ANN ARBOR – Michigan receiver Roman Wilson had a breakout game Oct. 2 against Wisconsin, catching a career-high six passes for 81 yards in a 38-17 win.
But the sophomore missed the following game with a wrist injury and has just nine receptions for 71 yards in four games since returning.
True freshman wideout Andrel Anthony burst onto the scene against Michigan State on Oct. 30, catching the first six passes of his career for 155 yards and two touchdowns. But he also left the following game against Indiana with an injury and caught one pass for 13 yards in his first game back Saturday against Penn State.
Losing top receiver Ronnie Bell to a season-ending knee injury in the opener has had a ripple effect on the rest of the receiver room this season as offensive coordinator Josh Gattis has experienced with multiple combinations on the field.
Junior Cornelius Johnson is the only receiver to lead the team in receiving yards in more than one game this season, while five other receivers have done it once. (Tight end Erick All has had two games where he led the team).
The eighth-ranked Wolverines (9-1) are one of six Big Ten teams without a receiver with over 500 receiving yards this season.
“We’ve had some really bright spots,” Gattis said of his receivers Wednesday. “The one thing I would say we probably haven’t had is the consistency of each game, who’s it gonna be? It’s almost been a different person by different games. One guy steps up this game, another guy steps up that game. But they’ve come along. They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them, they’ve made some plays. Obviously, we’ve left out some plays as well to be made, but they’ve been bought in.”
Michigan’s offense has still put up respectable numbers this season, ranking second in the Big Ten in points per game (34.7) and fourth in yards per game (442.4), but most of its production has been on the ground.
Without Bell, Michigan’s most experienced and reliable receiver on the roster, quarterback Cade McNamara hasn’t found a consistent go-to target.
Johnson leads the team with 477 receiving yards and 28 receptions, but he has only caught 55.6% of his targets this season, according to Pro Football Focus. No Michigan receiver has caught more than 75% of his targets this season.
Gattis hasn’t been shy about rotating his receivers. Johnson has been the clear No. 1 with 598 offensive snaps this season -- nearly 300 more than any other wideout – but Wilson, Anthony, junior Mike Sainristil, sophomore A.J. Henning and graduate transfer Daylen Baldwin each have played at least 130 snaps in 2021.
“We haven’t passed the ball as much as some people would like or maybe to their liking, but they’ve never complained one bit,” Gattis said. “They’ve bought into the mentality, the identity of our team. They’re doing a phenomenal job of blocking in the run game, creating opportunities for us in the pass game. Very pleased there. We’ve just gotta stay consistent. We’ve just gotta get a little bit more healthy and stay consistent there, have the same bodies out there each and every week.”
Gattis said Michigan has faced a lot of zone coverage this season but expects to see different looks in the team’s final two games against Maryland and Ohio State. The Terrapins and Buckeyes rank 12th and 13th in the conference in pass defense this season.
“This week, we’re gonna have a tremendous challenge,” Gattis said. “These next weeks, we’ll see a ton of man coverage, which we haven’t quite seen throughout the year. That’s an area where Maryland really excels. We’re gonna have to win some one-on-one battles, we’re gonna have to win with details, releases, ball placement, accuracy and all that deal. But we’re gonna have to win in the contested catch ratio. That’s an area we don’t really have a ton of banked reps at this year because of how much zone and different type things that we’ve seen.”
Overall, Gattis is pleased with the production of Michigan’s offense this season, highlighting running backs Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum, who missed last week because of injury.
“The commitment to run has been tremendous for us,” Gattis said. “Obviously, coming into the season, we felt really great about who Hassan and Blake were. When we talked about it in the offseason the first time — I know it’s been weeks since I came up here — but we wanted to make a commitment to the run game. We wanted to be able to establish that. We felt like, considering the depth that we had up front, too, you think about going into the season, I think we had seven or eight returning offensive linemen who have started in games, considering all the different lineup switches we had last year.
“Last year was a little bit different. Not to reflect back on 2020, but we didn’t have a consistent starting five up front all year long. So, it was a swinging door of people going in and out of that front five. When you look at trying to tailor it around your best players, we felt like our running back room was by far the best position group on the team.”
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Michigan football looking for more consistency from receivers - mlive.com
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