The first impression Kyle Whittingham made as the new coach of Michigan football wasn’t a good one. In his debut, the Wolverines needed the officials’ intervention and then a miraculous last-second Hail Mary to overcome a plucky MAC team from Kalamazoo.
That 13-12 win over Western Michigan on Sept. 5 was an ugly slog, and it caused plenty of consternation among U-M’s unforgiving fans. They saw Whittingham’s Wolverines stumble and bumble their way through the game, which made them wonder how they could look so messy and unprepared after a month of practice. It wasn’t a good look for Whittingham, who was supposed to restore discipline to a program that had lost its compass under the direction of his disgraced predecessor, Sherrone Moore.
Bryce Underwood, back against the wall, delivered exactly what Michigan needed
One game into his tenure and Michigan already appeared to be headed south, tumbling from No. 16 to No. 24 in the coaches poll (and out of the Associated Press poll entirely). With No. 10 Oklahoma coming to town, there was fear Whittingham was in danger of losing all the momentum attached to his new venture. A loss – especially a lopsided one – could be crippling to Whittingham’s effort to establish his imprint on Michigan and build support within its community.
“I don’t know what a must-win exactly is, unless you lose, you’re out in the playoffs or eliminate yourself from a championship,” Whittingham said. “But it was very, very, very important that we win this game.”
Whittingham delivered that comment Saturday, Sept. 12, with the knowledge that Michigan had just done that. In a gutsy 17-10 victory over the Sooners, the Wolverines showed their mettle and shocked their legion of skeptics in the process. It must have been gratifying for Whittingham, who saw Michigan take a remarkable leap in a week’s time, transforming from an inept team pushed to the brink by a huge underdog into a competent one that proved it had the capacity to vanquish a formidable opponent.
“What a great bounce-back,” Whittingham said.
Few saw it coming.
After the opener, almost everyone had written off Michigan. It wasn’t just because of the lackluster result. No, they dismissed the Wolverines because of how they played. They were sloppy, committing nine penalties and turning the ball over three times. They were uninspired, failing to show much fight until the final minute. Perhaps worst of all, they were ineffective across the board. The offense, under the direction of Bryce Underwood, could only muster a touchdown on its first nine possessions. The defense struggled to get off the field, showing cracks on a 13-minute, 40-second Western Michigan march covering nearly half of the second half. Even the special teams looked rough, as Andrew Marsh muffed a punt. In its entirety, the performance was an indictment on Whittingham. It seemed unfathomable that he could fix all his team’s problems in six days and get Michigan to a place where it could challenge the mighty Sooners.
The public was justifiably dubious.
The Wolverines ignored the doubts.
“A lot of us aren’t really tuned into social media as it is,” left tackle Blake Frazier said. "There’s a lot of people don’t understand football the way that we do, that like to display their opinions. To us, that doesn’t really matter.”
They focused on themselves instead. A players-only meeting was held last Sunday that reflected the sense of urgency that was suddenly fomenting within their ranks. They then went to work.
“Coach Whitt challenged us this week to do more in every aspect of preparation,” defensive end John Henry Daley said. “Sprint to the ball more, do more film study, work out harder. And everybody bought into it and did that.”
The extra effort paid off on Saturday.
The Wolverines looked reborn.
The defense set the tone by squeezing the Sooners and shutting them out in the first half. The secondary smothered OU’s talented fleet of receivers. Daley and fellow edge rusher Dom Nichols led a front seven that repeatedly invaded the backfield. The Wolverines made eight tackles for loss and brought waves of pressure against dual-threat quarterback John Mateer. Except for a surge that spanned most of third quarter and a small sliver of the fourth, Mateer was held in check. He completed just 51.5% of his pass attempts and produced 234 yards of total offense. He also threw a consequential interception that set up the winning touchdown with 7:53 left in regulation. A case can be made that he was outperformed by Underwood, who faced withering criticism and appeared to be on shaky ground after his dud against Western Michigan.
Underwood fared much better Saturday, making winning plays for an offense that finally showed some life. The most significant was a 38-yard dash to the end zone in the first quarter that gave U-M a 7-0 lead and went a long way toward soothing the maize-and-blue masses at the Big House. It was one of 18 runs Underwood made during an afternoon he contributed a team-high 87 rushing yards.
“Our team wanted me to run the ball a little bit more, so that was done,” he said.
It seeded a positive effect, adding bite to a ground attack that struggled to get much output from its other sources. It also made Underwood appear more threatening than he really was. The sophomore quarterback, after all, only recorded nine completion, for 111 yards. Those stats weren’t eye-popping. But they were solid.
Underwood was able to do enough to keep Oklahoma’s defense off balance. Better yet, he didn’t turn the ball over, which was important in a game like this one, where field position was at a premium. Seven of the 11 drives led by Underwood ended in Oklahoma territory. Four of them didn’t yield points and ended with a punt. But Michigan still extracted some benefit on those fruitless possessions, thanks to Cam Brown, who twice used his right leg to pin the ball inside OU’s 1. The special teams contribution Brown made was emblematic of the Wolverines’ comprehensive victory, which featured periods of strong execution across all three phases.
“Everything that we were looking for in this game, that was missing last week, showed up,” Whittingham said.
It was a credit to the coaching job he did between this weekend and last.
If the messy opener caused people to lose faith in Whittingham, the uplifting victory over Oklahoma on Saturday should make them believe in him.
His players clearly do – and now perhaps more than ever.
“There’s a lot of confidence in that locker room this afternoon,” Whittingham said.
There is also a sense of real momentum.
As Whittingham explained, the triumph over the Sooners is “hopefully a big springboard.”
“If this team continues to work like they did last week,” he added, “then I like our chances every single week.”
Anybody who watched what happened Saturday inside Michigan Stadium now knows it would be unwise to bet against Whittingham and his Wolverines.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin on X.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kyle Whittingham shows it's unwise to bet against him and Michigan
