Michigan Football: Why Josh Gattis won the Broyles Award

Michigan football’s Offensive Coordinator for the past few seasons, Josh Gattis was just named the winner of the Broyles Award, which is awarded to the top assistant in the country!

After a forgettable season last year, Josh Gattis has rebounded in the right direction with this Michigan football offense leading the charge to a 12-1 season that included beating Ohio State, winning the Big Ten Championship, and Michigan’s first-ever playoff birth.

Josh Gattis famously said before he arrived on campus,

“Speed in Space.”

Referencing the fact that he wants to use RPO’s and Speed to conflict defenses. When first coming to Michigan football after his stint at Alabama, He tweeted out how he was going to build Michigan’s offense moving forward, stepping away from Pep Hamilton’s offensive schemes and modernizing Michigan Football.

The common phrase #SpeedInSpace has been thrown around, and we did not see much of that with Josh Gattis early on. After a very forgettable first year, he rebounded toward the end of this season, particularly in the last 5-6 games with fantastic playcalling.

At times, Gattis’ playcalling can remind you of a 1960’s Michigan Football team with four TE’s and two backs, and at other times they go five wide with nobody but the quarterback in the backfield. Josh Gattis was said to be in full control of the offense this year and in the later portion of the season, he proved why he deserved this award.

Let’s break down his building blocks for what he wanted to achieve at Michigan offensively and why he ended up taking home the award.

Why Gattis won the Broyles Award

DNA – Michigan has built an identity, which I would suppose to be the most important part of the offense, their identity revolves around Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum. They get physical in the trenches and run the ball down your throat. At times, it can be bland and not flashy but it gets the job done. It also makes the defense stay honest, because at any time they can go over the top and cook defenses as seen before.

SCHEME – We’ve seen plenty of different packages from Josh Gattis this season, but mainly one that we’ve seen exclusive to this season was the RPO. Michigan has tried it before in small sample sizes, and it wouldn’t work but this season was different. We saw McCarthy come in on RPO’s and shake things up, we’ve had huge plays off RPO’s and it’s confused Big Ten defenses all year.

CONFIDENCE – Michigan’s offense is as confident as it has ever been before. Michigan’s starting to develop a very dangerous passing game with McNamara, Erick All, Cornelius Johnson, and Roman Wilson. The young guns McCarthy and Donovan Edwards have blossomed into some of the best freshmen in the country.

Michigan football could see Josh Gattis fish around at some P5 head coaching jobs this offseason but in my opinion, it’s highly unlikely he leaves this early into his time at Michigan especially with the talent he has and that is coming in.