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.