Michigan football countdown to kickoff: 36 days until 2022 season
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 3 opener against Colorado State. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
There are some statistics that are surprising when sifting through the Michigan football record book, as one does in the offseason while we wait for the games to start back up again. Today’s that we’ll discuss: Michigan’s record for most completions in a game. It’s just 36, versus Michigan State in 1999, a 34-31 loss to the Spartans.
Tom Brady completed 30 passes for 285 yards and two touchdowns, while Drew Henson connected on six throws for 111 yards and one score with one interception. Michigan trailed 27-10 and 34-17 before making a comeback that fell short.
Even for a program that’s bread and butter is to run the ball, that number seems quite low. And the fact that with the way college football offenses are airing the ball out more, it’s staggering that Michigan hasn’t broken that record in over 20 years.
In fact, U-M has only had four games with 30-plus completions during head coach Jim Harbaugh‘s seven years at the helm.
• 2021 vs. Michigan State — 31-of-48 for 406 yards and three touchdowns
• 2020 vs. Michigan State — 32-of-52 for 300 yards
• 2019 vs. Rutgers — 32-of-48 for 349 yards
• 2015 vs. Indiana — 33-of-46 for 440 yards and six touchdowns
For comparison, Ohio State, Michigan’s arch rival, had six games with 30-plus completions just last season.
It is worth noting Michigan is 2-2 in those games, so it does say something about the Wolverines’ identity and what they’re comfortable doing. In 2021, Michigan was tied 96th with just 28.2 pass attempts per contest (it’s hard to hit or surpass 30 when they don’t even attempt it that many times). The Wolverines connected on 17.7 passes per game.
Michigan returns both of its top quarterbacks — senior Cade McNamara and sophomore J.J. McCarthy — and most of its pass-catchers. The Wolverines insist they can open up the offense more this season — and they might have to, with Hassan Haskins off to the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
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At Big Ten Media Days this week, Harbaugh said his offense might be a little more pass happy this fall.
“I really believe our passing game is going to be even better too,” Harbaugh said. “I mean it was I thought was good [last year], but I think that it’s got a chance to be really, really good.
“Quarterbacks are good, tight ends are good, receivers are really good. So we will lean that as well. Really like a pitcher having a great fastball and a great curveball. We have the potential for that.
“There have been some real times where I watched practice and go ‘Holy cow. Look. Look at these guys running around the way they’re moving, the way they’re catching, the way our guys are throwing.’ So we definitely want to capitalize on that.”
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