Michigan Wolverines Offense Has to Focus on Being Better Early to Right the Ship

The Texas Longhorns blanked the Michigan Wolverines in their Week 2 matchup. Michigan barely moved the ball outside of their final drive of the game, echoing the outcome of their season opener against Fresno State.

Sherrone Moore may have signed his contract , but he has to fix the offense if he doesn't want to get run out of the job soon.

How can Michigan even begin to solve their offensive issues? One of their main points of emphasis has to be being better on early downs.

An Ongoing Problem

I wrote about this same topic after Michigan's season opener against Fresno State, saying they had to be better on first downs after some abysmal results in Week 1.

A week after generating 119 yards on 28 first-down plays, the Wolverines posted *98* yards on 21 first downs against Texas. 22 of those came on one play on their second drive of the game.

Michigan's offense faced a 3rd and 5+ eight times on Michigan's 10 offensive drives. They didn't convert on six of those eight plays.

The goal of the offense should be to take the burden off of quarterback Davis Warren with a steady run game and easy completions. The problem is that they can't get the run game working effectively enough to create successful runs, and they don't create yards after the catch to turn the short passes into anything more.

This just isn't a Wolverines offense built to be able to win those kinds of long, obvious passing situations. Their offensive line can't block well in those spots, their quarterback room is a massive question mark, and they don't have the skill position talent to win in these situations consistently.

Michigan has to make the necessary changes to shift these results, whether it's churning the offensive line, creating different plays, or even involving Alex Orji's rushing ability more.

They have to be better on early downs moving forward. With the amount of pass-rushing talent they'll play on their schedule, they cannot afford to stay behind the sticks moving forward.