ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- After winning in Week 1 in shocking fashion, Kyle Whittingham lost his first game as the Michigan football head coach in similar fashion.
The Wolverines dominated Iowa in everything but the scoreboard, with the offense seemingly moving the ball at will while the defense was stingy -- to say the least -- against the Hawkeye offense. However, missed opportunities and the little things added up. And thus, Iowa won with a walk-off touchdown as time expired, 20-19, at The Big House.
After the game, Kyle Whittingham shared his thoughts, and he was still somewhat in disbelief. Here is everything he said in his postgame press conference.
Did Iowa do anything different than expected?
No, they didn't do anything different than what they've shown on film. They've been doing for 15
years, and we just didn't do our part in the red zone. And I think we were two for four. And that proved to be one of the differences in the game for certain. And we just got to be able to, as you mentioned, execute better.
On the penalties
Well, I've gotta watch the film first of all. I had people tell me it should have been or shouldn't have been. Who knows. But the bottom line is we were penalized too much again today. I think before today we were somewhere in the middle of the country -- 50th or 60th, something like that. Now we're probably back in the top 30 or 20. It's excessive, and we got to do something about it. And it was a couple of really costly ones, particularly on that last drive. But we just got to keep coaching it and keep impressing on our players' minds that penalties have consequences in games.
I mean, 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.
Thoughts on the final play defensively
You know, there's two schools of thought: you either play coverage or you speed things up and bring people. And trying to speed the quarterback up, in hindsight, you probably would have brought six and max pressure and tried to speed him up a little bit.
On the dramatic loss
Yeah, it was a tough locker room, but I told them, hey, you know, first of all, it's a shame that we let that one get away from us because we had it. And I told them sometimes in life you get knocked down, and things seem tough. And how are you going to overcome that? But that's life. You got to get back up, pick yourself back up. And we got to go right back to work on the next opponent. And that's how this profession is. You just got to keep going forward and learn from your mistakes. You know, watch the film, obviously, and critique things.
But I thought our offense was the best they've been all year. I thought Bryce was at his best game. Both receivers over 100 yards. Jordan Marshall finally got a little bit untracked. We completely dominated them statistically, but that doesn't really matter. Obviously, it doesn't matter at all. The final score is all that matters. But if you're looking for things we did well, then we did some really good things. We did have the one turnover and zero takeaways. That was a factor in the game being minus one.
And then that kickoff return that they had early in the game, that kept the score close. And that was a -- you just can't let that happen. I mean, that's something that is unacceptable. We've got to coach it better. We're trying to kick it to them. We're trying to kick it out of the back of the end zone. But just a little bit of a miss hit, and the guy took it back on us.
On another close fourth quarter and the red zone offense emphasis
Oh, it's a big emphasis, and that's something that you're preaching constantly is to finish. And that includes fourth quarter performance. And one of our points of emphasis on the plan to win is win the fourth quarter. And that's -- it's critical. And I think the first – I can't remember exactly, but I think the first three games, I believe we won the fourth quarter each time. Or maybe one game was so out of reach it didn't matter, the UTEP game. But winning the fourth quarter is a part of our plan, and it's emphasized for sure.
A couple times now you guys haven't gotten that last first down. Did you think of maybe throwing?
Well, we certainly would have liked to have run the clock out in our four-minute offense, and we haven't been able to do that. It's been a couple times now. And so, that was disappointing. But, again, we've got a lot of things to work on and fix, but there's a lot of positives with this team. And going forward, I believe we're going to win a lot of ballgames. But we do have some things that are not up to par, and we'll continue to work.A nd as long as the players keep the right attitude, stay unified, which we will, and keep their heads up, which we will, then we've got a chance to be pretty good when we're all said and done.
Could you talk a little bit about the decision to not call timeout?
Well, I didn't want to give them any more time to plan it. First of all, I was going to call timeout if they hadn't stopped it because John Henry was on the ground 20 yards behind where the ball was being snapped. And so, I was concerned that if he snapped it, it would be a free play because it would be offsides. And so, finally they shut it down. They realized he was back there and shut the thing down. And so, that was, in essence, a timeout because there was a stoppage in play, and we had a chance to gather ourselves over there.
And would we have benefited from another – well, I guess it would have been another one because you can't call consecutive timeouts. But since they didn't recognize that as a timeout, we could have. But I don't know if that would have been – if we would have played it any differently than we did, even if we had taken that timeout.
On moving forward
Well, you got to bounce back. Again, that's life.I mean, you get knocked on your butt, and you pick yourself up, and you continue to fight and scrap and compete. And unless I miss my guess, this team is going to come back next week and play very well and continue to practice well and work hard. And if you're a competitor, that's what you do.
On Blake Frazier's injury and Jordan Marshall perhaps being injured still
Yeah, Blake's a tough individual and came back after a – you know, it was very painful. Fortunately, we hope it's not serious. And we don't think it's serious. They wouldn't have let him back in the game if it was.
But it was certainly – he was certainly playing in pain. And Jordan Marshall, you know, I thought he had his best game. And, you know, Savion was running well. And so, I don't think – unless there's something I don't know, I don't believe Jordan wasn't in there because of injury in that fourth quarter. So – but I don't – you know, the game just ended. So, there's a lot of things I've got to research.
Would he like to rotate corners more?
You know, we only played 59 snaps tonight – or this afternoon. And we haven't played excessive snaps. Last week, I think the starters played like 20 snaps. And so, I don't think we've put anyone out there for excessive periods of time. I think very fresh after four games relative to what's the average typically during a normal four-game stretch. And so, they would have been playing a lot less snaps.
Would we like to get some more guys involved? Yeah, but they've got to earn that in practice. We've got to feel confident with them. But right now, we have four corners that you see rolling through there. Although Shamari did not play a lot of reps tonight. But corners got to be able to run forever and play. Now, if you're asking them to play 80 snaps, that's a little bit different. But I don't believe any of them were above – didn't approach 60. They were all under 60 snaps.
On penalties and turnovers again
Yeah. Well, that's football. I mean, you know, you can play not so well and win and play very well and lose. And it's a game of all kind of things that go on and transpire.
But I'm proud, like I said, how the offense performed. And, you know, we didn't finish a couple drives. We probably should have had 30-plus points, but we didn't. But they're taking steps forward each week. And I think that's very encouraging. And Bryce's play is encouraging. And the offensive line play is encouraging.
The defense, even though we gave up that last drive, they still rushed for, like, what, 55 yards or something like that, some very poor number from an offensive perspective.
But the one thing, and I've been saying it for a few weeks now, that we haven't been doing a good enough job is just getting takeaways on defense. We got zero today and ended up minus one in the turnover margin. And the offense sure could have used a little bit of help in short-field situations, but we weren't able to generate that today.
You haven't been on the road yet with this team, but is it almost a good thing to go?
Well, I don't know about that. I'd rather play home every single week. You know, we love playing in The Big House. The crowd was great. And so, but it is a road game this week, and we only have four of them.
And in a way, I hear what you're saying, just to get on an airplane and us against the world mentality in an opponent's stadium. There's something to that, too. So maybe our guys will be looking forward to that opportunity.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Everything Kyle Whittingham said after Michigan's stunning loss to Iowa
