As Tyrone Wheatley saw it, running the football was like playing chess. With each carry, he learned something more about his opponent and adjusted his strategy accordingly. Were the defensive linemen stunting or pressing the point of attack? Was that linebacker planning to go low to tackle him?
Should he allow more time for his offensive line to set up the blocks and give him the clearance to reach his landmark?
“You start to feel tendencies,” said Wheatley, the head coach at Morgan State who served as one of Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan football assistants from 2015 through the end of the 2016 season.