Michigan Football: Jim Harbaugh imagines new role for QB Dan Villari

Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh talked about spring ball, as well as quarterbacks, and revealed a new potential role for Dan Villari.

Most of the football world is focused on the 2021 NFL draft, but Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh joined Jon Jansen for the “In The Trenches Podcast” to discuss the spring, as well as a number of other topics.

Harbaugh talked about his new coaching hires and basically broke down the roster position-by-position, so if you have the hour or so to listen to the entire episode, I’d recommend it.

Jim doesn’t always reveal a ton in his media appearances, but this is more just chatting with another former Michigan football alum in Jansen and Harbaugh revealed some interesting plans for quarterback Dan Villari, a name not many U-M fans have mentioned this spring.

Here’s what Harbaugh told Jansen:

"“He (Villari) was good (in the spring). Really effective. Excited about Dan. We are looking at Dan in multiple ways. Throw out the name Taysom Hill and we are going to try to do some things like that with Dan Villari as a quarterback/athlete that can really help our team. A lot to like about Dan Villari.”"

This came after Harbaugh said that J.J. McCarthy was solid in the spring and moved up to the No. 2 job behind Cade McNamara. So it’s not like there is any unhappiness with McCarthy or McNamara, it’s just that Villari could have a unique role to play.

Dating back to last season, there was talk that if Michigan had played Ohio State, Villari would have gotten the start due to injuries to Joe Milton and McNamara. There would have been a lot of wildcat-type stuff used and that could be the inception for this.

It no doubt got me intrigued, so I went back and looked at some of Villari’s high-school highlights. He played in Long Island and didn’t lose a game as a starter, although the competition wasn’t super high-level.

Still, Villari, who is 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, does show some running ability and not just scrambling either. Villari was really effective in quarterback runs and racked up 1,522 yards with 25 touchdowns during his senior season.

I honestly didn’t know he had that much rushing production. Michigan has certainly missed the QB-run game over the years. We’ve seen how Ohio State and others have used it as a huge part of their offense, while it’s just been non-existent for the most part at U-M.

While having a designated runner of sorts in Villari might not be as effective as a true dual-threat quarterback, having someone who could be effective in short-yardage situations would be huge or even just adding that extra wrinkle to the offense.

The nice thing about running with the quarterback though is it allows you an extra blocker you don’t get if the QB is handing the ball off. Then, it’s basically nine blockers versus 11 defenders. But if you run the QB, you get 10 blockers, which can make a huge difference.

And with the way Michigan football struggled in short-yardage and creating explosive plays, it makes a lot of sense, especially if Villari can make teams respect his arm too.

There’s no doubt Michigan has to get innovative and if Villari could play some Taysom-Hill like role with the Wolverines, well, it certainly couldn’t hurt an offense desperate to improve.