On making the decision to stay at Michigan to be the OC

It was amazing. I love this place. So close to my family, originally being from Pittsburgh. The opportunity to work at the all-time winningest program in college football history and being the coordinator is something you don't take lightly. It's a great opportunity, great experience for me. Just extremely proud to be able to represent the Block M.

On his path to OC at Michigan

Life comes at you fast, you have to take advantage of your opportunities when they present to you. It has, especially my time at Michigan went really fast. Being off the field. then getting on the field at as the quarterback coach then rising to coordinator. I really believe you prepare yourself for the opportunities that present to you so when they are there, you strike. I prepared myself my entire coaching career to be offensive coordinator at the University of Michigan.

On ideas and plans he has for the offense

I'm a firm believe — when you ask what kind of offense are you gonna run, what are you going to look like? Any offense coordinator needs to, one, assess their roster, find out who your best players are, which I have a good grasp of and put them in the best position to suit their abilities. Going back to last year, let's just talk about Roman a little bit. Roman was a really fast guy, you couldn't get his hands on him so we had to find ways let him, pre-snap, not get touched. This year, who the starting quarterback is going to be, make sure we put his assets out there to be able to shine so he can product the best. Donovan, really good receiver as well out of the backfield. Line him up out there, how can we put him in situations to make it advantageous for us? I can do down the list. Colston Loveland, right, really, really, good at catching the football. Let's make sure we build the offense around our key pieces and then we can thrive come Saturdays.

On why Alex Orji was the right guy to be the read-option QB last season

A couple of reasons. One, he's extremely mature. The opportunity was never gonna be too big for him, the moment, right? When he went out he wasn't gonna have that gaze in his eyes, he was going to go out there and attack so I think that is super important. Two, he's extremely gifted athletically. In the KPI system, the Key Performance Indicators, he's number one on the team. All that athletic ability, we knew once he got the ball in his hands, he can shine. Three, he knew the offense really well. He knew what he was doing. We were very comfortable with him being able to execute that. I just think with his composure, his athletic ability, his understanding of the offense, putting him in those situations were advantageous for us as an offense. And he shined. He had some key explosive plays, one against Ohio State that really sparked the second half and the other one in the national championship game, he had that nice run for us. So I think that’s why he was able to shine in those moments. He's prepared himself all season like he was the starter, as well as the other guys, and he was able to be the right guy in the moment.

On what he's hoping to see from Davis Warren's growth

Continual growth. Davis went through a little bit — he got banged up midway through the season, that's why his time was limited down. Just continual growth of understanding the offense. He probably does have the best understanding coming back in the room as far as what we’re trying to do, how we’re trying to accomplish it, especially in the throw game. He’s very committed to his craft. He spends a lot of time working on being better as a thrower with his footwork, his timing. And I just want to continue to see that development. Listen, somebody in that room is going to have to take a bigger leadership role. We lost a lot of good leaders in the offense. Blake Corum being one of them. Zak Zinter, Trevor Keegan. In the quarterback room, we're looking for somebody to step up and be a leader. Not all of them have to be vocal but somebody has got to do it on the field.

On Jayden Denegal's areas of improvement

Whenever we had the team awards banquet, you went up there with the Most Improved Player, I was kinda shocked that Denny didn't win that award. In my eyes, he was the most improved player on the offense. From my time being here as an analyst and me being able to my fingerprints on him and kind of molding him and developing him. His development in over a year has been vast. Now, he still needs to improve. We talk about with Denny, he’s got to be a little bit quicker with his feet, he takes a little bit too much time in his drop. Speeding up his feet so that he’s able to speed up getting rid of the football. His accuracy is great, his knowledge and understanding is great, he’s a good decision-maker. We just need to speed up his processor a little bit. The big thing about Denny is he's so big he’s gonna thrive in live situations breaking tackles like a Ben Roethlisberger-type. Something may not look pretty in practice, but in the game that might not be a sack. It might be an arm coming across his chest and he shrugs it off. We understand that and we gotta put him in gamelike situations to see if he can display those abilities.

On Jadyn Davis

Jadyn is extremely coachable. I know before coach left, he commented on that. You tell him one thing, he takes it and you can apply it which is a huge asset to a football player. Can you teach it? Can they learn it? Can they apply it? I can teach it, he can learn it and he can apply it. I think that's a huge asset for him. He’s another very accurate quarterback. A guy that’s going to be able to be a good passer of the football. Has really clean footwork moving in and out of the pocket. He may not be as much of a run threat, as far as taking off and running a lot with the football, but he definitely can throw the ball with the best of them, as far as accuracy, knowledge. I'll give you a quick story, we threw him in there in the fire in bowl prep, his first day on the job. Alright, you've got a skelly rep, you're going in there, this is how you read the play. You're thinking a freshman quarterback, he's just going to throw to his first read. No, he progressed back to his second read, boom, ball on time and complete. It was pretty impressive. To see him be able to process information and be a great learner, I think he has a bright future.

On how he handles the transfer portal being open with Harbaugh leaving

The grass is not always greener. When you look in the portal and you might want to look for something else and you're looking for something specific, I don't know, whatever the case may be, they're case-by-case situations. Doesn't mean another place may present to you a better opportunity. We play at the University of Michigan, the all-time winningest program in college football history, the defending national champs, we've got a loaded roster coming back with tons of talent across the board. There's no better place to be than here right now. Sit back, take a deep breath, let it all process, you're in great hands, you have great people leading you, you have great leaders of men, it's a great culture here. Just enjoy the ride.

On how he handles the QB competition

Embrace it. We embrace it. We know there's only one guy that's gonna take snaps come Saturdays. We embrace competition. We're going to push each other to be better, everybody is going to support everybody, which is unique. That's how the culture in the room is built. Nobody is going to root for anybody's lack of success. We're only going to root for people's success. We're going to attack it like that. I'm going to coach everybody hard but I am going to love them, too. We're going to take it one day at a time and make sure they're in the best situation to succeed on Saturdays.

On whether there's a depth chart going into spring football

Yeah, everybody is number one and we'll see who comes out on top. I'm not at a place to dictate who is definitely going to get the first snap, that'll probably be dictated through some small offseason workouts that we'll have here before we ever get out to the first spring practice. Right now, I don't know who that will be. Someone is gonna have to take that first snap come spring.

On how much will the offense resemble last year and the collaborative process

The offense is not gonna change as far as the schematics. We're still going to be similar-esque as far as presentation of formations. Listen. I know I'm a quarterback coach but nobody loves running the football as much as the quarterback coach because that helps with play action pass and getting the quarterback some candy store completions as we talk about it. There will be a collaborative effort. Sherrone is the head coach, what he wants done is what I'm going to apply on the field and make sure we're able to execute that. We just have to continue to make sure whatever is on that call sheet, we are in the best situation to succeed on it. Whether it's a run play, pass play, however its formatted, there's going to be a lot of people in that room. Grant Newsome, other coaches that we have, Ron Bellamy to make sure that we put the best plays on the call sheet. So it'll be collaborative for everybody in that room.

On having coaches with familiarity being a positive

Absolutely. Those two guys couldn't be better people as well. Grant and Ron are just unbelievable people. To be able to work with them every day whether it's a coordinator or a quarterback coach, it just makes my job a lot easier. I know they're great teachers, they're loyal, they're authentic, the players respect them. They know the system so for the messaging to come from me, to them and be able to apply it to the players, I know we're going to be super successful with that. I'm honored to work with two men like that. They're great people.

On what work looks like for the offense and the QBs between now and before spring

We've got to assess what we did well last year. We watch all the tape. We go back through cut-ups. That's actually what I'm doing right now. Just assessing what we do well, what we did not so well, what can we do better. Just because you did something that was not so well doesn't mean it was a bad idea or a bad play. What fits us, our talent levels, we talked about a guy like Donovan and Colston. Making sure we have enough ammo in the season that we can put those guys in great situations. Players not plays a lot of time. How can we get Semaj Morgan the ball? Finding those things. Hey, you gotta find new ideas. Studying NFL teams, studying other successful teams in college football. We may add a thing or two. Kind of assessing the season, assessing where we need to go and assessing our roster.

On whether he watches any NFL teams in particular for ideas on offense

There's a list of teams that we go through each week. One that I'll hit on are the guys right down the road. I think they do an outstanding job of complementing the quarterback. They run the football, which we love to do. They run play action pass and they do it in creative ways. There's plays that, when I watch them, that we took from them and it looks like they may be studying us on the back end because it looks like it was a plan we just ran in the Rose Bowl, I think I saw some stuff they were running. That's kind of flattering, it's probably mutual respect that we both have. The Lions are somebody that do I deep dive on. We watch every single play of theirs. I think they do an outstanding job. There's other teams, there's a good handful of other teams. Listen, it might not be this year, we might go all the way back to 2013, I'm looking at 2010 footage right now. We've got Phil Bromley searching for footage. There's a team that had a good idea, we need to find it and we're going to see if it fits us.