Michigan WRs coach/PGC Ron Bellamy wants to see improved attention to detail: 'That's how we're gonna get this thing rolling'

ANN ARBOR – The Michigan Wolverines passing game was always going to have questions heading into the 2024 season, but the lack of solutions through the first two months has been eye-opening.

Heading into the Week 9 slate of games, U-M has the 129th-ranked passing offense by yardage in the country out of 133 teams, and two of the teams behind them are option-heavy service academies in Air Force and Army.

While many are quick to pin it on the quarterback position, Michigan’s entire offense has been objectively bad across the board, whether it be upfront, with its signal-callers, to its pass catchers.

Wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator Ron Bellamy took to the podium on Wednesday afternoon to speak on the state of the offense and was forthright about what ails the Wolverines.

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“It’s not what we wanted to be,” Bellamy said. “We all got to do our 1/11th from protection to quarterback to receiver. Everything, even coaches, just being more detailed. Everybody just doing it together. That’s how we’re gonna get this thing rolling. And that’s our mindset in the offseason.

He continued: “We haven’t done enough thus far this year. I haven’t done enough. Collectively, we all got to be better.”

Michigan all season has felt like one missed assignment on a given play has led to a chain reaction that derails progress. Bellamy feels that everyone involved can do something more both as coaches and with the players.

“In our 1/11th, it’s usually a breakdown somewhere,” Bellamy said. “We just all got to play collectively, we got to play together. As coaches, we have to do a better job. I challenge myself every day to take a long hard look in the mirror and self-reflect and how can I be better? How can we be better? And just make sure we execute at a higher level.”

Of course, matters are made more difficult when there is a rotating door at the quarterback position. Michigan has started three different players this year at the most consequential positon in the sport. Head coach Sherrone Moore has played coy about which of them may start this weekend. Bellamy says whoever is out there, the receiver’s job should not be affected.

“You detail things out even more so you got to make sure you’re precise,” Bellamy said. “You detail and everything that you do even more so if there is a different quarterback in there, just so the quarterback knows exactly where you are when you’re supposed to be there.

“If the play presents an opportunity to make the play, we have to make them. I don’t think for us, it matters who it is. Whoever Coach Moore or [offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell] say, that’s who we’re rolling with. [They have] 100 percent support and the guys are going to play hard. It doesn’t matter who the quarterback is.”

Why Michigan must apply practice lessons to game day

All season long, Michigan players and coaches have noted an inability to take what they say have been strong and productive days on the practice field over to games. Whatever is being taught and applied at Schembechler Hall has not always made its way to the Big House, or wherever the team is playing that week.

Bellamy says that has to change.

“We gotta take it from State Street and bring it to Main Street,” Bellamy said. “That’s the biggest thing. Having played here, having been around and playing the receiver position, you got to carry it over to the stadium and usually experience comes with that. But we’re gonna keep attacking it. There’s no doubt about it.

“We understand that we’re not shying away from it and we understand we have to be better. We have to be better because it makes the offense better and then collectively it makes the team better.”

Part of that support can come in the form of the coaching staff watering things down and making the game plan more palatable for its players. Moore said this week that’s something they’ll consider going forward, and Bellamy sees it as a natural step when things are not going well.

“When we’re not executing at a high level, I think that’s what as coaches, you kind of look to asking, ‘Can we make things easy for us, harder for the defense?’, or whoever the opponent may be, whatever side of the ball we’re talking about,” he said. “There’s some merit to that. Depending on who’s your quarterback, what receivers you’re rolling out there, what tight ends, what backs, what o-line, whatever it may be. You want to have some simplicity in what you’re doing. But also, like I mentioned, easy for us, but still hard for the defense.”

So are the Michigan wide receivers doing enough to get open? Bellamy thinks they are, but that they can still play better to get more involved.

“We have to be better protecting, catching,” Bellamy said. “Quarterback, receivers, collectively. It’s a breakdown somewhere and it has to get fixed. I’m not shying away from it, and I’m giving you my honest assessment of what I see, and that’s where we are.

“We’re not good enough. We’ve got to be better.”

Michigan’s next opportunity to get better comes on Saturday against the rival Michigan State Spartans. Kickoff from Ann Arbor is set for 7:30 p.m. with Big Ten Network on the broadcast.