Michigan’s second straight loss has pushed the Wolverines into the bye week with more questions than comfort, and the biggest one is staring right at the offense.
The defense is doing its part. Michigan sits sixth nationally in total defense, and Jay Hill has kept that side of the ball in strong shape. But the offense has been the source of the noise all season, and the Minnesota game only made that harder to ignore.
Joel Klatt didn’t mince words while calling the game, and he zeroed in on what he sees as the central issue: the system and the roster don’t line up.
"And on the offensive side, I see massive problems," Klatt said. "All right, let me just start with - I believe that there is a a fit problem between the scheme and the players.
And because there is a fit problem between the scheme and the players, that becomes a coach's problem. So the problem now for Michigan lies in all three categories.
"Because it's both scheme and players, it becomes a coach's problem. And the only way forward is to adjust either the scheme or the players."
That criticism lands on Jason Beck, whose track record in the run game is the reason expectations followed him to Ann Arbor. At New Mexico and Utah, Beck’s offense finished with the No. 2 rushing attack in college football. Through five weeks at Michigan, though, the Wolverines are sitting at No. 100 on the ground.
The disconnect, as Klatt sees it, is simple: Beck is trying to make Michigan fit a style that looks more like what worked at Utah than what this roster was built to do. Michigan has long been a downhill team, but this offense has leaned into a more horizontal approach, trying to stretch things east-to-west and create explosion that way.
That’s a big shift for a roster mostly recruited by Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore. There are only a few players in Ann Arbor who arrived with Kyle Whittingham and Jason Beck, and Klatt pointed out that the Utah version of the offense was powered by different traits, including Devon Dampier at quarterback and athletic offensive linemen who could move with the play.
"You've got a scheme that goes back to the Utah where it was very successful and yet the Michigan players don't really fit that scheme," Klatt said. "You see Utah's offensive linemen were athletic and they played a lot of teams that they could overwhelm at the line of scrimmage.
"So now you've got these Michigan players, and this is a program that was built differently than what this offense is trying to do. They were more direct.
They were more downhill from the offensive line and the back field. And now they're trying to run this different style of offense that is a lot more horizontal."
After the loss to Minnesota, Whittingham said this is the biggest challenge he has faced in his 40 years of coaching. The job now goes beyond play design and game plans. It also means handling personalities and massive contracts, and the pressure that comes with both.
Whittingham signed up for that responsibility, and if Michigan is going to get this turned around, tough choices are coming. As Klatt framed it, the path forward is either changing the scheme or changing the players to match it.
Jordan Marshall was left without answers after the Minnesota loss, and Michigan now heads into the bye week trying to sort out the weak spots before Penn State comes to Ann Arbor in Week 7.
In Other News...
Michigan Offense Is Taking Heat From One Of Their Own
After Michigans loss to Minnesota, one of the programs own took aim at what he saw from the offense. Jake Butt, the former Wolverines tight end who now works as a Big Ten analyst, described the performance as poor and said the unit lacked effort, a blunt assessment that landed hard for a team already searching for answers.
The criticism comes with Michigan still sitting near the bottom of the national rankings in total offense and rushing yards through five games, a jarring place for a program built on physical play and run-game identity. Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham also weighed in, saying Michigan has to make tough decisions and real adjustments to get moving, including the possibility of a quarterback change, as the pressure to fix the offense keeps building. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan May Have Just Shown The Only Way To Stop The Slide
The red zone trip that led to Jordan Marshalls touchdown was one of the few clean moments Michigan had in a 20-14 loss to Minnesota, and it stood out because it looked like the kind of sequence the offense has been searching for all season. After a series of successful plays, the Wolverines finished the possession with the kind of execution that has too often been missing when drives get tight and the field shrinks.
For a team still trying to stop the slide, that single trip offered a small but useful reminder of what works. Michigan did not get many chances near the goal line, but when it finally did, the drive suggested there is at least a blueprint there, even if the larger picture around it remains discouraging. [Read more 🡒]
Michigans Offense Has Become A Bigger Problem Than Fans Feared
Michigans latest setback in Minneapolis was about more than just another loss. The 20-14 defeat to Minnesota dropped the Wolverines to 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the Big Ten, and it came with the kind of offensive frustration that can linger long after the final whistle. The ground game never really got going, the quarterback play was uneven, and the tight end production never gave the offense the dependable middle of the field presence it needed.
Pro Football Focus grades backed up what the eye test suggested, with wide receiver JJ Buchanan, center Jake Guarnera and right tackle Blake Frazier emerging as the top offensive performers. Beyond them, though, the chart was thin, and Zack Marshalls low grade at tight end reflected how few answers Michigan had in the passing game and around the line of scrimmage. For a team already staring at an 0-2 Big Ten start, the bigger concern now is whether theres a fix here or just a longer search for one. [Read more 🡒]