Stop Blaming Davis Warren for Michigan football loss to Texas

We're all passionate football fans. We all love our team irrationally. And we all hurt when they lose as if we are getting dumped by someone we still have feelings for. And when our team loses when we had so much hope and optimism that they would win going into the game it feels as if we're being dumped right before our planned proposal. Instead of a candle-lit dinner at the restaurant we went to on our first date at we're left with rival fans making inconceivably fallacious claims that "a loss like this never happened while Connor Stallions was there".

But the Michigan football loss to Texas wasn't a break up, it was just a fight that started over the rationality of one of you claiming a hotdog is a sandwich (it's not by the way). But there's still plenty of hope left in this season if we're both still willing to work for it, prioritize our relationship, and finally put each other ahead of our friend Gary's Tuesday night bowling league.

And I get it, fighting in a relationship is stressful and seeps into other aspects of your life that it probably shouldn't. But one person who has been the recipient of a lot of misaimed criticism is Michigan football quarterback Davis Warren. I talked about Warren's performance last week after the Fresno State game. While his stat line of a 47.6 (out of 100) QBR or quarterback rating and two interceptions certainly didn't allude to confidence in even the most optimistic Michigan fans, Warren was hardly the reason Michigan came up short and doesn't deserve criticism from fair weather 'fans' like in the tweet below.

Quarterback is the most visible position in sports. When things are going well the quarterback is the first person to get credit. Unfortunetly, when things are going poorly the quarterback is usually the first person to get blamed. I think this generally comes from a lot of people having a poor understanding of what is actually happening on any given play. Casual viewers are results focused because most people don't understand the intricate mechanics that make someone successful (or terrible) while playing the position. So let's get into actually evaluating Davis Warren's performance from a more informed perspective.

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.

Reading the Defense

Another problem from the Fresno State game was Warren got locked onto his primary read on a play too often and struggle to read the defense and work through his progression to find the open receiver. Watch the play below and look just at the stripe on the top of Davis' helmet. You can see how he clearly works off his first read, looking at multiple receivers to eventually find Semaj Morgan wide open.

Now the problem here, and the reason the ball is completely overthrown, is Warren never sets his feet which causes his ball placement to be inconsistent and inaccurate. It's putting all these concepts and mechanics together every play while also understanding and directing what every other player on offense is supposed to be doing that gets challenging for any quarterback. The good news, Warren did it at times throughout the game. If you watch the last drive Warren was forced out of the pocket several times, and in the process he always kept his eyes down the field looking for the open man. He showed great ability to evade the Texas pass rush and eventually set his feet and drive the ball. The last drive was what Michigan needs Warren to play like every single down.

It wasn't perfect throughout the game, there were multiple examples of Warren misreading the defense and not being on the same page as his receivers. But to be consistently great at something you first have to just show the ability to do it by being sporadically great. Warren has the ability, it's just about getting more reps and experience.

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.