Blake Frazier is begging for Michigan football to use a downhill running game

Kyle Whittingham said on his weekly radio show that Michigan football has gotten away from running "downhill."

It's something that analysts have called for. Now, even Michigan football players are saying that the Wolverines need to do more downhill running. Here is what Blake Frazier said when he was asked about it on Tuesday.

"I would love that. This is Michigan football. You think Michigan football, you think downhill runs. I would love to see that implemented a little bit more," Frazier said

Running game woes for Michigan football have been baffling

It's hard to figure out how things have gotten so bad for the Wolverines. Last season, Michigan averaged 210 rushing yards per game, as well as 5.8 yards per carry. This season, the average has fallen off a cliff (135 yards). U-M is only getting 3.8 yards per carry, too.

The only explosive runs (runs of over 20 yards) have come from Bryce Underwood. There are a few reasons for that. The offensive line has been good, not great. That's perplexing because it returned three juniors, including Frazier, who started most of last season.

Evan Link has been a starter for a 1.5, since the start of the 2024 season. Brady Norton and Nathan Efobi started and were serviceable in 2025. At times, they looked better than average.

With Jim Harding getting hired as the offensive line coach, and his track record of success, it seemed reasonable to assume that the offensive line, and in turn, the running game would get better.

There have been signs. Michigan football rushed for more than 150 yards against Iowa and Oklahoma. Those are two good defenses. You should be able to move the opponent off the line of scrimmage if you can run against Oklahoma and Iowa.

The problem is that the offensive line seems confused, or at least not confident in what it's doing. The rhino has been a failure, and the jet sweep run stuff has been scouted. It's not going to work.

That's where all this talk of running downhill has come into play. For a guy like Frazier, that's more about just moving his defender off the line of scrimmage, something this Michigan offensive line has shown it can do this season when it knows who to block.

The passing game wasn't any better last season. Teams were doing the same thing to Michigan, yet the Wolverines still found success against most teams, because it was superior in the trenches.

That should have been the case last week. It was when Michigan called some of the downhill runs Frazier is calling for.

Everyone it seems is callng for them. We'll see if Jason Beck gets the memo.

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