Michigan football writer Tony Garcia identifies three things the Wolverines learned in a 13-6 overtime loss to Indiana, headed into a Week 9 road matchup at Rutgers on Halloween.
1. The goals are out the window. Now it's about pride
When Kyle Whittingham spoke at a Chicago hotel in August, he said a successful Year 1 in Ann Arbor would mean the team is playing meaningful games in November. Alas, it will not be after falling to 4-3 on the season.
In this era of college football, this is where things can get really tricky. Players who aren't getting playing time they feel they deserve can start to consider transferring to greener pastures. Elder statesmen who are hoping to play at the next level can weigh the options of preserving their health to go into the offseason at full strength.
Most of all,
when things don't work, teams can fall into the trap of laying blame. Whittingham said there's "no finger pointing" going on as the defense plays lights out and the offense struggles to be anywhere near average, but he did acknowledge there's a "marked difference right now in the results on the respective sides of the ball."
Michigan (4-3, 1-3 Big Ten) heads into Rutgers (2-5, 1-3) for a Week 9 showdown on Halloween (12:30 p.m., Big Ten Network) in a game that was supposed to be a cakewalk. While it still likely will be a win, it won't boost U-M into the season it wanted to have.
All Michigan has left is to play for one another and try to build momentum heading into 2027. That's a hard sell on days when the temperature is still 60 degrees.
"We've got a lot of football left," Whittingham said. "We've got five full games left, maybe more beyond that depending on you know how it plays out. But if you've got guys that don't want to play all of a sudden because they've had a couple setbacks, then you got the wrong guys in the locker room."
2. This is a championship-caliber defense
The defense won't get nearly the publicity it should because the offense has been a spectacular car crash that has college football fans from all over the nation rubbernecking. But make no mistake, Jay Hill should be on the shortlist for the Broyles Award as the top coordinator in the country.
His defense held Indiana out of the end zone 11 times in 11 drives in regulation on Saturday. The Hoosiers entered play averaging nearly 450 yards of offense per game and didn't even get half that. They were top 25 in scoring (36.6 points per game) prior to their trip to Ann Arbor and barley managed one-third of that.
That's a credit to Hill, with a hat tip to the secondary − primarily Zeke Berry, Jyaire HIll, Chris Bracy and Smith Snowden. Those first three graded out as U-M's top defenders, per Pro Football Focus. Berry (84.4) allowed just two completions on five passes thrown at him and had a pass breakup as well as a critical interception that set up U-M's first points of the day late in the third quarter. Hill (80.1) was thrown at six times and allowed just one reception for four yards while drawing primary duty on IU star Charlie Becker. He also had a pair of pass breakups.
Bracy, meanwhile, led the team with 13 tackles. He and Smith Snowden combined for two of the team's three tackles for loss. Whittingham made sure he pointed out this is an elite defense. Still, that did little to console those from the unit after the game.
“It sucks, honestly,” Snowden said. “But at the end of the day, we gotta do our job, right? We gotta rely on our offense every single day of the week. I don’t care what happens, I’m gonna ride with my guys regardless.”
3. Jason Beck's offense is a catastrophe
By every measure, Michigan's offense is inept, ranking last in the Big Ten in passing (165.9 yards per game), first downs (16.6 per game, No. 129), red zone touchdown rate (52.6%) and plays of 10 yards or more (69 total, No. 137 out of 138 nationally).
Beyond the statistics, the eyeball test is equally maddening. Like the decision on third-and-9 inside the red zone, when U-M trotted out its Rhino package with another blocking tight end, Jalen Hoffman, then ran a route with two downfield options against seven defenders. Or the third-and-goal call from the 1, where Beck called for a play-action pass to the aforementioned Rhino, converted defensive tackle Manuel Beigel, and Carr was driven back for a sack.
How about the outside zone on the first play of overtime that Savion Hiter tried to bounce and lost five yards? Or when it was second-and-10 and Bryson Kuzdzal took a jet sweep that lost seven yards? These are just a few examples of the 10 plays that went backward on Saturday. That's all bad enough, but it's only exacerbated by the lack of big plays: Michigan had one pass play go more than 20 yards and one run go more than 10 yards.
According to PFF, U-M ran off the left side 10 times, off the right side four times, the aforementioned jet sweep and four additional runs (likely scrambles) that went outside the tackles. Those 19 rushes amassed a total of 21 yards.
"Last year, Jason was exceptional," Whittingham said. "He had exceptional results, so I'm not going to say that he's struggling, but we're trying ... we're spending time on it, around the clock. But Jason's just searching for some continuity − probably the best word for it."
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: 3 things we learned about Michigan football as season hits tipping point
