Stop Blaming Davis Warren for Michigan football loss to Texas

Footwork

Lowerbody and footwork seems like a weird place to start when talking about someone who is judged almost entirely by their arm. But as anyone who has lifted something heavy (hopefully) knows, you rarely use just your upper body to perform strenuous activities. The biomechanics of throwing a football are complex and involve the entire body working together in perfect unison. The feet are where the throwing motion starts, allowing a quarterback to generate torque and rotational power which he can use to drive the ball with speed and velocity to his reciever. Much like uneven cement underneath a broke contractor's house, poor footwork will set a weak foundation for throwing hard and accurately. It is difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

Additionally, a quarterback's footwork has a large impact on his timing in getting the ball to his wide reciever. In the early 1970s Cincinatti Bengals offensive coordinator Bill Walsh would invent what we now call the West Coast offense. It was originally designed to overcome his team's small offense line and his quarterback's lack of arm strength. Instead of relying on deep throws down the field, this style of offense utilized quarterback and wide receivers playing with precise timing, pairing the number of steps the quarterback takes (his drop back) exactly to a receiver's route. When executed right the quarterback would be set to throw and releasing the ball in perfect synchronization with when the receiver was coming out of his break and getting open from the defense. Walsh would become the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and three Super Bowl victories later, this style of offense has since spread, to some degree, into nearly every offense in college and professional football -- including Michigan.

All of this can be summed up rather succinctly by simply stating -- footwork is super important for playing quarterback.

Last week I talked about how Warren strugled to set his feet and just played a little bit antsy in general. I honestly didn't think it would improve that much with a top 5 ranked Texas team being on the other side of the line of scrimmage in just Warren's second start since he was 15 years old. But it did. Warren, while not perfect, did a much better job of setting his feet and playing with good timing. I want you to watch the clip below and look solely at Warren's footwork. Notice his wide base (distance between his feet) that he keeps, how he hits his back foot and drives an accurate ball down the field for a completion.

Now, even this isn't perfect. His footwork still looks a little bit 'shuffly' and he takes a couple of extra hitch steps before he releases the ball. But it looked a lot better this past Saturday and a lot more consistently like what we saw on the last drive of the Fresno State game. Now, this wasn't shown on every pass and Warren still struggled with lining up his feet to his receiver on throws.

But no one is expecting him to be perfect at this point in his career. J.J. McCarthy wasn't perfect with this and Michigan football still won the national championship with him at the helm last year. The key is that he's improving week to week which will lead to consistently more accurate, better-timed, and harder-thrown passes.