8 — Thursday, September 26, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

J

osh Gattis told his players a 
story this week.
He recalled a time, three 
years ago, when his Penn State 
group sputtered out of the gate. 
The Nittany Lions lost by three 
to Pittsburgh early in the year, 
before traveling on the road and 
getting shellacked by Michigan, 
49-10. They 
took that 
adversity and 
responded, 
ripping off 
nine straight 
wins en route 
to a Big Ten 
title and a 
Rose Bowl 
appearance.
The under-
lying parallels 
to this Wolverines group were 
clear: a talented team, a scuffle 
out of the gate, a sobering road 
loss, a moment of reflection. It is 
possible, the thinking goes, for 
this team to respond and make 
something of this year.
“Sometimes adversity is some-
thing that you never want to 
use to bond your guys together,” 
Gattis said Wednesday, “but it’s 
something that forms a bond.”
For Josh Gattis, crucially, that 
is where the 2016 Penn State 
parallels diverge. He is not a 
mere wide receivers coach. This 
is his offense. It has been from 
the moment he took the job. And 
with that the responsibility of its 
failures. 
“Being the guy that’s in 
charge, I hurt when I’m not able 
to see those guys have that suc-
cess,” Gattis said. “I take it very 
personal just as (the players) take 
it personal.”
After three weeks, Gattis’ 
offense, expected to bring the 
dawn of a new era, has appeared 
to be some combination of ill-
conceived and ill-prepared. The 
unit showed signs of vertical 
ability against Middle Tennessee 
State, but ultimately struggled to 
sustain consistency throughout 
the game. Against Army, the 

offense was suddenly devoid of 
the creativity it promised, ham-
mering inside zone into oblivion. 
Last week against Wisconsin, 
the Wolverines failed to convert 
a third down for the first time 
since at least 1995. Through 
three weeks, Michigan is 116th 
of 130 teams in yards gained, 91st 
in points and 104th in offensive 
efficiency, according to ESPN. 
Nine turnovers haven’t helped, 
either.
But if you’ve watched any 
significant portion of the Wol-
verines’ first three games, you 
don’t need that empirical data to 
parse through what’s painfully 
obvious: This offense has been 
a mess.
The promised spread has 
turned into muddled ineptitude. 
The impending RPO cascade has 
bewildered its signal-caller, Shea 
Patterson, not to mention imper-
iled his health. All the while, the 
most talented weapons on the 
offense have been indisputably 
underutilized. To an untrained 
eye, Gattis appears to have out-
smarted himself. The result is a 
unit that, even its own players 
say, has no discernible identity. 
Sometimes a cute hashtag is 
just that.
And now, Gattis faces a 
moment of truth — a point of 
inflection, perhaps. A dose of 
reality, no doubt. Asked Tuesday 
whether anything has taken him 
by surprise in his first few weeks 
as an offensive coordinator, he 
offered a rhetorical chuckle.
“A lot,” Gattis said.
If the bye week hadn’t already 
done so, the 35-14 drubbing at 
Wisconsin on Saturday poured 
cold water on the hype. Monday, 
Gattis put together a 100-play 
cut-up, both for his own viewing 
and ultimately to pass along to 
players. It included every nega-
tive play the unit has accrued 
thus far. For each play, he 
showed his team what happens 
when it’s run correctly and what 
happens when it isn’t.
“For us, offensively, it’s a 

consistency deal,” Gattis said. 
“There hasn’t been a lot thrown 
at them that they haven’t pre-
viously had experience with. 
There’s some things that we’re 
still carrying over from last 
year.”
On Monday, Michigan coach 
Jim Harbaugh did not waver on 
his faith in his new offensive 
play-caller. It’s clear, for what-
ever it’s worth, that Gattis hasn’t 
lost faith in himself, either. 
There is a learning curve to 
all of this — calling plays, direct-
ing an offense — that Gattis 
never had the luxury to adjust 
to. When you’re pegged as the 
savior of a woebegone unit, the 
vessel through which this pro-
gram intended to enter the mod-
ern era, that pressure mounts 
quickly.
Still, even the most staunch 
pessimists couldn’t have seen 
that breaking point come this 
early.
To Gattis’ credit, he stood in 
front of the media Wednesday 
and answered every question. He 
didn’t deflect. Didn’t excuse any-
thing. He assumed the blame, 
and assured they’d turn things 
around. At this point, it would 
be as unwise to relinquish hope 
in Gattis as it would to assume a 
breakthrough is imminent.
Sure, this team could be a 
redux of 2016 Penn State. It 
could just as easily mirror the 
2017 Michigan team that went 
8-5, a low point of the Harbaugh 
era.
“When you go through the 
pressure situation, it only makes 
you tighter,” Gattis said. “I 
believe in every single one of our 
players.”
The real question now, 
though, is whether those players 
feel the same about him. Because 
if they don’t, this house of cards 
will come tumbling down sooner 
than later.

Marcovitch can be reached 

at maxmarco@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @Max_Marcovitch.

A moment of truth for Gattis

Amid questions, Gattis keeps faith

At times when Josh Gattis spoke 
on Wednesday, it seemed his every 
other word was “adversity.” Over 22 
minutes, he used the word nearly 
15 times. During one 25-second 
stretch, he used it four times.
It was when he got asked if there 
were any surprises over his first 
three weeks.
And when you come in the way 
Gattis did as Michigan’s offensive 
coordinator 
and 
perform 
the 
way he has — overpromising and 
underdelivering 
through 
three 
grueling weeks of offensive football 
— what else is there to do besides 
fall back on the language of cliches 
and overcoming challenges?
“We ran what we wanted to run,” 
Gattis said. “The thing is, we just 
didn’t capitalize on the plays that 
we had in front of us.”
This comes just a couple days 
after multiple offensive players 
brought up questions about identity, 
saying they were uncomfortable 
throwing the ball as many times as 
Michigan did on Saturday. A large 
portion of that likely isn’t what 
Gattis had planned — once the 
Badgers got out to a big lead, there 
was little choice but throw the ball 
— but it’s still hard to comport that 
statement from Gattis with what 
Jon Runyan Jr. said on Monday. 
“Once you get knocked back on 
our heels like that during the game, 
we kinda have to stray away from 
(the plan),” Runyan said. “… We 
were throwing the ball 42 times 
that game, which is something I 
haven’t seen at Michigan since I’ve 
been here.”
While the rest of the Wolverines 
are in the midst of an existential 
crisis 
post-Saturday’s 
35-14 
drubbing at the hands of Wisconsin, 
Gattis 
tried 
to 
convey 
some 
semblance of confidence. He took 
responsibility for the issues, but 
like he did after a disappointing 
performance against Army, he 
pointed to turnovers as the biggest 
part of the problem. He said 
Michigan left plays on the field. He 
stressed consistency.
He’s not wrong in any of that. 
The 
conversation 
surrounding 
Michigan right now would be 
drastically different if it hadn’t 

turned the ball over nine times in 
three games. Things would be a lot 
better if the Wolverines executed in 
games the same way they purport to 
do so in practice. Consistency folds 
into all of that — and so do injuries, 
as Gattis said his unit has yet to 
practice with all 11 starters.
But 
the 
questions 
outside 
the building have turned to the 
viability of the system itself. Senior 
quarterback Shea Patterson is 
averaging 7.0 yards per attempt, 
down a full yard from last season. 
The offensive line has struggled 
to open up holes in the run game. 
Junior receiver Nico Collins, who 
seemed destined to take a leap, 
has eight catches — most of little 
consequence — through three 
games, and has rarely been involved.
When Michigan reached third 
down on its first drive of the fourth 
quarter on Saturday, Collins ran 
straight past his man, into open 
space. Instead of hitting the open 
man downfield, Patterson threw to 
Ronnie Bell in double coverage, just 
short of the sticks. Collins threw his 
hands as the ball fell incomplete.
“I don’t think you can look 
out there and say one person was 
frustrated,” Gattis said. “I think 
all 
together, 
including 
myself, 
offensively, we were frustrated.”
Still, that doesn’t change what 
everyone can see. The receiving 
group as a whole — which figured to 
be a massive strength with Collins, 
Tarik Black and Donovan Peoples-
Jones, who returned from injury 
Saturday — has underwhelmed.
“We’re not where we need to be 
in that room,” Gattis said. “That 
falls on me.”
Doubtless, that wasn’t what 
Gattis envisioned himself saying 
to a room of reporters about his 
most talented position group a few 
days before a game against Rutgers 
that should be chalked up as an 
automatic win.
On Monday, Gattis put together 
tape of 100 plays — all the negative 
plays Michigan has had — and 
watched it with the players. Then 
he showed them how those plays 
would look when they worked.
But practice and film rooms, as 
Gattis has found out the hard way, 
is different from games.
And regardless of where that 
disparity comes from, it’s his to fix.

MAX

MARCOVITCH

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
BY THE NUMBERS
Michigan’s offense 
through three games 
under Josh Gattis

3.5

Yards per carry, down 
from 4.8 in 2018 and on 
pace to be the worst-ever 
mark Michigan has had 
with Jim Harbaugh as 
head coach by a margin 
of 0.7 yards.

35.9%

Michigan’s third-down 
conversion rate, including 
0-for-10 on Saturday 
against Wisconsin and 
good for 81st in the FBS. 
Last year, the Wolverines 
ranked seventh in the 
category at 48.39%.

9

Total number of 
Michigan turnovers 
through three games. 
The Wolverines’ -1.3 
turnover margin per 
game ranks 114th in 
the FBS.

104th
Michigan’s rank in 
offensive efficiency, 
per ESPN.com, down 
from 12th in 2018. 
The Wolverines are 
averaging 5.1 yards per 
play compared to 6.1 in 
2018.
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Offensive coordinator Josh Gattis must fix his unit’s problems after a 35-14 drubbing at the hands of Wisconsin.

