4B — April 22, 2019
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
It was easy to be skeptical a
month ago. Jim Harbaugh has
adapted, but he has never given
up control, at least not in this way.
Michigan’s offense has always
been his, and before that, so was
the 49ers’, Stanford’s and the
University of San Diego’s. Hiring
Josh Gattis to be his offensive
coordinator was one thing. Letting
him coordinate the offense was,
entirely, another.
Still,
that’s
exactly
what
Harbaugh committed to doing.
“He’s
going
to
coordinate
the offense and call the plays,”
Harbaugh said on March 18, when
asked exactly what it meant to give
Gattis the keys to the offense. “And
that’s what that means.”
And, at least through spring
ball, that’s what it has been.
After 15 practices, about 90
percent of Gattis’ offense has been
installed, he said Friday afternoon.
That offense, entirely, belongs to
Gattis.
“(Harbaugh)
hasn’t
been
involved at all,” Gattis said. “He
hasn’t stepped in.”
With the offense run to Gattis’
liking, it took three or four
practices into the spring before
Michigan had things down. The
new elements — run-pass options,
no-huddle and the like — weren’t
all too hard to pick up, according to
most players after the spring game.
The hard part, Gattis said, was
going against Michigan’s defense
every day in practice.
“You look at the average defense,
you gotta go in throughout the year
and they’re gonna be a four-down,
they’re gonna be a static front in
static coverage,” Gattis said. “Our
defense presents a number of
different challenges. So once we
were able to able to apply our roles
and they were able to learn the
installs and then learn the rules
going against our defense, you were
able to see a lot of successful plays
happen from that standpoint.”
As defensive coordinator Don
Brown pointed out just after Gattis
finished talking, the Wolverines
are a package defense. There’s
little trickery going on — they’re
going to play man coverage and
dare you to beat them. And with
90 percent of the offense installed,
the other 10 will be determined, in
part, by what doesn’t work against
Michigan’s defense.
Otherwise,
it’s
formations
Gattis wants to add and things he
wants to build on that have yet to
be taught.
“One of the things to our
advantage in this offense is the
flexibility,”
Gattis
said.
“This
offense is what I call like a mutt of
a dog. It’s got — it’s the pretty dog
walking down the road and you’re
trying to figure out, what kind of
dog is it? And for us, we do a little
bit of everything.”
At one point, as Gattis extolled
his belief in the offense, Brown
was standing about 20 feet to the
side, behind a secretary’s desk. He
was leaning down, arms crossed
and eyes trained forward, out the
door — a picture of intensity.
As his defense has sharpened
Gattis this spring, so too has Gattis’
offense sharpened him.
“I think coach Gattis has done
a great job of, got those guys going
fast,” Brown said. “Which, that
certainly helps us. … You better
get up to speed, be running with
a sense of urgency to get lined up
and all those things. So, I think that
part of it’s been really tremendous
for us.”
And where is Harbaugh in all of
this?
“He’s the CEO,” Brown said.
“He’s running the program.”
That, according to Brown,
means maximizing repetitions,
keeping everyone on their toes
and managing the bigger picture.
It doesn’t include the thing
Harbaugh has built his career on —
running the offense.
During the spring game, Gattis
called all the plays, and not off a
script. Gattis doesn’t need one, he
said, because this is his offense,
and he knows what to do and
when. This is his show.
“A lot of people have put a lot of
questions and comments out there
in the spring,” Gattis said. “This is
a sign of what great head coaches
do. They’re willing to change.”
For now, Harbaugh has done
just that.
While Don Brown spoke to
the media in Schembechler Hall
on Friday afternoon, senior
linebacker
Khaleke
Hudson
walked down a hallway about
20 yards over Brown’s shoulder.
As Hudson began to walk out
the door and onto State Street,
he paused, flashed a smile and
pointed at Brown, bestowing a
gesture of “You the man” on his
defensive coordinator.
This is, after all, how just
about everybody inside these
halls feels about Brown. And
it’s why — after losing eight
defensive starters from a year
ago — Michigan has no shortage
of confidence in its defense.
“When you look at coach
Brown’s track record, I would
argue he’s the best defensive
coordinator in the country,”
said
offensive
coordinator
Josh Gattis. “He’s constantly
produced top defenses year in
and year out, no matter where
he’s been.”
Regardless of the man in
charge, losing eight starters,
including all four along the
defensive line, poses a daunting
challenge.
Brown,
though,
has been through this before.
“(After) last season was really
like a picnic (compared to)
after the ‘16 season, in terms
of changing guys,” he said.
And like it did then, Brown’s
adjustment has come down to
finding schemes that work with
his new personnel.
Solidifying schemes is even
more important in Brown’s
defense than in most. Gattis,
in his first month practicing
against
Brown’s
defense,
said the toughest challenge
his offense faces every day
in
practice
is
that
the
Wolverines
don’t
just
run
their
base defense,
instead
alternating
between three
and
four-
down
fronts
and displaying
an
array
of
blitz packages, even in spring
practices.
That ability to mix and match
packages
to
his
personnel,
though,
has
helped
Brown
mitigate the impact felt by
Michigan’s losses from a year
ago.
“I think this is gonna be an
interesting group defensively,”
Brown said. “We may be a little
different, because we may have
more guys like, ‘This guy’s good
at this, that guy’s good at that.’
So you might have to piece it in
a little bit like that, but that’s
the fun part.”
In
the
linebacker
corps
—
a
group
Brown
called
“unbelievable”
on
Friday
despite losing Devin Bush to
the NFL Draft — mixing and
matching is less of an option, as
Brown said he wants to find his
top three and stick to them in
most situations. But in the front
four, the Wolverines will have
to be more flexible than they
were last year, when Rashan
Gary
and
Chase
Winovich
could slot in at defensive end on
nearly every down.
Gary’s
midseason
injury,
though, provided a peak of
what could lie ahead this fall, at
least at one defensive end spot.
“We found out last year,
through
injury,”
Brown
said, “that we were able to,
between (junior defensive end
Josh Uche) and (sophomore
defensive end Kwity Paye),
we’ve got first, second-down
production out of Kwity and
third-down production out of
Josh, which was
an exciting thing
for us.”
This
year,
those
types
of
splits will become
more
common,
with Bryan Mone
and
Lawrence
Marshall,
Michigan’s
two
interior
starters
for much of last
year, also gone. Beyond Uche
and Paye, Brown remained
mum on exactly what those
splits will be, but Carlo Kemp,
Michael
Dwumfour,
Mazi
Smith, David Ojabo, Donovan
Jeter, Aidan Hutchinson and
Ben Mason were all listed by
Brown on Friday as part of
the competition for snaps —
potentially a deeper group than
last year’s, even if it lacks the
first-round edge-rushing talent
of Gary and Winovich.
But whatever the personnel
combinations,
Michigan’s
confidence
in
its
defense
remains as persistent as ever.
And for that, it has one man to
thank.
“I
remember
all
the
headaches coach Brown would
present
when
you
game-
planned against him,” Gattis
said. “Imagine doing that for 15
(spring) practices.”
THEO MACKIE
Daily Sports Writer
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
Spring forward
With spring practice ending, Josh Gattis keeps the reins on Michigan’s offense as the team stays confident on defense
ERIN KIRKLAND/Daily
Offensive coordinator Josh Gattis has had full control over Michigan’s offense, as Jim Harbaugh said he would.
(Brown has)
constantly
produced top
defenses.
Wolverines place third in NCAA semifinals
Throughout the meet, Bev
Plocki heard people talking about
the first session of the NCAA
Championship semifinals.
The Gauntlet was what they
called it. There were other names
the Michigan coach heard, but
The Gauntlet resonated with her.
It couldn’t have been more
fitting to describe what the No.
7 Michigan women’s gymnastics
team faced in attempts to make
the NCAA Championship final.
The Wolverines would have
to finish top two — the finals
advancement cutoff — in a field
with No. 2 UCLA, No. 4 LSU and
No. 6 Utah. Instead, they settled
for a third place finish, scoring
197.2000.
And The Gauntlet was only
part of the struggle they faced.
All season, Michigan battled
adversity, and its last week of the
season served the team a heaping
pile of it — on the final day of
practice, senior Emma McLean
broke her hand. McLean played a
pivotal role in both the vault and
floor lineups, and without her,
if the Wolverines wanted a shot
at the championship, someone
would have to step up.
“That was a little emotional
on our last day of practice,” said
senior Olivia Karas. “To watch
my best friend go down and know
that was the end of her career.
That was pretty hard for me.”
Opening the meet on bars, that
call was answered. Michigan’s
lineup featured all four members
of the freshman class — Abby
Brenner, Abby Heiskell, Maddie
Mariani and Natalie Wojcik —
and all four members contributed
scores at or above a 9.8000. When
Karas stepped up to the bars,
she was calm and confident. She
swung through the routine with
ease and stuck her double pike
landing receiving the highest
score of the rotation. Altogether
the Wolverines earned a 49.300
— and a spot in second place.
“They’re
amazing
and
incredible,” Plocki said. “I said
to the freshmen, ‘You guys this is
the beginning of something really
special.’ They have contributed at
such an incredible level. I’m so
excited about how they’ve done.”
Headed to the balance beam,
the Wolverines hoped to continue
their streak of clean routines.
Sophomore Lauren Farley led
off and performed a routine that
had a few wobbles and balance
checks. Farley spent the week
leading up to nationals in a boot
with a foot injury. She earned
a 9.7250. After four polished
routines that all scored in the
9.8000 range, the only gymnast
left was breakout star Wojcik.
From start to finish, Wojcik’s
routine was nearly flawless. She
flipped. She jumped. She stuck
her landing. Her score flashed
— a 9.9500 — and Wojcik’s name
topped the beam leaderboard.
When both semifinal sessions
concluded, she was crowned the
NCAA national champion on
beam.
The solid beam rotation kept
Michigan in second place, but
competition was closing in on
the Wolverines. They were less
than a tenth of a point behind
first-place UCLA, and third-place
LSU was only .0125 points behind
them.
Headed
to
floor
without
McLean, Heiskell opened the
rotation. The freshman tumbled
her way through the routine
and started Michigan off strong
with a 9.8375. Next up was junior
Maddy Osman. During her second
tumbling pass, Osman bounced
out of bounds and received an
automatic one-tenth deduction.
Her score was a 9.6500.
The Wolverines turned to
Brenner, who danced, tumbled
and entertained the crowd on her
way to a 9.8500. Wojcik and Karas
anchored the lineup, and both
performed routines filled with
personality and clean tumbling.
Despite ending the rotation with
a 9.9000 from Wojcik, a 9.9250
from Karas and the dropping of
Osman’s score, Michigan had
slipped into third place.
“Our whole theme, everything
we talked about in our team
meeting last night, and even
leading into competition was
all about the fact that I wanted
them to have fun,” Plocki said. “I
wanted them to not pay attention
to what anyone else was doing. I
wanted them to compete for each
other and stay in the moment and
enjoy every moment.”
Just half a tenth behind second-
place LSU, the Wolverines’ last
chance to earn a qualifying spot
came down to the apparatus that
has been their Achilles heel all
season — the vault.
Michigan
called
upon
its
freshman class to fill McLean’s
shoes.
Heiskell
started
the
rotation off with her Yurchenko
full and after a small hop on the
landing, earned a 9.8000. The
only stuck landing of the rotation
came from sophomore Anne
Maxim. Her Tsukahara received
the highest score of the rotation
for the Wolverines — a 9.8625.
Wojcik, Brenner and Karas
couldn’t hold onto the stuck
landings, and, like Heiskell, took
small hops. When the scores
settled, Michigan finished in
third place with a score of 197.200
— only .163 behind the Tigers.
Four
Wolverine
gymnasts
earned All-American honors —
Karas, Wojcik, Osman and Funk.
Karas led the group with four,
earning first team honors on the
uneven bars and floor and second
team honors on beam and in the
all-around.
“The people that we were
competing
against,
I
mean
nobody
anticipated
us
to
advance,”
Plocki
said.
“We
were in second place after two
events, and only down by a half
a tenth after three and it just so
happened that we ended on vault
which is probably our event that
we’re most challenged on.
“What this team was able to
do and the pieces we picked up
and the fight and determination
and grit that they had, I’m
incredibly proud of what we’ve
accomplished.”
MOLLY SHEA
Daily Sports Writer
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Freshman Natalie Wojcik scored a 9.9500 on the balance beam as Michigan finished in third place at NCAA semifinals.
‘M’ finishes seventh
Elodie Van Dievoet teed off
Sunday morning knowing that
it could be her last time as a
Wolverine.
The Michigan women’s golf
team was a long shot to make the
NCAA Tournament, needing to
win the Big Ten Championships
to do so. But Van Dievoet still had
a chance to finish her career on a
high note.
Two years ago at the very same
location — TPC River’s Bend in
Maineville, Ohio — Van Dievoet
secured her place in the record
books by earning the program’s
first-ever individual conference
title. On Friday and Sunday, she
shot a 142 for two under par and
finished tied for fifth.
“She’s got a lot of good, positive
memories from this place and
loves playing here,” said Michigan
coach Jan Dowling. “ … She went
into this tournament with the
possibility that this is her last
tournament ever for Michigan
women’s golf. So that’s kind of a
tough place to be and really proud
of her to kinda get really tough
— and she had a low score — and
finish with a bang. So we’re proud
of her round today. It showed
character.”
Led by Van Dievoet and
freshman Ashley Lau — who shot
a 145 to finish tied for 11th — the
Wolverines
finished
seventh
of 14 teams with a total of 583,
seven over par, in the weather-
shortened tournament, ultimately
falling short of the finish required
to qualify for NCAA Regionals.
On Friday, cold and rainy
conditions
slowed
everything
down, with all teams at least
three over par. Michigan sat tied
for sixth at the end of the day, just
seven shots behind first-place
Illinois.
But Saturday, it was colder
and rainier, rendering the course
unplayable.
The
Wolverines
waited and waited as tee times
were pushed back further and
further, playing cards and doing
homework to pass the time.
Ultimately, the second round
was canceled altogether, and
Michigan instead got in some
practice time before dinner with
the players’ families.
While the canceled second
round provided some advantage
in that it meant fewer holes for
a team like the Fighting Illini to
gain separation, it was also one
fewer round in the Wolverines’
season.
“It’s not ideal,” Dowling said.
“We want to be playing 54 holes,
but that was the scenario that was
given to us. So we tried to make
the most of it.”
The cancellation did afford
Michigan one thing. It spurred
the Wolverines to adopt an
aggressive,
chase-down-the-
leaders mindset Sunday, knowing
that there was only one day to
play catch up, instead of two.
Ultimately,
it
made
little
difference for the team as a whole,
which finished three under par
on Sunday to cement its spot in
the middle of the pack. But for
Van Dievoet, it paid off.
Sitting in just 14th on Friday,
Van Dievoet came out Sunday
and birdied five of 18 holes. She
crept up the leaderboard with
each passing turn, at one point
sitting in third before a bogey on
the 16th hole landed her just off
the podium. She shot a 68 in the
second round, the third-lowest
score of the day.
Junior
Alisa
Snyder
and
freshman Sophia Trombetta also
improved their standings Sunday.
Snyder shot a 73 to finish four over
par for the weekend, good enough
for
24th
place.
Trombetta,
meanwhile, shot a 72 to shoot up
from 41st after one day to 33rd
after two.
Though
Trombetta
and
Snyder punched above their
weights, what ultimately held
the Wolverines back was the
struggles of sophomore Ashley
Kim. Kim, who recorded the
second-lowest score in program
history as a freshman, never
got into a groove, hitting a few
loose iron shots and putting well
below her standards. She shot 76
on Friday and 77 on Sunday and
tied for 56th, the lowest-placing
Michigan golfer.
WOMEN’S GOLF
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer
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