Michigan run game will improve, but Jim Harbaugh, Mike Hart said it wasn’t all bad against ECU
Michigan entered the ECU game Saturday with the game plan of taking what the defense was giving, whether it was run or pass. The Pirates were intent on making it the latter, obvious from the first few series of the game, forcing the Wolverines to adjust … and adjust they did. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy threw for 280 yards and three touchdowns in less than three quarters, leading U-M to a dominant win.
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Michigan running backs Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards didn’t have as much room to move given the aggressive ECU run defense. There was some frustration in the postgame, though Corum noted the yards per carry were still up there — 6.64 from him — even though most of his yardage came on two carries. “Were they!” he said when we asked If they were stacking the box, something head coach Jim Harbaugh said he saw watching on TV during his suspension.
“Watching other games, it’s much the trend right now in college football — putting people inside the tackles, loading boxes, and trying to get penetration — shoot gaps, stop the zone play,” the Michigan head coach said. “That’s something we saw from ECU, which you could tell was their game plan. Having the complementary plays at our disposal … being able to throw the ball, play action, get the ball on the perimeter, was really good for us.
“I thought it was a great job by Kirk Campbell, the way he was able to get the ball the touches, the targets to our great players … corn feed the studs. I thought he did a great job of that. Some of the numbers showed that really well. Roman Wilson 8 targets, 5 catches, 3 touchdowns. Cornelius Johnson 6 targets, 5 catches, 71 yards. Colston Loveland 4 targets, 4 catches, 57 yards. Donovan 17 touches, Blake 13 touches.”
ECU played “pretty much ‘0’ coverage most of the game, Michigan running game coordinator and running backs coach Mike Hart noted, built to stop the run. The safeties were up 7, 8 yards, he noted, and by the time the backs got the ball, those defensive backs were a yard from the line of scrimmage.
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“You’ve got to be smart and pass the ball, which we did,” Hart said, praising Michigan coach Kirk Campbell for his play calling. “If you saw, the receivers did a great job, J.J. is a great quarterback. We do what we have to do to win. We still had some success in the run game, but the pass game was wide open. I think we could have thrown for 600 yards if we wanted to at that point in time. So … just proud of the O-line, the backs, the receivers. We can throw the ball, too. It was good to see that.”
At the same time, Michigan expects to have some ground success against stacked lines, too, and the push wasn’t always great. Hart noted that but insisted it would get better. There were many plays on which one player here or there missed an assignment, and that will get cleaned up.
“The old coaching cliche, right?” Hart said. “Game one to game two is the biggest improvement. Those are the things you see on film. This guy, you’re one block away, one guy away. This guy cuts this guy off, the receiver gets up to the safety instead of blocking he corner … the back makes the guy miss or makes the right read. Then you have touchdowns, more yards out there.
“I’m super happy with the way the O-line blocked. It could be the back, could be the guy missing the back side cutoff. There are so many things you can improve on, and when you watch the film — obviously, which we’ll do today — we’ll know we still left yards out there. A lot of yards out there; we left touchdowns out there. Those are the things we want to improve on.”
