What will Michigan football offense look like with Alex Orji starting?

Less Pressure on Offensive Line

I also think this move is about putting less pressure on the offensive line. The lack of experience has been very clear early on and while I still expect them to improve as the season goes on, there hasn't been enough growth to stay with the style of offense they've run the last few years.

With Davis Warren, the defense could stack essentially ignoring him as a running threat and living with the damage if they were wrong. With Warren not being able to hurt defenses enough passing the ball this put a ton of pressure on the offensive line in the run game. They essentially had to block perfectly on every play to gain any yardage.

In the passing game, we've seen a lot of missed assignments and communication leading to blitzes not being picked up and free rushers coming at Davis Warren. Again, this should improve throughout the season, but with Warren not being the most dynamic athlete (I still think he's more athletic than people are giving him credit for) when this has happened it's usually ended the play for the offense. Now Michigan football has a guy back there in Orji who can play off-schedule a little more and still create positive yardage even when the play breaks down.

We saw some of these issues last year. It felt like multiple times a game, whether due to assignment errors or just good scheming by opposing defenses, JJ McCarthy would have to deal with unblocked defenders rushing right at him. He was so good at dealing with it that as a fan you almost didn't notice him spin out of the pocket, avoid the rush, and still make a play down the field for positive yards. It's unrealistic to expect Orji to be just as good, but he gives Michigan a better shot of converting some of the mistakes in pass protection into positive yards.