying to run the ball.
A much better start for the tight ends blocking this week. You can tell there was an emphasis on being more physical at the point of attack, and they were really good pass blocking on drive one. Max Bredeson created the pocket on the first down throw to Roman Wilson. Analyst Gary Danielson made a great point — they are throwing more out of running formations this year, maybe by necessity. But when you have an elite quarterback, that’s hard to stop.
Michigan grad Cornelius Johnson has been hit and miss as a blocker so far. He needs to clean it up. An end around with Loveland would have worked had he held his block, but the corner beat Johnson across his face for a three-yard loss. Great push, though, on two running plays to finish the drive. Encouraging.
Michigan continued to struggle to run the ball in the first quarter. Part of it is they’re just not getting push on the left side. Corum or junior Donovan Edwards are forced to make their first cut a few yards behind the line of scrimmage. But McCarthy — elite. The left side of the line is clunky, at best, in picking up a twist, but the junior is so aware he sees it and steps up at the threat of leakage and finds Morris for a first down.
First designed run to the right, right tackle Myles Hinton obliterates his guy and pushes him 10 yards downfield on a zone play to open room for Corum and a nice run. Great call on the quarterback keeper to get inside the five, and a great seal block from Bredeson, who played really well. We still want to see McCarthy get out of bounds.
On the “one block away” talk — no more apparent than midway through the second quarter. Edwards has a seam and might score from around the 22, but Barnhart is slow getting to the linebacker. He gets Edwards by his feet, or No. 7 scores. Instead, it’s a 1-yard gain. Michigan is stopped after two more failed run plays, including a fourth and two.
And that’s where the shortened game comes into play. U-M has dominated but is only up 14-0 with 4:34 remaining in the first half. UNLV could have been in it with one drive — instead, the defense forces a punt, and the Rebels make it too easy for McCarthy. A great call on a quarterback draw sets up a score, but three-man rush and soft zone (sometimes four-man, but not very often) — it was like target practice, and McCarthy was on the money. His sideline throw through traffic to Johnson was a next-level pass that shows why some now have him as a first-round pick.
One of the few times UNLV does blitz, on a third and three on the first drive of the third quarter, McCarthy throws into the helmet of the unblocked blitzer on an attempted slant. One of the few bad offensive pass plays on the day. On another, the second drive, McCarthy showed his pocket presence again on the 47-yard strike to Roman Wilson for a score. Keegan got beat — fortunately, center Drake Nugent got run over and the lineman who did it took out Keegan’s guy, too. That allowed McCarthy to step up and throw a bullet on the numbers.
Nice push from the right side of the Michigan offensive line on run plays in the third quarter, with senior AJ Barner also doing some work. Hinton was bullying people in the run game … you can see the potential. As for the back-ups — Giovanni El-Hadi is still good at left guard. We’d like to see him in on a few more plays when it matters, in fact. But Michigan went deep into the bench in the fourth quarter, and not much can be gleaned (other than Davis Warren’s terrible interception, which just can’t happen).
Overall … the Michigan pass blocking remains way ahead of the run blocking, but it’s not one thing. The tight ends were very good blocking, a huge step up from last week. McCarthy is elite, but UNLV made it pretty easy for him. It’s going to be interesting to see how the offense fares against defenses that try to play them straight up and against more man coverage.
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