Stop Blaming Davis Warren for Michigan football loss to Texas

Addressing the Interceptions

Davis Warren certaintly had some bad throws, but he didn't throw very many risky passes. When he missed he consistently missed away from defenders putting the ball where no one could get to it. This is a very important trait to be a quarterback of a good offense. But he still threw two interceptions so what happened?

On the first interception, Michigan football is running a version of a stick concept- a common passing play across football. On the play receiver Tyler Morris runs a 7-yard stop route and Davis Warren delivers a really well-thrown ball right into his hands. There are a couple of problems on this play though that lead to a pretty unfortunate interception.

First, the ball was a little late leaving Warren's hand. To me, he's just a little bit slow working back into his drop, meaning he takes too long to take three steps back before throwing the ball. The footwork is right, just a little bit slow. This leads to the Texas defender who is playing tight coverage being able to recover just enough to make a play on the ball and deflect it up into the air. Additionally, though, Tyler Morris needs to work back to the ball a little bit more. When he reaches the top of his route he stops and waits for the ball to arrive instead of coming a yard or two back to the ball and taking it out of the air before the defender has a chance. Lastly, this was just a lucky play for the Longhorns to have a ball that hits the receiver in the hands bounce into the air and right to a Texas player.

The second interception is a little bit more simple and was addressed in the postgame press conference -- Colston Loveland ran the wrong route. It was a good throw and good mechanics by Warren, just a miscommunication that led to Loveland not looking for the ball and allowing the Texas player to dive and pick it off.

This wasn't a case of Warren making poor decisions or showing aggresiously bad mechanics. It's just little details that really come down to inexperience by the entire offense.

Final Thoughts

I think that Warren has more tools than anyone is giving him credit for. And it's tough when the last player to take a snap at quarterback for Michigan was top 10 pick J.J. McCarthy, one of the most gifted athletes to play quarterback at Michigan in a long time. And then your back up is Alex Orji who is a freak of nature and came in at number 13 on Bruce Feldman's freak list.

But Warren has shown flashes of the ability to excel as a quarterback. More than that, he is a tremendous leader who understands this offense. It's going to just take a little bit of time for it all to come together. But it really is pretty close. I think that there are a few things Michigan football can do schematically to help him out, but offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell and head coach Sherrone Moore are smart and will figure it out.

And if you struggle to be patient remind yourself this is a kid who got diagnosed with Leukemia, finally came back to football only to have his senior season cancelled because of Covid, then walked on at Michigan where he worked his way up from the scout team to now being the starter. He just hasn't had many chances to get the experience he needs but he's growing quickly. And if he can grow enough in two and half months to beat Ohio State, no one will care that it took him a while to get there.