I'm surprised Michigan passed more often than Alabama or Auburn in 2023
But... but...JJ... can't...pass....
Obviously we were run heavy but we also had large leads where we didn't need to pass.
Shhh, the national narrative was that Michigan could only pound the rock - just like the glory days of Bo / 3 yards and a cloud of dust. That's what Michigan is and will always be! Let's not let little details like JJ was an excellent passer and we blew out so many teams that we didn't need to pass, disrupt this narrative.
Hey haters, what round the JJ go in the draft? 😂
First round, nine picks too late. Chicago will end up regretting passing on him. They potentially could of come out of this draft with JJ, any receiver they wanted and a boatload of additional picks.
Glad they didn't get all that.
To be fair, Auburn had Payton Thorne.
Wasn't it Thorne who beat us a few years ago? Yah we got hosed with that call, but seems silly to me to diss a good player they had.
That game was mostly Kenneth Walker
Says it all. Walker (and tempo) beat us in that game. Didn't have much to do with Thorne.
Walker: 23/197 for an 8.6 avg and 5 TD
Thorne: 19/30 for 196, 0 TD/2 INT for a 48.4 QBR
And it still took stupid officiating shenanigans to beat us that day.
That was close to JT was short with respect to official highway robbery
Walker was a monster, but we still should've won that game. The biggest (and obvious) missed call was that fumble in the end zone and recovered by Hutch for TD. Big Ten admitted they "fumbled" that call. The ref blew it. Such BS.
The game was Official Reviews- MSU seven and Michigan Zero.
The statistical improbability is extraordinarily suspect.
It might have been due to injury but Thorne wasn’t nearly the player he used to be the past few years.
No, Thorne played a pretty poor game. Kenneth Walker beat us.
Is this supposed to be plays that are designed as run or pass or plays that RESULT in run/pass? Because my hunch is that Auburn and Bama had many more plays that ended up in scrambles because of their mobile QBs and bad O-lines, which skews the run/pass ratio towards run even though they were "called" as pass plays
^ This. ...and wasn't the knock on Milroe that he wasn't a great passer?
That’s not true!!!! McCarthy is only good at handing the ball off!!!!
Sports reporters (and in fact many people) never let facts get in the way of a good narrative. The 32 straight runs vs. Penn State colored their entire view of the whole season.
...and they were spectacular.
Another fact is that jj only topped 150 yards once in the last six games. I'm not implying that means he isn't a great qb, and there weren't extenuating circumstances, but if we're talking facts that's a pretty big one that covers basically half of a season.
Anyone who watched college football would not be surprised by that.
Auburn had Payton Thorne and might as well have run the veer. Alabama had Milroe, who was much better on the ground than through the air.
Beat me to the same observation, Mr. Hintz. OTOH, we had a QB who could deliver the ball. Consider the MgoBlog Radio shows from early in the season, where they made a short section of the offensive review going through each of JJ's (very few) incompletions.
That’s kinda my point though. We had an efficient passer while those teams did not or had guys with skillsets more suited to other areas like Milroe on the ground. We still ranked 117th in % of pass plays, which is obviously one of the lowest in the country.
Anyone who followed college football closely enough would have seen that Auburn and Bama were very run-centric teams with mobile QBs. Auburn’s QBs ran for over 700 yards and Bama’s ran for over 600, and neither team had what you would consider an efficient passer. Auburn was borderline anemic through the air and Milroe was good enough that his legs made him a legitimate QB.
So it’s not surprising we threw more than them, it’s surprising it was so close to begin with
Bama mighta wanted to try 1 more pass.
We are behind Iowa, though
And that's despite the fact that we demolished most of our opponents, so that JJ barely played a 4th-quarter snap in the first two months of the season.
We weren't as effective, overall, running the ball in 2023 as in the previous two years. Blake didn't look 100% back until the Rose Bowl and Donovan, the national title game. JJ had to move the chains with his arm quite a bit on 3rd downs. He just usually did it for 3 quarters per game instead of 4.
Didn't have to pass the ball to move the chains in the second half against PSU. /Chortles, then chortles again
I mean. Michigan is 117 on that list. Certainly one of the most run heavy teams in the NCAA. It worked and it was glorious but facts are facts. Regardless of where two random SEC schools are on that list. Peyton Thorne is not going to be first round draft pick. Milroe probably won’t either unless he gets better at passing.
We were definitely a run first team, to the extent that 60% of our plays were run plays. I think the narrative that we are a run team comes from the fact that before jj we hadn’t had a qb drafted for like 8 or 9 years and the last qb went late in the draft. Before that the last qb drafted to play qb in the nfl was Henne 16 years ago. Bama had prolific passing offenses very recently and nobody gives a shit about Auburn anyway.
The narrative is lazy and propagated by our rivals but at the same time before recently our track record w the passing game probably contributed.
Wait but i thought we all complained about not passing enough even though we won the national championship on an undefeated season dont we all agree the coaches should have passed more????
117th out of 133, this is not really a flex and doesn't refute the fact that Michigan was clearly not a pass first team.
The fact is that when we did pass, we were incredibly good at it.
It's cute but WR recruiting is going against us due to the narrative that is working unfortunately.
I love that the service academies are all 131-133. Navy(29%), Army(24.27%), and Air Force(14.56%!!!!) #neverscheduleaserviceacademy