Michigan football has faced adversity in just about every way possible this season. A struggling offense has brought criticism in the direction of offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell, but the coaching staff continues to back him. Michigan tight ends coach Steve Casula said the team isn’t worried about stats.
‘We’re All Responsible’
“You always want more, whether it’s rushing, passing, total offense,” Casula told the media Wednesday. “Of course, you’re always searching for more. But the biggest thing we’re searching for is winning. Winning the next game and doing whatever we need to do offensively to accomplish that.”
Casula has been around coaching since he was in college, so one could imagine he’s seen his share of hot seats. Casula said it’s a difficult situation for any coach.
“I think it’s something that’s hard to go through, regardless of the level or the place that you coach,” Casula said. “You know, I was here when it was tough for Josh Gattis, for Coach Brown. It was tough for me at the University of Massachusetts. It was tough for me at Ferris State when we didn’t play well.
“There’s nobody that wants us to perform better than [Campbell]. There might be people that want us to perform at a high level as much as Coach Campbell, but there’s nobody that wants that more than him. He’s organized, he’s detailed. He certainly isn’t retreating. We very much aren’t in a finger pointing operation. We’re all responsible for how we perform on offense. I know our players would stand here and tell you the same thing.”
The Wolverines are ranked 119th in first down offense this season. Casula said that first down plays are at the forefront of the staff’s mind.
“The statistics are pretty staggering when you have a successful play on first down, what that set of downs ends up looking like, or when you have an explosive play on first or second down, what the drive ultimately ends up looking like. So that’s an area that we’re super focused on. We did not perform at our standard level in that respect.”
“If there was one single defined answer, we’d fix that, right? There’s a lot of context to it. It’s looking at the opponent we’re going against, having our best plays and our best players always involved in those moments. There’s a level of execution for sure, getting ourselves prepared to deal with all the different looks we’re going to see, looking inward at our self-scout about what we’ve done in those circumstances.”
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