ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Each of the past two years, offensive coordinator Jason Beck has been charged with turning around an offense and has finished the season with the No. 4 total offense and No. 2 rushing attack. Now, he hopes that three times is the charm and he can do it again with Michigan football.
And though his offenses are thought to be dynamic and explosive, the way he describes his offense sounds more like a Jim Harbaugh-offense than one that is gaining yards left and right. However, one of the big differences is that this new-look offense in Ann Arbor will utilize tempo in order to keep defenses off guard.
"We want to be physical. We want to be really hard to defend. We want to be able to attack the opponent and gain advantages in what
we're doing," Beck said. "We have a unique ability to be able to do all kinds of personnel and formations and motions and play types while we do it at tempo.
"You know, most teams, you got a huddle to communicate all these variables, but we have kind of a unique ability to do that at tempo. No huddle because it's harder to defend than if you kind of slow it down and do it that way. So everything we're doing is just to be tough to defend, to gain advantages, to attack, to score points, to win, so yeah."
At Big Ten media days last Thursday, running back Jordan Marshall described Beck's offense as: 'Explosive, while also tricky. I think there's an element of surprise to our offense. And I'll just leave it at that.' However, that's not exactly an assertion that Beck agrees with.
As Beck says it, being 'tricky' is less about deploying a bunch of tomfoolery and offensive trickery. But, at the same time, he doesn't want defenses to ever really know what's going on, and that's his prime directive behind the physicality element.
"Yeah, well you know, not necessarily," Beck said. "I'm not exactly sure what he's referencing, but I have not been a big trick play guy like crazy over the years, but just we always want complements to what we're doing. So I never wanted, I never like -- so when I sit up in the booth and the defensive guys up there, and they'll be watching the other team line up, and they're calling out the plays. I never want to be that guy on offense, but when they're watching the team line up, they can call out what they're doing. And so everything we're doing is trying to hide that, disguise that, and make it hard to defend. Not, they see the formation, and they can go, 'Hey, counter to the boundary,' you know, type of thing."
Last season, Beck's offense went up against Jay Hill's defense, as Utah faced off against BYU in Provo in what ended up being a 21-24 loss to the Cougars for the Utes. Even still, the offense under Beck amassed 470 total yards with 226 yards rushing and 244 passing.
Now both are on the same team, and Hill shared on Wednesday about what makes Beck's offense unique to prepare against.
"Well, their offense is extremely creative," Hill said. "They do a good job of finding mismatches and trying to get you out leveraged in different ways. When you think they're going to run it, they throw it. When you think they're going to throw it, they run it. It keeps you on your toes. Very explosive. Probably the best thing about them, they do a great job of getting the playmakers the ball in space with the opportunity to make plays."
Fans will get their first opportunity to see the Beck offense in action on September 5 when Michigan football hosts Western Michigan for a 7:30 p.m. EDT game at The Big House.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Jason Beck brings physicality, tempo to Michigan football offense
