Here are three things to watch as Michigan football hits the road for the first time against Minnesota on Saturday, Oct. 3, after falling to Iowa 20-19 on a last-second score in Week 4 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
Passing progress is clear
Let's start with the positive from U-M's debacle in Ann Arbor: The passing game was, well, quite good. Bryce Underwood completed 17 of 28 passes for a career-high 276 yards and two touchdowns, each better than the last.
The first came on third down, as he rolled right in the pocket and eyed JJ Buchanan on a corner route and connected for an 18-yard score. The two hooked up again in the fourth quarter when Underwood felt pressure, stepped up in the pocket and once again rolled right, keeping his eyes downfield and lofting a perfectly
thrown 49-yard touchdown pass to Buchanan again.
In between those two plays, Andrew Marsh made a pair of circus catches − one where he toe-tapped on the sideline, the other when he stuck his left arm out and one-handed a bullet − as the two became U-M's first pair of receivers with more than 100 yards in a game since Roman Wilson and Ronnie Bell against TCU in 2022.
The unit wasn't perfect. Underwood and Marsh had a miscommunication on a play in the red zone which led to an interception, but overall it was clearly the best the passing attack has looked as Underwood (86.8), Buchanan (81.2) and Marsh (80.7) graded out as U-M's top three players on either side of the ball. per Pro Football Focus. Underwood accounted for 13 (10 passing) of U-M's 21 first downs on the afternoon as the passing offense had eight plays of 18 yards or more.
"I thought offense was the best they've been all year, I thought Bryce had his best game, both receivers over 100 yards," U-M coach Kyle Whittingham said postgame. "We probably should have had 30-plus points, but we didn't.
"They're taking steps forward each week, and I think that's very encouraging. Bryce's play is encouraging, and the offensive line's play is encouraging."
Ground game gets ... grounded
The rushing attack was improved in some ways − running for 154 yards against a tough Iowa defense while missing two offensive linemen is nothing to sneeze at − but it still wasn't vintage. Michigan had just one run of 10 yards on the day, when Jordan Marshall appeared bottled then kept his legs churning before ripping off a 17-yard pickup.
But when U-M needed to run the ball, it couldn't − at least not effectively. Like when U-M led 10-7 in the second quarter and went on fourth-and-1 only to get stuffed on a QB sneak. Or on second-and-15 in the third quarter at the Iowa 23, when Underwood's designed run netted just 4 yards and forced an obvious passing situation, which ended with an interception.
There was also U-M's next drive, where it started with the ball at the Iowa 47 and ran on nine straight plays, six of which went for three yards or fewer, as it was unable to convert on first-and-goal from the 5 and had to settle for a field goal.
In total, U-M had five possessions get inside Iowa's 25-yard line and managed just 13 points. But perhaps most damning was the final possession of the game, when the Wolverines needed to pick up one first down to ice the game: Savion Hiter ran for 4 yards, Underwood ran for 1 and then Hiter ran for 2, leading to a three-and-out.
“We certainly would have liked to run the clock out in our four-minute offense. We haven’t been able to do that a couple times now, so that was disappointing,” said Whittingham, referencing the offense's inability to run out the Oklahoma game, too. “We've got a lot of things to work on and fix, but there are a lot of positives with this team."
Self-inflicted wounds remain team's downfall
Twice U-M got inside the Iowa red zone and came away with no points. Those were catastrophic plays. But equally as mind-melting was how Michigan committed eight penalties for 75 yards. It's the third time U-M has been flagged eight times in a game in the first month; it had two such games over the past two years.
Michigan's first drive went from third-and-3 to third-and-8 with a false start then, after seemingly converting with an 8-yard run, was pushed back to third-and-18 due to a holding penalty that led to a punt. At the end of the first half during a two-minute drill, U-M picked up 6 yards on third-and-5; that was called back by a hold and led to a punt.
In the fourth, Michigan had three straight rushes of 5, 5 and 7 yards, then on second-and-3, got dinged for an illegal formation. That set up second-and-8, and two incompletions on short passes later, the Hawkeyes got the ball back.
"You've got to play cool, calm, and collected, especially with some of these illegal formation penalties," offensive lineman Evan Link said. "A lot of the issues of today just come down to focusing on the fundamentals. We've got to have good effort, we've got to have physicality, and we've got to be disciplined."
But the most back-breaking of them all came in the final minute, when U-M had forced an incompletion on third-and-12, only for Zeke Berry to shove a player out of bounds after the play to give Iowa new life.
"It's excessive, and we've got to do something about it," Whittingham said. "It was a couple of really costly ones, particularly on that last drive ... they extend drives, they bog drives down, and it's got to continue to be a point of emphasis and continue to clean it up."
Tony Garcia is the Michigan beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football passing progress overshadowed by 'excessive' sloppiness
