Michigan football: Jim Harbaugh shares desire for more offensive balance in 2023
DETROIT, Mich. – Michigan football knows it has a potentially potent offense heading into the 2023 season, headlined by junior quarterback J.J. McCarthy and a smattering of playmakers. The Wolverines have a pair of talented running backs in Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards and a number of options in the passing game.
With so many mouths to feed, head coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff have to find ways to get everyone involved to create a more balanced “pick your poison”-type of offensive attack.
That’s the goal, and Harbaugh is already working on it, he says.
“It [really comes down to] touches,” Harbaugh told the media on the campus of Wayne State University on Thursday. “It’s important that our playmakers get touches. We’ve got a lot of them. I really want to manage that on a game-by-game basis.
“Between Donovan and Blake, I haven’t settled on the exact number. It’s gonna be maybe 9-10 each. I don’t wanna wear them out either, you know? But [wide receiver] Cornelius Johnson, he’s got to get six targets a game. [WR] Roman Wilson, [tight end] Colston Loveland, somewhere between 6-8 [targets]. You’ll see some of the young receivers emerge too.
“I start naming names and then I’ll leave out one. There’ll be another [running back] in there that’ll get some touches as well. I think it makes us just more of a harder offense to stop when we’re just really focused on those guys who are all going to get dispersed.”
“Everybody eats, as the young people like to say.”
Whether or not Harbaugh hits the target number he has set for the options on the offensive side of the ball remains to be seen. Michigan could be at its most potent, though, when Edwards touches the ball. He has already proven that he can be a capable home run threat as both a runner and pass catcher.
Michigan knows it has a number of ways it can deploy him and its talented quarterback, too.
“His touches will come from handing him the ball off. We could toss it to him. We could throw it to him. He’s definitely somebody that we have got to get the ball to,” Harbaugh said. “He’s gotta eat because it makes us better, it makes us more dangerous. That’s harder to defend that many, that many players.
“Then J.J., there’s somebody who’s gonna handle the ball every down. There are other guys, too. So a creative way to get all those people the ball. It’s something we’re gonna have to do. We’re gonna be good at game planning for and holding ourselves accountable to it. I’m already thinking of after a game one Sunday getting together, I want to be able to say that each one of those guys had that many targets or had that many touches.”
Michigan came out of last season around 60-40 in terms of its run to pass ratio. Balance is critical, and Harbaugh boldly stated that a 50-50 approach is the target mark by season’s end.
“That’s the plan we’re trying to formulate,” Harbaugh said. “I see this offense being a 50-50 run pass. We’ll see. We’ll see how the games go. You see how the season goes. But I bet when it’s all said and done at the end of the season it’ll be pretty darn close to 50-50, the number of times we throw it [compared to run].”
