Michigan football quarterback Cade McNamara had a great first half against Rutgers, minus one missed touchdown pass at the end of the stanza. He completed eight of 11 passes for 156 yards, set up four big passing plays with an effective running game and had the offensive humming.
Minus short yardage woes, the Wolverines would have scored 24 first half points rather than 20, and U-M would have had a three-touchdown lead.
And then the bottom fell out. U-M managed only one completion in the second half, a first down, seven-yard pass to receiver Cornelius Johnson that didn't even extend the series after two botched runs in a 20-13 win.
“We were extremely efficient in the first half,” McNamara said. “Whatever it was, I’ve got to be better as well. When they load the box like that, it’s got to come down to us beating them in man coverage.
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"We have do a better job overall offensively as a unit — me, wide receivers, running backs — being able to break clean coverage. That’s what it’s going to come down to.”
And the offensive line, which was good on the first series and for a good portion of the first half but not in the second. It looked as though they were coasting, believing they already had the game in hand, and not firing off the ball.
Rutgers took advantage and dominated the second half on both sides of the ball.
“Looking back, I think it was just a lack of momentum,” McNamara said. “We just couldn’t get something going there in the second half, pass game or run game. We were seeing a couple different things ... but overall, just a lack of momentum.
"... The second half was kind of its own deal. They came out — the film kind of showed it was just a different half, but overall in the first half, we had opportunities to score on almost every single drive. We were extremely efficient, and I think that’s where we want to be as an offense.”
It included intermediate passes to the middle of the field turned into big gains from Mike Sainristil, Roman Wilson and others.
"During the season, based on the game plan — whatever it is — during the week, we'll choose different things we haven't gotten as many reps against our own defense," McNamara said. "It's picking and choosing things we don't have as much experience in, and just really repping it. When we rep it, if it's incomplete or the timing was off, whatever it is, watching it on film, just getting better at it throughout the week.
"Overall, especially with the deep balls, the way our defense was playing us doing camp, we weren't completing a ton of deep balls. We were just kind of doing a lot of intermediate stuff. Throughout the season, our intermediate stuff has been really good. When we've thrown it deep in the game, especially against Northern Illinois, we were doing it well. So I think we're building."
There's still work to do. He rushed a sure touchdown pass to tight end Luke Schoonmaker and missed him just before the half, for example. But he'll likely get more opportunities, and insists he's ready to take advantage.
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