Hey, welcome in, everybody. It's Joel Klatt from
"The Joel Klatt Show." And I got this video exclusive
right here for the Joel Klatt show to YouTube. And we're to be talking
about the Michigan offense in preparation for Michigan,
preparing for and playing Texas this Saturday. Big Noon Saturday is going
to be live from Michigan. OK, so Michigan last week,
listen, was the offense great? No, I don't think it was. And a lot of people surprised
that they went with kind of a two-quarterback system-- Alex Orji, at times, although
a minimal amount of snaps. And then the starter,
Davis Warren, which was a bit of a
surprise for most people that follow this closely. So Davis Warren
comes in, and now these two guys are
going to be asked to do two very different things. You see, I'm always
asked, can you have a two-quarterback system? And I always answer with,
well, do they do the same thing or do they do different things? Because if these two guys,
Alex Orji and Davis Warren, in this case, are asked to do
two different things, excuse me, in this system,
then it can work. And that is what happened
against Fresno State. Now, they were stagnant
at some points, but let's go into what they're
going to be asked to do and what they need to do in
order to do those things well. Let's start with Alex Orji. And on a third down
late in the game, you're going to see that Alex
Orji is doing exactly what he needs to do for this team. Here he is in the backfield,
and what you're going to see is he has the opportunity to
make them, Michigan, right, regardless of what
the defense does. And in this case, the
defense has, count them, 10 players in the run box. That would be incredibly
difficult to run against if you're just going to
hand the ball off to the running back in a traditional run play. The difference, though,
is that they can read it. And Alex Orji, you guys know
this following college football, he can read the end and
if the end crashes down, then Alex Orji can get
out on the outside. So once that
happens, now you have the numbers in the run front. And that's a great fake. And look at him, he
gets out to the outside. So what is he looking at? It's very simple. He's looking at
this outside player. If he crashes down,
then he's going to take off out of the outside. He did a great job
with the play fake. So if he can serve that
purpose for Michigan, then that's exactly what
they need him to do. And he needs to do it to
the best of his ability. Now, what do they
ask Davis Warren for? For Davis Warren, it's about the
ability to attack the defense in the passing game. He needs to be a requisite
thrower of the football. Now, you can say, like, hey,
he did fine on the short stuff, but he's got to do
better than that, because explosive
plays become important. That's one of the things that
JJ McCarthy really excelled in last year, namely
stuff like third down, like we just saw from Alex
Orji, getting it with his legs. And then when the
opportunity arises, take advantage of the
defense and create those shot plays down the field. Now, early in this game,
Michigan had an opportunity to take a two-score lead, and
Davis Warren did not capitalize. Let me take you to the film
and show you what happened. First and foremost, you're
going to see that his pocket is going to be totally clean. The offensive line
did a wonderful job. Now, he's going to be
reading this safety on this near side hash to him. As soon as that safety sits or
comes down, then what he's got is he's got a post over the top. And when that post
clears that safety, then he's got to put
that ball way out in front, into the end zone,
and away from the corner at the top of your screen. So, let's take a
look at the pocket first and let me show you why
Davis Warren shorted this ball. First of all, he comes
out, safety sits, and he's got an incredible
pocket right there. He's got the opportunity to step
up, get over his front foot, and really drive this
football down the field in front of his wide receiver. This should be a touchdown. Safety sits. I've got speed over the top,
and I've got a clean pocket. As a quarterback, you've got
to take advantage of this. But here's what happened--
he sets on his back foot and kind of throws
it fading away. And what happens? It's shorted. So his footwork and execution
lead them into an interception. It's not his arm strength. It's his footwork. If he steps into that throw,
he's going to throw that much more accurately down the field. Later in the game, he
did a better job of this. And I'll take you to
this touchdown throw. So now, he's going to have
Colston Loveland over the top after a little bit of a play
fake here in the back end. But again, let's pay
attention to the pocket that he has and then his
footwork into the throw. So after the play fake,
he's going to make his read and he's got the one-on-one. Here's the little fake to Kalel
Mullings, and then right there, boom-- look at the pocket. It's a clean pocket. And now, look at the difference
in his footwork and his posture. He's throwing this ball, and
getting up over his front foot, and driving the
football down the field. When you get on top
of the ball like this, is what quarterbacks would
say, what are you going to do? You're going to
throw it accurately. And that's exactly what happens. So he throws it
accurately down the field, and then your tight
end can run through it. Now, you might be
saying to yourself, those are two totally
different passes. Yes, but the technique
has to be the same. He's got to take that quality
footwork, driving the football like an intermediate
ball over the middle, and take that into his
deep ball down the field. If you do that, you
create explosive plays, because the last thing you
want to do is short that ball and create an interception
and a turnover for your team. Michigan should have
had a two-score lead early in this
game, maybe we feel different about their offense. But some of those
issues were corrected. Davis Warren's got to
have better footwork. Alex Orji, he's
got to be a wizard in the ball handling
and managing those numbers in the run game.