The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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26 THE WOLVERINE ❱ SEPTEMBER 2024 READY TO RELOAD Michigan's New-Look Offense Still Has Plenty Of Talent BY CHRIS BALAS M ichigan's 2023 team fea- tured several elite players on offense who returned to school for one reason — to win a national championship. It was a high bar, but Team 144 beat the odds and overcame tremendous adversity to finish 15-0 and capture the school's first title since 1997. If they're going to "run it back," as they say, they'll have to do it with an almost entirely new cast of characters on of- fense. But there are several who have been waiting in the wings for their chance, very talented in their own right, and now ready to make their own marks on one of college football's elite programs. Putting it all together falls on first- year offensive coordinator Kirk Camp- bell, last year's quarterbacks coach who worked hand in hand with then-offen- sive coordinator and now head coach Sherrone Moore. "Obviously, the buck stops with the head coach, but [Sherrone] fully has trust in me," Campbell said. "If there's something he wants to see, or see more of it, we have meetings daily and we go over that. He's given me the reins to run the offense and if he has any input, he'll add it when necessary." Campbell made it clear what he ex- pects from his offense. "The identity that I want is to make sure we're a fundamentally sound unit who prides themselves on details and precision," he said. "Alignment, assign- ment, execution." Here's what it looked like in the mid- dle of fall camp: QUARTERBACKS J.J. McCarthy threw for 2,991 yards and 22 scores a year ago and became a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, going No. 10 overall to the Min- nesota Vikings. Nobody believes there's a quarterback on this roster similar, but there are capable guys, setting up a three-man race that could go any num- ber of ways. It could be one, maybe a platoon — there's a chance, even, that all three will get meaningful snaps before the Big Ten portion of season begins. "They've all been really good. They've had their days that one guy's been good, one guy's been really good, one guy's been better," Moore said Aug. 13. "So, not a frontrunner — really kind of all even playing right now. And we'll see how we go into this week, next week, and then game week." Many believe junior Alex Orji is the frontrunner, but he has a long way to go to prove he can be an every-down quar- terback. He was used as a runner the last few years, and while he's a great athlete, he didn't throw a single pass last year while operating in a back-up role. Tuttle, meanwhile, has been "limited by upper body soreness," per those close to it, opening a door for former walk- on Davis Warren. Grad student safety Quinten Johnson reported Warren had been the best passer in camp, and others confirmed he was getting "a lot of snaps with the ones." Whoever wins the job, Campbell said this spring, there will be a role for Orji as one of their best offensive players. "Going back to 2019 when I was with Penn State, this is the fourth time I've entered a situation like that where you have to make a decision on the starting quarterback," Campbell said. "… What I've learned about all of those is obvi- ously you have a deadline to make a de- cision — that's the first game — but you don't want to rush the decision. "You've got to make sure you prepare those guys, and if you make the deci- sion too early, you could put yourself in a situation where halfway through the season you're trying to fix that thing and go in a different direction." Senior running back Donovan Edwards has had a great fall camp and looks poised to carry the U-M run game after serving as the backup to Blake Corum the past two seasons. The hope is that he'll return to his form from two years ago, when he rushed for 991 yards and averaged 7.1 per carry. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL