ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Embarrassing. An embarrassment. And more embarrassing beyond that.
The Kyle Whittingham era was supposed to embody toughness, discipline, playing smart, and doing things the right way. After saying all of the right things and appearing to be confident in what Michigan football would bring to the table in his debut in Ann Arbor, Whittingham's team was not only the opposite of everything he espouses, it was a debacle in every way. The Wolverines were a miracle away from, at best, the second-worst loss in program history, and given what the head coach's teams had been for two-plus decades in Salt Lake City, it's a head-scratcher.
The opening offensive drive was as impressive as the rest of the game was bad. Despite mistakes, quarterback
Bryce Underwood sliced through the Western Michigan defense like a hot knife through butter, making what ended up being fall camp bluster look prescient. But that was it. 75 yards on the opening drive, and a 47-yard Hail Mary aside, it accounted for all but 154 yards accumulated all game. The offense, against a supposedly overmatched foe, made the Sherrone Moore-era offense look like the air raid by comparison. The defense got off the field, surrendering little in terms of points, sure, but it also allowed the Broncos to hold the ball for over 40 minutes, including a 13-minute, 40-second drive spanning from the third to fourth quarters. When the offense got the ball back, it quickly relinquished possession after three plays, managing seven yards on first down before deciding that moving the ball forward was anathema to its goals.
And then there were the other mistakes: missed assignments, an assortment of penalties, and all-around bad play. It wasn't just the opposite of what was expected; it was the opposite of how Whittingham's teams in Utah played for 21 years.
"I'm going to reserve judgment on that until I dissect the film," Whittingham said after the game. "But we talked about how we improved dramatically through fall camp. That's a fact. I mean, there's no one that attended practice that wouldn't tell you anything different. We had former players there, and everybody had the same analysis. And so, and we're not -- I'm not saying that Bryce played a bad game. This isn't on Bryce Underwood. This is, like I said, it's on me, and I've got to figure out a way to have these guys better prepared and be able to get into a rhythm offensively. It's like we never got into a rhythm after that first drive. We always found a way to screw it up. We were like 0-for-5 or 0-for-6 before we converted on third down. And you just can't win football games like that. We were very fortunate to win, obviously."
Previous bad Michigan teams also supposedly looked good in fall camp or in practice. But there's a difference in what happens on State Street and what happens on the corner of Stadium and Main. And it's the latter that counts.
Michigan looked lost at best, and inept at worst
Whittingham says this isn't on Bryce Underwood, and he's right to some degree. This was a group effort at subpar. For all the talk of how the team wasn't strong last year and how they've fixed the glitch, so to speak, the Wolverines got manhandled on the line on both sides of the ball.
Michigan ultimately outgained Western, but already a predominantly rushing team mustered only 106 yards on the ground, whereas the Broncos managed 132. It was supposed to be Jason Beck's forte to run the football, as he engineered the No. 2 rushing offense in his last two seasons at two different schools. And yet, the maize and blue averaged 4.2 yards per carry, with Underwood being the lone bright spot, minus his debilitating turnover on the penultimate drive deep in Michigan territory.
Overpowered and confused, the Wolverines' offensive front -- which had supposedly improved upon last year's ascendant performance -- couldn't get anything going, even when it had six or more linemen blocking. And when it managed to burst for a long run, a 20-yarder for third-string back Bryson Kuzdzal, it was called back for holding -- one of two holding calls that went along with two illegal formation penalties and a substitution infraction. Early in the game, on the first drive, a mishandled snap was corralled by Underwood before he found wide receiver JJ Buchanan downfield for a first down and a big play. The final play of the game aside, it was the only time that the Wolverines appeared capable of overcoming adversity. Beyond that, they welcomed it, embraced it with open arms -- not to overcome, but to be mired in the suck.
Defensively, the lack of tackling in fall camp was apparent. Western used quick game and misdirection, along with a plodding, slow, methodical lead-up to lull the Wolverines to sleep. And then, when a Bronco was dead to rights, they got six extra chances over the course of the game. Credit to allowing just 12 points on four made field goals, because that should have been enough to put any team away. But given that the defense couldn't get stops in a more timely fashion, it allowed what could have been just a couple of simple mistakes to snowball into near disaster.
And then there's special teams. What was supposed to be a much-improved unit saw Andrew Marsh reprise the same mistake he made in the first game of the season last year: a fumbled punt turning the ball back over to the opponent. It was the turning point of the game, and it transpired after what was supposed to have been the Wolverines' second stop of the contest, still in the first quarter. Even though the first drive was the only successful one, the second drive saw Michigan make it to midfield before one of the illegal formation penalties wiped out a pivotal first down, making it third-and-long.
Michigan is still a young team. It exemplified one, making untimely mistake after untimely mistake. But the hallmark of a Whittingham team has been one that doesn't beat itself, and on Saturday, the Wolverines aided and abetted Western's efforts, beating itself just as much as the Broncos' effort to beat them.
The maize and blue were also 0-3 in the turnover battle. It's nearly impossible to win a game with such a margin, no matter the team in college football.
The embarrassments continued at the end of the game, however, not only with the controversial ending (though the Big Ten explained that putting an extra second on the clock was the right call) but with the students storming the field at the end. That should be reserved solely for beating an elite team -- like 2021 and 2023 Ohio State. Not for narrowly avoiding what could have been considered the worst loss in program history. The players celebrated the moment of the Hail Mary, only to turn somber in the immediate aftermath. Yet, the crowd on the field went as berserk, if not more so, than those in attendance in the Rose Bowl following the win over Alabama on New Year's Day in 2024. If the game itself was an eyesore, the fan reaction in the stadium was a punctuation mark, letting the whole college football world know that Michigan, in this very moment, is not serious and should not be taken seriously.
Where does Michigan go from here?
Play as it did on Saturday, and it's going nowhere fast. Oklahoma is coming to town, and if Michigan doesn't figure things out in a hurry, it's going to get run off the field. If the Bronco defense was too tough to solve, imagine what a Brent Venables-coached outfit will do. Iowa comes to town in Week 4, and even that offensively-challenged outfit put up 40 points on what's usually a sneaky good NIU team. Minnesota rolled Eastern Illinois. Penn State destroyed a solid Marshall team. Indiana is the defending national champion and (eventually) handled North Texas convincingly. Oregon and Ohio State still loom large. The schedule doesn't let up, minus the Week 3 contest against a terrible UTEP team and perhaps Rutgers, which had a shocking loss to UMass on Thursday. Even Michigan State, which narrowly outlasted a rebuilding Toledo on Friday night, looked more capable than the Wolverines did on Saturday.
Now the good news is Michigan emerged 1-0. A loss would have effectively ended the season as it started. While everything about Saturday was disheartening, and it's hard to imagine after seeing Week 1 that there is any light at the end of the tunnel, one game doesn't have to carry over to the next or beyond. Jay Hill's defense is known for creating turnovers, and it managed nothing on Saturday. Trends say that should change. The offense is more troubling, but we'll see if the Wolverines can find a fix. The first drive of the game was electric, so the maize and blue have the capability -- it's just a matter of executing the way it had at the outset compared to how it did for much of the rest of the game.
"Well, again, we're going to watch the film, but the first drive it was certainly there," Whittingham said. "We came out right out of the gate and boom, boom, boom, right down the field. So why that all of a sudden dried up, I've got to go to the tape and find out. But I know, just like I mentioned, we just didn't hit movement for the rest of the game like we needed to hit it. And I don't know if we were a little conservative in our play calling. Maybe we should have taken some more shots down the field, try to open up the pass game a little bit. But I'll have some better answers for you tomorrow after I digest the tape."
Michigan is hardly the first team to look like a debacle in Week 1 only to rebound as the season continued. Even this year, Oregon struggled mightily with Boise State -- and yet, we expect it to improve upon a moribund opening foray to be the championship contender it fancies itself to be. The Wolverines appear a far cry from being anywhere near that at the moment, but one step at a time, one game at a time. They'd actually benefit greatly from one play at a time at this juncture, finding a way to harness that which Whittingham has preached over multiple decades.
Despite the feeling of despondency that may come from such a terrible outing, we don't know either way yet whether that will translate to future games. Perhaps the game plan was too vanilla. Perhaps nerves played a factor. We don't know. They play games for a reason, and we learned that on Saturday night especially, as Western deserved to win given how it played compared to Michigan. But despite clock controversy, Michigan emerged victorious, and it lives to fight another day.
It must fix myriad issues fast; otherwise, one embarrassment will turn into many. But that's a problem for this week. And make no mistake, it is a problem.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Michigan football embarrassment exposes major problems despite win
