Michigan WR Tyler Morris opens up on offensive woes: 'It's obvious we need to pick it up'
ANN ARBOR – It’s no secret the Michigan Wolverines offense has greatly held back the team during its underwhelming 4-3 start to the season. The production has to pick up immediately to avoid completely going off the rails, and playmakers inside the program know it.
Junior wide receiver Tyler Morris is among them. He was expected to lead the passing attack among the wide receivers this season but has only 8 catches for 83 yards and a touchdown through 7 games. U-M’s air attack has been one of the worst in college football and had three different starting quarterbacks this season.
“I think it’s obvious that we need to pick it up,” Morris said on Tuesday night. “Just get the ball going, gotta be consistent. I think there have been times when we’ve shown that we are hard to stop once we get rolling, but we’ve had trouble getting rolling.”
“I think we just gotta focus on doing all the little things, and just keep being us and going through the season. Like I said, keep being consistent and just do the little things right and just keep it going. When we do get rolling, we can’t have little mistakes or things that set us back.”
The Michigan wideouts have to pick it up on their own, but developing chemistry and timing within the battle rhythm of a game can be difficult when a different guy could be out there each week. Morris is not using it as an excuse.
“I think we just have to make it not a challenge,” Morris said. “Mentally, can’t be thinking about it too much because we can’t control it. That’s just what it is. Lke I said before, whoever’s out there on Saturday, that’s who we’re rolling with, and we support them 100 percent. And yeah, we can’t think about it too much and get too caught up on what’s uncertain or anything that comes with that.”
Head coach Sherrone Moore said earlier this week that Michigan might have its quarterback battle back open ahead of Saturday’s game against Michigan State. Tuesday was the first day of practice for the week, so there are no indications on who that might be.
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Regardless, Morris has a job to do.
“We’re just out there running our routes, executing our plays,” he said. “And like I said before, as receivers, we don’t try to focus too much on who we think is gonna be out there and who this and that and whatever. We’re gonna go whatever play is called, that’s what we’re running. And whoever’s at quarterback, we’re expecting them to be able to get the ball to us and just the whole offense to execute.”
One of the main issues might be a disconnect between what happens in practice and what happens on game day. Michigan has to figure out a way to even that out two months into the season.
“There are times where in practice where we look real good,” Morris said. “And we just gotta apply more to the game where we’re messing up small details that we were good with all week in practice. So I think it just comes with calming down a little bit during the games and just going out and executing. That’s really all I see because we have more than enough time during the week to get things right.
“There’s been times where we’ve executed all week. And then there’s just been something off during the game.”
Michigan’s tilt with Michigan State on Saturday is set for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on Big Ten Network from Ann Arbor.
