The Carr is finally out of the garage! Kyle Whittingham let Michigan’s flat-tire offense putter down the road as long as it could before inserting freshman quarterback Tommy Carr to start the second half against Penn State.
With Carr under center, Michigan’s offense looked cohesive, competent and, at times, explosive. The unit put up 21 points in the second half to come from behind and win by a field goal. Since Jim Harbaugh left, Michigan has scored 21 points or more in a single half against a Power
4 opponent only four times — 2024 Minnesota, 2024 Northwestern, 2025 Maryland and 2026 Penn State.
Carr’s stat line won’t blow anyone away: 5-for-7 for 47 yards; 36 rushing yards and one touchdown. He didn’t come in and sling the pill like fourth-quarter New York Giant J.J. McCarthy, but if you watched the game, you’ll never forget how the energy changed with a new signal-caller and how the team responded.
There was an injection of belief that isn’t quantifiable by metrics. Offensive coordinator Jason Beck didn’t dramatically change anything from the first half to the second half, but the offensive line went from being unable to block a phone number in the first half to start the game to resembling a real Big Ten unit in the second half. Michigan ran for 174 of its 211 yards after the quarterback change, and that stems from confidence — confidence in the offense, the play-caller and the quarterback. And that confidence extended to both sides of the ball.
Michigan’s defense has been outstanding all season and, for the first time in a month, its efforts were finally rewarded with a victory. Halfway through the season, Michigan ranks fourth nationally in total defense (0.1 yards per game behind LSU in third), first nationally in yards per play (4.1) and first nationally in explosive plays allowed. Furthermore, here is a list of every Michigan defense from the last 40 years to hold its first six opponents to 20 points or less:
- 1995
- 1996
- 2017
- 2023
- 2026
With an offensive pulse, this team was balanced and able to play complementary football for the first time all season. Complementary football is largely written off as coach-speak, but one hand always feeds the other in football. From the dawn of the College Football Playoff era, no team has won the national championship with a scoring offense and scoring defense average ranking below 16.
The defense forced three second-half turnovers, and the offense paid off every one with a touchdown. Let’s take a look at all three of those scores and the underlying success of each play.
11-Personnel Split Zone
Following Rod Moore’s first interception of the season, it took Michigan’s offense two plays to score its first touchdown of the day. After a miscommunication between Carr and wide receiver J.J. Buchanan on a flea flicker, Beck got back to the ground game.
Split zone has been a staple of Michigan offenses for more than a decade and frankly, it’s a part of 90 percent of offenses across the country. A north-south (rejoice) style of run, it is designed to hit on the cutback first. In a nutshell, the offensive line is going one way and an H-back is going the other way to kick out the unblocked end man on the line of scrimmage. You have seen Max Bredeson kick out half a hundred people on this exact play. Typically, the cutback is open and the running back will cut to the backside C gap that the H-back has opened up. But if that is covered, like it is here, the play goes strong side.
At the snap, Penn State’s defensive line slants to the weak side, and All-American linebacker Tony Rojas covers the backside C gap. To account for this slant, Penn State also sends a linebacker on a strong-side run blitz. This exact blitz has blown up several Michigan plays this season, but right guard Avery Gach — starting in place of Brady Norton — makes an excellent read to pick up the blitzer.
Gach is aided by a chip from Channing Goodwin — a clever wrinkle by Beck adding to the window dressing of motioning Goodwin and then using him as a plus-one blocker — and the seas begin to part. Left guard Nathan Efobi holds his block just long enough, and center Jake Guarnera quickly finds work at the second level to help spring runninng back Bryson Kuzdzal, who does the rest.
But let’s circle back to Goodwin. Joel Klatt always talks about how you can tell a lot about culture by the way wide receivers block. We already covered Goodwin’s initial chip. Now watch how he finishes this play.
The locker room still has some cultural growing pains to work through, but this effort from Goodwin gives me as much hope for the rest of the season as the emergence of Carr.
Following Chris Bracy’s interception on Penn State’s next possession, the offense got right back to work with an 11-play scoring drive that took more than six minutes off the game clock, Michigan’s longest scoring drive of the season. Before the offense punched it in from one yard out, Carr delivered the goods on a critical third down.
We won’t go too deep, but watch how disjointed the blocking is here. This is a gap pass, which means the left guard (Efobi) is going to pull like a run play, but attack the end man on the line with a pass-protection set. With this pull, the center (Guarnera) has to cover the vacated gap. Penn State is running a corner blitz from the boundary and looping the field-side defensive tackle for contain. Michigan’s offensive line is more confused than Joe Milton reading Cover 3.
Guarnera is late to get to the tackle and is fortunate enough to get his shoulder. Efobi gets an F minus minus for vacating his block on the clearly pressuring edge to try and pick up the corner blitzer, which is the running back’s responsibility. What’s worse is he blocks neither of them! Savion Hiter gets blown up, but gets his ass kicked with dignity so his quarterback can make a play.
Despite the chaos and incompetence around him, Carr delivers a critical third-down strike to — contrary to leaked texts — an emerging key piece in this offense: a tight end. This keeps the drive alive and sets up Michigan near the goal line after a big Carr run.
23-Personnel Tackle Over Iso
Iso is one of the most tried-and-true goal-line plays in existence. If you have played Pop Warner football, you have run Iso. The offensive line shuffling adds some nuance, but this is straightforward nastiness.
After being stuffed on first down inside the five-yard line, Beck schemes up a winne,r and the offensive line executes it to perfection. Look at the line of scrimmage order here: Manuel Biegel, Blake Frazier, Marky Walbridge, Jake Guarnera, Nathan Efobi, Evan Link and Avery Gach. I label it “tackle over” but it’s more of an offensive line reshuffling with both tackles switching sides, the left guard moving to right guard, and the right guard moving to the tight end position. Watching this, I felt like I was spying on the Little Giants.
Michigan ran a variation of the exact same play against Western Michigan with mixed results.
But unlike the play against Western Michigan, watch all the details here. Watch the interior offensive line collapse the cut blocks to maintain push in the middle. Watch Jalen Hoffman (42) patiently seal the edge. Watch Jordan Marshall’s track, most of all. The quarterback opens up at more of an angle and allows Marshall to tail his fullback into the hole. In the WMU example, it’s more of a dive track on the handoff, which screws up the timing by forcing Marshall to loop into the hole instead of hitting it straight on with momentum.
Lastly, watch Frazier (77) on the backside. He dives over the cut block of the defensive line to get just enough of the linebacker to bump him into Gach’s blocked man. Firstly, Gach is a player and equally deserves praise for turning his man inside-out on this dominant block. Secondly, the effort from Frazier was not showing up on tape in the first half or most of the season. When I talk about the spark Carr provided, it’s in moments like this where the extra effort helps Michigan score on consecutive drives against a Power 4 opponent for the first time in 2026.
11-Personnel Option
Only leading by three, Michigan’s offense was facing its highest-pressure situation of the game. Following Bracy’s forced fumble and subsequent recovery by Enow Etta, Michigan couldn’t settle for anything less than a touchdown on this drive.
But facing 3rd-and-9 on the Penn State 12, things were not looking good. Beck had run the option play earlier with Carr, but as he had done with Underwood, he ran it boundary-side for a quick gain.
Coming back to it here, this is Beck’s best call of the game and maybe the season. Penn State is anticipating a pass here and does not respect Carr. The Nittany Lions are playing Cover Zero and showing heavy pressure with the linebackers walked up in a MUG front and the safety blitzing from the nearside edge.
Before the ball is snapped, Penn State is already cooked. Defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn put too much on linebacker Tony Rojas (13) here. This is a classic example of disguising yourself out of position. Rojas is bailing from this look at the snap and has quarterback responsibility. But due to his alignment, you can almost hear him thinking, “shit, shit, shit,” as he heroically sprints back for contain. However, he over-pursues and opens up a massive cutback lane for Carr.
On the backside of the play, Frazier gets just enough of the defensive end to prevent him from catching Carr and simultaneously delays the linebacker from catching the quarterback at the goal line, too. Now watch Gach (back at guard) on the backside. He drives the backside defensive tackle to the moon and almost picks off the blitzing safety for good measure.
Carr is the headline from this game, but Gach should also be inserted for the rest of the season.
It wasn’t all perfect for Carr on Saturday. The offense also had three punts to match the three scoring drives and on the first drive of the second half, if Carr pulls this ball, he might score.
The John O’Korn Corollary suggests we shouldn’t get over our skis after one game and, lest we forget, Carr is a freshman. He’s going to make mistakes and faces a massive learning curve against Indiana this weekend. But if this offense can keep Carr between the lines and play complementary football, the Wolverines could shock a team or two in the second half of the season. But most importantly, this team believes again.
