Michigan Wolverines Football: Shea Patterson Has Improved Offense
Heading into the season, Michigan was looking to jumpstart its offense behind junior quarterback Shea Patterson.
Halfway through the 2018 season, the results are promising as the offense has taken a huge leap forward with Patterson under center.
Patterson’s numbers speak for themselves. He’s completing 68.3% of his passes with a 10 to three touchdown to interception ratio, with 1,187 passing yards.
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh thinks so too.
“Shea does a really good job first with the decision-making, accuracy, his timing," Harbaugh said. "He protects the ball in the pocket ... (He) has a knack of making the right escape move from the pocket in terms of scrambling, and he's smart when he's out of the pocket. Shea's playing really well. Everybody can see that and notices that."
The area where Patterson has improved Michigan’s the most in being able to throw downfield. His yards per completion average of 12.5 yards more than doubles the averages of Michigan’s three quarterbacks from last season.
His sack rate of 4.8% is over a percentage point lower than redshirt junior Brandon Peters from last season, and over five percent better than John O’Korn and Wilton Speight.
Michigan’s offensive success rate has improved from 38.4% to 49.7% with Patterson at the helm. The Wolverines are scoring almost one whole point per trip inside the 40. While this improvement is not all due to Patterson, he’s certainly made a huge difference.
One area where Michigan’s offense has taken the biggest leap in taking care of the ball.
“That’s the biggest thing, as an offense, it’s the biggest focal point is don’t turn the ball over,” redshirt junior tight end Zach Gentry said. “So, if you don’t turn the ball over or limit your mistakes, you’re going to win most of your games so I think we’ve done a good job with that as opposed to some of the other times maybe, it only increases our odds to win.”
Patterson is a big part of that success.
“(Shea) had that reputation (for taking chances) coming in, but I never really saw that I don’t know if it’s schematically the way our offense is set up,” Gentry said. “He’s obviously athletic, he takes risks out there but he’s not wild, not throwing the ball up for grabs so I think he’s done a phenomenal job really reading the defense and putting the ball where it needs to be. I haven’t seen anything too wild out of him, which, I expected him to be a little more wild than he is.”
Patterson has had success scrambling and evading pass rushers. That’s a big part of Michigan’s improvement as an offense.
It comes back to his work in practice.
“He works out with us, a lot — a lot of drills during the summer workouts, getting his footwork right. It shows,” senior running back Karan Higdon said. “He’s able to pick his feet up, put them down and get out of tight windows. He does a heck of a job.”
That footwork shows when he gets blitzed. Against Maryland, Patterson completed eight out of 11 passes and averaged 11.8 yards per attempt. His highest NFL passer rating came when he was blitzed.
Where Patterson had the most success against the Terrapins was between the numbers. He completed just under 90% of his passes for 220 yards.
Against Northwestern, Patterson was also strong between the numbers, completing seven out of nine passes. He completed all three of his passes when blitzed.
All that will be challenged against Wisconsin Saturday. While the Badgers’ secondary is beat up, this will still be a primetime test for Patterson.
Wisconsin has won a record 17 Big Ten regular-season games in a row, the nation’s longest active streak in a conference, since losing to Ohio State on Oct. 15, 2016.
Patterson will look to end that streak for Michigan.
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