Saturday at The Big House felt like the point where everything finally gave way for Michigan football. With the 2-6 Michigan State Spartans celebrating around the stadium and taking Paul Bunyan home after a 15-6 win, first-year head coach Kyle Whittingham was left with only one reaction: “I can’t explain what just happened.”
What happened, though, was the latest and ugliest stop on a season-long slide that now looks like a full collapse.
Michigan managed just 192 total yards against a Spartan defense that was already short-handed, with four starters missing before the game and more contributors going down as it unfolded. The Wolverines turned it over four times, and 75 of their yards came on a garbage-time drive that kept them from being shut out in Ann Arbor.
That’s where this program is right now: trying to find scraps of dignity in a game that should have been a reset point and instead became another humiliation.
The offense was the clearest mess on the field. The five-star quarterback this staff benched to make him the scapegoat for the unit’s problems never got a clean path back.
The five-star freshman running back had only seven touches. Jordan Marshall, a captain, has seven carries over the last two games.
For a group that includes a dozen or so players who should be carrying this team, the trust in Whittingham and Jason Beck has been burned away by wasted time and wasted eligibility.
The frustration has been building for a while. Zack Marshall’s leaked texts last month already hinted at the tension inside the locker room, and Saturday only made it harder to believe that feeling was isolated. Michigan has fallen into the bottom 15 nationally in both yards and points per game, while averaging almost two turnovers a game.
Even with all of that, the defense has held up well enough to make the numbers on the season feel strange. As Josh Dubow of the AP noted, Michigan became the 15th team in the last 15 seasons to allow 21 points or less in each of its first nine games.
The other 14 teams went 119-7 combined. Michigan sits at 5-4.
That contrast says plenty about how broken this season has become. The defense has done its part often enough, but the program around it has kept sliding.
The offseason turmoil was supposed to be the worst of it, an embarrassment from a culture and values standpoint. Instead, the hope was that the talent on hand would be enough to keep the program from spiraling too far off course.
It hasn’t played out that way. From being a Hail Mary away from losing to Western Michigan to Saturday’s loss to Michigan State, the season has only gotten worse. Warde Manuel, the athletic department and the university administration had a chance to stop the bleeding, and the expectation was that a full culture reset would still come with a quick return to relevance because of the talent in the building.
Instead, the team has been in free fall since Whittingham arrived.
Two weeks ago, Whittingham said, “We’ll probably be 50 percent new guys next year,” and that line now feels less like a projection than a warning. You don’t say something like that unless control is already slipping.
And the schedule is only getting harsher. Michigan still has three ranked opponents left, and it needs one win over Oregon, UCLA or Ohio State to get to a bowl game. But with players who may already be looking elsewhere, a lame duck feeling around the offensive coordinator and head coach, and leadership changes looming at athletic director and university president, even the basic question of who is making the decisions around the program feels unsettled.
After one of the worst losses in program history, the odds of this group rallying for anything meaningful look tiny.
In Other News...
Michigan Fans Have Every Right To Question This QB Decision
Michigans quarterback situation took a sharp turn at halftime against Penn State, when Bryce Underwood was benched and freshman Tommy Carr took over for most of the game. Carrs outing was uneven, including interceptions, but the move still mattered because it signaled a real shift in how the offense was being managed in a game Michigan could not afford to treat casually.
Kyle Whittingham said the offensive coaches recommended sticking with Carr after weighing what they had seen in practice, even though putting Underwood back in was discussed. Whittingham made clear the final call was his, which only adds to the scrutiny around a decision that leaves Michigan fans wondering whether the staff is riding with the hotter hand or simply hoping the choice settles itself the next time the Wolverines take the field. [Read more 🡒]
Michigans Offensive Shakeup Just Put The Real Problem In Focus
Michigans offensive struggles finally forced a change, with Jason Beck dismissed after a poor showing that came on the heels of the loss to Michigan State. The move arrived even after Kyle Whittingham had initially said there were no plans to make a switch, a sign that the pressure around the unit had grown too hard to ignore.
Beck had been brought in on a three-year contract and was the highest-paid offensive coordinator in college football, which only adds to the scrutiny around how quickly things unraveled. For a program that expected the offense to settle in and carry more of the load, the decision puts the bigger issue back in focus: whether this was about one coordinator, or a deeper problem that still needs fixing. [Read more 🡒]
Michigans Offensive Collapse Just Forced A Decision Fans Saw Coming
A rough stretch on offense has finally led to a change for Michigan, which parted ways with offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Jason Beck after a season of disappointing production. The move comes on the heels of a loss to Michigan State, a result that only sharpened the frustration around an attack that never found much rhythm when the Wolverines needed it most.
Head coach Kyle Whittingham made clear he was unhappy with the offenses output, and now the focus shifts to what comes next on that side of the ball. Michigan has not announced a replacement for Beck yet, though several assistants with offensive experience are in the mix as the staff tries to steady a unit that has become impossible to ignore for all the wrong reasons. [Read more 🡒]