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Shea Patterson has been underutilized in Michigan’s offense so far
By Andrew Kulha
Published:
As expected, Michigan football has turned things around after the season-opening loss to Notre Dame. Michigan has started the season 2-1 with consecutive big wins over Western Michigan and SMU, with the latest being a win of the 45-20 variety.
So far so good for the Wolverines, who enter Big Ten play against Nebraska this upcoming weekend. They still have the opportunity to control their destiny in conference, despite the loss to Notre Dame, but they’ll need quarterback Shea Patterson to continue playing well in order to do that.
With that in mind, Michigan may actually want to utilize Patterson a bit more than what it has been over the past few weeks.
Here’s Michael Spath with an interesting tweet, highlighting the fact that the Ole Miss transfer hasn’t actually been a huge part of Michigan’s offense, despite the past two weekends being big wins.
Shea Patterson is Michigan's best offensive player. Patterson has either thrown or run the ball on 39% of U-M's total offensive snaps this year. Comparatively, Trace McSorley has been in on 53% of Penn State's snaps. <<<THIS.
— Michael Spath (@MichaelSpathITH) September 16, 2018
So yeah, Harbaugh and the Wolverines may want to start trusting Patterson a bit more. The good news for Michigan, in that regard, though, is that the quarterback has been playing at an high level over the past two weeks.
Patterson started the season off slow against Notre Dame, but he’s certainly picked it up since then. The Ole Miss transfer threw for 125 yards and three touchdowns against Western Michigan and 237 yards and three touchdowns against SMU. He did throw a pick against SMU, but he did also rush for 20 yards on six attempts.
With Big Ten play quickly approaching, in may bode the Wolverines well to continue putting pressure on the arms and leg of the 6-foot-2, 205 pound quarterback.
Andrew covers the B1G on Saturday Tradition.