The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
7 — Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Sports
Joe Milton is not a subtle
quarterback.
He stands 6-foot-5 and
dominates the room, the
talent
evident
from
his
frame. He said two years ago
— before ever stepping on
the field at Michigan — that
he once threw a football 85
yards, and it felt believable.
The phrase “arm talent” was
made to describe someone of
his ilk.
Then there is the rest
of the package. Milton’s
completion percentage didn’t
rise above 50 throughout
his time in high school. He
throws with so much zip
that it’s a problem — he said
in the fall that his receivers
would leave the field with
dislocated fingers in high
school. Nearly every time
his name is mentioned, it is
said that he needs to work on
touch and accuracy. Those
two things generally don’t
threaten to derail the career
of someone with as much
talent as Milton before he
even starts a game, but it
remains to be seen whether
they will prevent him from
reaching his ceiling.
“There’s
different
ball
flights, different appropriate
throws,”
Michigan
coach
Jim
Harbaugh
said
last
season. “Not everything is
a line drive fastball. There’s
gotta be a lot of elevation …
to make a catchable ball for a
runner. Joe’s responded and
is really working on it. It’s
not an easy thing to do.”
All of this adds up to
Milton
being
perhaps
Michigan’s most interesting
player in a pivotal offseason
where it’s unclear when
the next practice will be
conducted. He’ll have the
chance to compete with
redshirt
junior
Dylan
McCaffrey for the starting
job, but comes in as the
underdog, as McCaffrey has
an extra year of experience
and has been ahead of Milton
on the depth chart for the
last two seasons. The lack of
spring practice, too, favors
the safer option — which is
decidedly McCaffrey.
Still,
Milton’s
ceiling
makes it impossible to count
him out.
The Daily went back and
analyzed each player’s 2019
season, focusing on Milton
in this piece.
What
we’ve
seen
is
better than what we’ve
heard
We haven’t seen much.
Milton
has
11
passing
attempts and 12 rushing
attempts over eight games
in two years of college. Two
of his three spring games
have been canceled — one for
weather and this year’s over
COVID-19 concerns — and
the one in which he played
was more an open practice
than
an
actual
game.
Anything
we
extrapolate
from Milton’s tape should be
taken with a grain of salt.
Still, it’s easy to hear about
Milton’s
accuracy
issues,
then conjure up an image
of Christian Hackenberg-
lite, players on the sideline
ducking for cover because the
throws are so wild. Though
no one with Michigan has
ever spoken negatively about
Milton
in
public,
praise
usually comes in a guarded
tone when asked about him.
Milton’s own availabilities
have the same tone — it’s
about what he’s working
on more than what he’s
done. The operative tense
is the future, the allure is
possibility.
When asked how he’d
improved at the Citrus Bowl,
Milton said, “Touch, not
throwing the ball too hard
at people. And putting it over
the top so people can go get
it instead of just throwing it
and watching people run full
speed.”
In game reps, though,
we’ve seen him display that
touch. When Milton got
in during garbage time of
Michigan’s win over Rutgers,
he piloted a touchdown drive
with deft control. Here, he
stands in the pocket, sees
Giles Jackson come open on
a corner route and lofts one
right into his path.
In last year’s spring game,
he made what’s probably
the best throw we’ve seen
from him at Michigan. With
Erick All darting down the
sideline with a defender
draped on him, Milton is
forced to throw into a tight
window of space, navigating
the defender, All and the
boundary.
He
drops
it
perfectly into that window,
finding a spot where only All
can catch it, with no worries
about getting his feet down
inbounds.
These are the kinds of
throws that make Milton’s
ceiling
worth
talking
about. Not many college
quarterbacks can do things
like that. Fewer still can do
it consistently, and based off
both the limited reps we’ve
seen and everything that’s
been said about Milton, he
isn’t in that category yet.
He’s not a developed
product
As
far
as
Milton’s
chances of starting in the
fall go, rendering the above
statement false is the most
important thing he can do.
Michigan, despite a relative
lack of hype, is a team that
can win 10 or more games
in 2020 if it gets steady
quarterback
play.
The
Wolverines are deep at skill
positions, they’re in year
two of Josh Gattis’ offense
and have the offensive line
depth to withstand turnover.
Starting someone with as
much variability as Milton is
a pretty serious risk.
That’s
not
just
a
commentary on accuracy.
In this play from last year’s
spring game, Milton’s pocket
presence isn’t up to snuff.
Because of the camera angle,
we can’t tell if any of his
receivers are open, but this
is a spot where Milton needs
to sense the pressure and get
out of the pocket. Instead,
he seems not to notice
the pocket collapsing as
linebacker Jordan Glasgow
drives
offensive
lineman
Chuck Filiaga into him.
But the accuracy remains a
problem. In the spring game,
Milton
badly
overthrew
open receivers twice, both
times preventing a potential
explosive play.
Around Michigan football,
this year’s mid-offseason lull
carries a different feel than
the past two. For one, 2018 and
2019 both had a spring season,
giving
the
Wolverines
15
practices to answer questions
slightly less pressing than
“Will we play the season?” But
there was also an entrenched
starter at quarterback, even if
Jim Harbaugh wouldn’t admit
it.
Now, with Shea Patterson
graduated, there’s a gaping
hole in the middle of a
Michigan offense that returns
many
of
its
surrounding
playmakers. At the center of
the competition to fill that
void are redshirt junior Dylan
McCaffrey
and
redshirt
sophomore Joe Milton.
While McCaffrey possesses
an extra year of experience
and three times as many pass
attempts in relief of Patterson
— despite missing time in
both the past two seasons
due to injury — Milton’s
generational arm talent gives
him
a
tantalizing
ceiling
that Harbaugh and offensive
coordinator Josh Gattis will
attempt to harness in 2020.
But without a spring season
to separate the two, all we
have is the tape, consisting of
35 pass attempts and 23 rush
attempts for McCaffrey, and
11 pass attempts and 12 rush
attempts for Milton.
The Daily went back and
analyzed each player’s play in
2019, focusing on McCaffrey
in this piece.
McCaffrey
operates
excellently in Gattis’s read-
heavy offense
This was evident from
the first snap of McCaffrey’s
season — a 10-yard carry
against
Middle
Tennessee
State. (He was in as a receiver a
few drives earlier, but one can
only assume Gattis has burned
that page of his playbook.)
McCaffrey’s speed has been
widely recited as his biggest
advantage over Patterson, but
Patterson was plenty mobile
when he got the ball in space.
His biggest problem was an
inability to make the correct
reads on the zone reads that
make up the bulk of Gattis’s
run game — especially during
the first half of the season,
when he was hampered by an
oblique injury.
In 2019, that wasn’t a
problem for McCaffrey. He
repeatedly made the correct
reads
in
the
run
game,
whether on speed options or
zone reads, helping himself to
67 yards on 13 carries on the
season while also opening up
lanes for Michigan’s running
backs by keeping defenses
honest.
Here, McCaffrey keeps his
eyes on the defense as Ben
VanSumeren comes to take
the handoff. He sees the weak-
side linebacker collapsing in to
defend the handoff and moves
his eyes toward the weak-
side defensive end. When
McCaffrey is at his mesh point,
he sees the defensive end take
a shuffle step inside. That’s
all McCaffrey needs to see to
realize that he has a walk-in
touchdown if he pulls the ball
and takes it himself.
McCaffrey’s
ability
to
make the most of the options
provided by Gattis’s offense
isn’t limited to the running
game.
On this run-pass option
later in the same game, he
sees the middle linebacker and
strong-side linebacker both
pinching in before the mesh
point, leaving Ronnie Bell
in one-on-one coverage on a
slant route over the middle.
McCaffrey overthrows Bell,
but
forces
the
defensive
back into a tough position by
making the right read. This
gives Bell the chance to draw a
defensive holding penalty and
get the first down.
He’s
susceptible
to
zeroing in and missing open
receivers
While
McCaffrey
had
excellent
decision-making
on zone reads and RPOs, he
occasionally struggled to find
open receivers, instead zeroing
in on covered ones. On more
than a few occasions, this led
to him failing to convert on
opportunities for significant
yardage.
McCaffrey,
though,
has
escaped
the
worst
implications of questionable
decision-making. In his two
years at Michigan, he has
yet to throw an interception
on 35 pass attempts. But
with
significantly
more
— and higher-leverage —
opportunities
in
store
in
2020, he’ll have to work on
going through his reads to
outdo Patterson’s stellar 2.12
interception percentage over
the past two seasons.
Here, McCaffrey is lucky to
avoid a red-zone interception.
The primary read on the play
is tight end Sean McKeon
on a crossing route off play-
action.
Against
one-deep
man
coverage,
this
route
would normally be difficult to
defend, especially after both
outside linebackers initially
pinch in off the play action.
But McCaffrey zeroes in on
McKeon early, allowing the
weak-side outside linebacker to
drop into the path of McKeon’s
route and nearly come away
with the interception.
While that play did come
in the fifth and final game
McCaffrey threw a pass in, this
is an area in which he improved
throughout the season. Earlier
in the same drive against
Maryland, McCaffrey helped
the Wolverines get into field-
goal range with this excellent
play to convert on third down.
Facing a third-and-10 from
the Maryland 43, McCaffrey
knows he needs a first down
here to keep the drive alive.
With Mike Sainristil, Bell and
Erick All running deep routes
beyond the first-down marker,
McCaffrey goes through his
progressions. But rather than
forcing a dangerous throw
into one of them, he instead
finds Tarik Black open on the
crossing route, after locking
his eyes in on McKeon for a
split-second — long enough to
freeze the middle linebacker,
giving Black the separation
he needs to pick up the first
down.
This is the type of play
McCaffrey didn’t make as
often as he would have liked
early in the 2019 season, but it’s
an area that will be critical to
his success in 2020 as he aims
to make the most of Michigan’s
returning weapons.
McCaffrey v. Milton
With Michigan set for quarterback competition, The Daily breaks down the tape on both contenders
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Redshirt junior quarterback Dylan McCaffrey works well in Josh Gattis’s read-heavy offense.
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Joe Milton has arm talent, but must work on his accuracy and touch.
THEO MACKIE
Managing Sports Editor
ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com