Michigan suffered its worst loss of the season over the weekend, losing to Michigan State and scoring just six points in the process, with the Wolverines being shut out by one of the Big Ten’s worst defenses until the final minutes of the game. This weekend, Michigan will have an even steeper challenge, heading to the always-tough Autzen Stadium to take on 6-3 Oregon.
Oregon has had its own share of issues this season. At the start of the year, the Ducks were on the short list of national title favorites,
but suffered a bad loss to Oklahoma State and have dealt with some injuries and off-field issues that have made them another major team that’s underperformed this season. Still, Dan Lanning’s team looks to be back on the upswing after wins over Northwestern and Ohio State in the last two weeks.
Michigan made a big change after the loss to Michigan State, firing offensive coordinator Jason Beck and replacing him with offensive line coach Jim Harding in an interim capacity. Some believe that this won’t make much of a difference, but Lanning is still making sure he and his team are prepared for anything.
“It just makes you do a little bit of a deeper dive. . . I think one thing you recognize about changes in college football is that teams that have (changed coordinators) recently have kind of had a resurgence on offense,” Lanning told reporters on Monday.
“Whether it’s a coaching change, there are several programs that have done that. I showed that to our players today. Here are programs that made changes at head coach or coordinator this season, and here’s what the next week looked like or the next two weeks looked like. We’ve seen a lot of those teams have a lot of success.”
With Beck out of the picture, it’s not totally clear how Michigan’s play-calling or personnel usage will change in just one week. Slow-developing run plays to the outside and use of the “rhino” have been a sore spot for the fan base over the course of the year, but they’ve been such a mainstay that it’ll be hard for Michigan to do anything different without cutting down a significant portion of the playbook.
Additionally, Michigan had to bench quarterback Bryce Underwood thanks in part to his struggles and an inability to ever really mesh with Beck’s scheme. With Harding taking over and Kyle Whittingham mentioning after the Michigan State loss that the staff considered going back to Underwood, it’s fair to also wonder if Michigan might go back to him as the starter or at least have him split snaps with Tommy Carr. Regardless of who’s under center, though, it doesn’t sound like Lanning’s defense will have anything drastically different that it’ll have to prepare for.
“There are some things that are similar and then some things that are different. Obviously, more recently, I think if you look at it, it’s about who’s been protecting the ball better,” Lanning said. “But when you look at the quarterbacks, there are some similar pieces to what they both do. Just some small variances and differences.”
Coming off their biggest win of the season over Ohio State, Lanning’s Ducks will be looking to make a statement against the Wolverines as they kick off a stretch of three very winnable games (Michigan, Michigan State, and Washington) to close out the year. Oregon’s defense is roughly in the middle of the pack nationally, but will look to use this week to put on a dominant performance against a reeling Michigan team that just hasn’t shown to be any threat offensively.
The head coach is aware of a possible “resurgence” that other teams have been able to have when changing coordinators this season, but one for Michigan at this point in the year seems unlikely.
