The first two games of the 2024 Michigan football season have been a disappointment. The Wolverines struggled in the first game to beat Fresno State, before the wheels fell off against Texas.
Michigan football was beaten 31-12 by Texas in a game that wasn't as close as the score indicated. Mistakes by Michigan caused the game to be lopsided. The Wolverines squandered their best scoring opportunities with bland play calls, and another on a fumble by their best player, who also ran the wrong route on an interception.
Those are all troubling things to me, just like it's troubling that the coaching staff doesn't seem to know who to play. That's one issue and here are three things that Michigan football needs to fix, ASAP.
Play the right players please
This has nothing to do with the quarterback position. Davis Warren has been fine. He's not to blame for what happened on Saturday, although he isn't J.J. McCarthy and won't ever be.
Still, the Michigan football coaching staff didn't put him in a position to succeed. After watching Evan Link, it made you wonder why the hell he was out there. He's clearly not ready and if the two veterans ahead of him aren't any better, that's a major red flag.
Michigan has to make a change. I'm still not convinced they made the right call at center either and at running back on Saturday, I know they didn't. Kalel Mullings and Donovan Edwards are both being misused or under-used by the staff and it's maddening.
Mullings barely saw the field in the first half, even though I would argue he's Michigan's best running back. Edwards is a good running back who could also be an elite weapon in the passing game.
Unfortunately, the U-M coaching staff has wasted that talent for the past three seasons. They use it just enough to remind you it's there, but not enough to make it a functional part of the offense, even though their isn't a linebacker or safety in the Big Ten who can cover Edwards one-on-one. Some corners can't.
We know Edwards is dynamic with the ball in space. Yet, Michigan did nothing whatsoever to get him the ball in space. For what it's worth, Mullings is a solid receiver and blocker, so it would make sense to play them together, and you know, keep defenses off balance.
Instead, Michigan wants to telegraph everything it will do. At least U-M had the talent to get away with it in the past. Not anymore and that problem has been made worse by the coaching staff not using the right guys or playing to the strengths of who is playing.
The fact that Edwards and Mullings were on the field for one snap together last week tells you all you need to know. There isn't a wide receiver on this team, outside of Semaj Morgan, worth playing over either guy.
So they should be out there together on a lot more than one snap. It's baffling and the staff has to make adjustments. The offense of the past two weeks just isn't going to work.
Fix the offensive line
Michigan football fans are focused too much on the quarterback position. The offensive line is a much bigger problem.
One of the reasons I was confident in the ability of the offense to produce was the offensive line. Despite losing five starters, it felt like there was enough talent and experience to be good.
The coaching staff talked up Greg Crippen and even said Giovanni El-Hadi could be playing in the NFL right now. Josh Priebe was honorable mention All-Big Ten the past two seasons and Myles Hinton does have first-round ability.
But as a whole, it hasn't been good. Crippen and Raheem Anderson were beaten out by Dom Giudice, while Link beat out Jeff Persi and Andrew Gentry, a former top-100 recruit.
Giudice has been better. Link just isn't ready to do the job. That much is clear. But the fact that he won the job is also troubling. Whatever needs to happen, Sherrone Moore and company have to get the offensive line playing better.
That's been the identity of this team. The receivers are average, the quarterback is average, but the running backs and offensive line are supposed to be good.
However, if the offensive line is average or bad, that equation doesn't compute, which is where Michigan football finds itself after two games.
Defensive fundamentals
It's one thing to get beat. That's going to happen, especially against a team like Texas, which legitmately has more talent on its roster than Michigan football.
You can live with guys making plays. What you can't live with are the uncharaistic mistakes being made by Michigan on defense.
Missed tackles were a huge issue. Part of that has to do with losing players like Mike Sainristil, Michael Barrett and Junior Colson, but still, the tackling wasn't up to snuff.
This defense has enough athletes that that shouldn't be a huge problem. Communcation was another issue espeically among linebackers in coverage. Jaishawn Barham looked lost. So did Ernest Hausmann which is surprising because he played a ton last season.
It's one thing if you're in the right spot and you just get beat, but to be in the wrong spot, and give easy stuff to a team like Texas can't happen. But it did and until the defense is sound in those areas, it's not going to look at all like the elite unit we expected it to be.