Joel Klatt Is Spot On Identifying Michigan Football's Glaring Offensive Issue

Only Kyle Whittingham can fix this issue.

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After suffering its second loss in as many weeks, Michigan is entering its bye week looking for a ton of answers. The Wolverines have been on the right and wrong side of the clock this season, and Michigan was thoroughly dominated by Minnesota — it's been nothing short of inconsistency around the Wolverines.

But the inconsistency starts and ends with the offense. Michigan has No. 6 total defense in the country and Jay Hill has done a great job with the Wolverines' defense. But offensively, there are a lot of issues to unpack.

Joel Klatt covered Michigan's game against Minnesota, and he believes there is a massive scheme-to-personnel issue. Which, then becomes Kyle Whittingham and Jason Beck's problem.

"And on the offensive side, I see massive problems," Klatt said. "All right, let me just start with — I believe that there is a a fit problem between the scheme and the players. And because there is a fit problem between the scheme and the players, that becomes a coach's problem. So the problem now for Michigan lies in all three categories.

"Because it's both scheme and players, it becomes a coach's problem. And the only way forward is to adjust either the scheme or the players."

Adjustments are needed

As most fans realize, Jason Beck came to Michigan as having one of the most successful rushing attacks in college football. At both New Mexico and Utah, Beck's offense had the No. 2 rushing attack in all of football. But at Michigan, through five weeks, the Wolverines have the No. 100 rushing attack.

And that's mostly because Beck insists on his scheme working with the personnel that Michigan has. We have to remember that both Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore recruited these players. There are only a handful of players that Kyle Whittingham and Jason Beck brought into Ann Arbor and Michigan is used to playing a downhill style of play.

Instead, we are seeing a horizontal scheme, where Beck wants his players to play explosively east-to-west. At Utah, he had Devon Dampier at quarterback, who was an explosive runner, and athletic offensive linemen, who could move alongside the runner.

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"You've got a scheme that goes back to the Utah where it was very successful and yet the Michigan players don't really fit that scheme," Klatt said. "You see Utah's offensive linemen were athletic and they played a lot of teams that they could overwhelm at the line of scrimmage.

"So now you've got these Michigan players, and this is a program that was built differently than what this offense is trying to do. They were more direct. They were more downhill from the offensive line and the back field. And now they're trying to run this different style of offense that is a lot more horizontal."

This ultimately falls on Whittingham

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Following Michigan's loss to Minnesota, Whittingham admitted this is the biggest challenge he has faced in the 40 years he has been coaching. But there is more than just X's and O's — it's handling personalities and massive contracts.

But Whittingham signed up for the job and if he's going to be successful at Michigan, he will have to make some tough decisions. As Klatt said, it's making a change in the scheme or replacing players to fit the scheme.

Running back Jordan Marshall was left with no answers after Michigan's loss to Minnesota, but the Wolverines will enter the bye week looking to weed out the weak as a home game against Penn State looms in Week 7.

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