Michigan’s bye week arrives with the Wolverines in a spot nobody in Ann Arbor wanted to see.
At 3-2 and 0-2 in the Big Ten, the margin for error is gone. The conference title picture is already out of reach, and so is the College Football Playoff path unless Michigan wins out - the goal JJ Buchanan laid out. That would mean beating Ohio State, Indiana, Oregon and UCLA, a brutal stretch that leaves no room for the kind of slippage that has defined the first half of the season.
There’s talent here. Plenty of it, in fact.
Michigan entered the year with a $30 million roster and expectations of becoming a 9-10 win team, a step toward real contention down the line. Instead, the Wolverines are staring at a season that suddenly feels like it needs a rescue act just to get back on track.
Saturday had the feel of rock bottom, and now the bye week has become a reset button.
The biggest issue starts on the ground, where Michigan’s running game has vanished.
That’s the part that makes the struggles so jarring. Kyle Whittingham’s teams have always been built to run the ball, and Utah was one of the best rushing teams in college football last season under Jason Beck. But this offense has looked like it’s trying too hard to fit Michigan players into a Utah template instead of leaning into what this roster does best.
For years, Michigan has been about power football - NFL backs behind NFL linemen, a downhill attack that wears teams down. That should have been the identity again this fall.
Instead, Beck has leaned too much toward horizontal concepts, even though Michigan was a heavy outside zone team last year. Whittingham has already said the Wolverines are going to use more downhill runs, and Blake Frazier was basically asking for that on Tuesday.
If Michigan wants any kind of second-half surge, this has to look more like last season’s run game, when the Wolverines averaged 210 yards per game and 5.8 yards per carry without using the quarterback as part of the rushing attack. The inconsistency doesn’t make sense, and if it doesn’t get fixed, there’s no real path to a turnaround.
Quarterback play is the other glaring issue, and Bryce Underwood is carrying the weight of it.
He’s become an easy target because of the $12 million NIL deal, and plenty of fans already want him benched. That still feels too soon.
He should get the start against Penn State. But if the game still isn’t slowing down for him, then a move may be necessary for his own good.
Against Minnesota, the final play told the story. Underwood had a tight end wide open, looked like it was his primary read, and didn’t wait long enough.
He panicked, then defaulted to tossing it up for Andrew Marsh or JJ Buchanan. That kind of processing issue is exactly what’s holding the offense back.
The ceiling is obvious. Underwood played well against Oklahoma and Iowa, and if he can get back to that level, Michigan can compete in every game left on the schedule.
If he looks like he did against Minnesota, the Wolverines can lose every one of them. The defense has done its part.
It has been good enough to have this team sitting at 5-0. Instead, the offense needed just six points in the second half - or one touchdown - and couldn’t get there.
That’s now three straight years of Michigan having a defense that can hold up and an offense that can’t pull its weight. The special teams haven’t helped either.
Those problems are easy to miss because everything else has been so messy, but the mistakes there have been costly. Kerry Coombs, the former Ohio State assistant hired by Moore to clean things up, was kept on by Whittingham. So far, it has been a complete disaster.
The Iowa loss turned on a kickoff return touchdown, the kind of play Michigan simply cannot give up against a team like that. It kept the Hawkeyes alive long enough to steal the game late.
Against Minnesota, Andrew Marsh’s fumble flipped the whole feel of the night. Michigan was about to get the ball back up 14-7, but instead the Gophers got it in the red zone.
The defense held, just as it later held Minnesota to a field goal after the first interception, but after the third gift in scoring range, the Gophers finally cashed in for a touchdown.
Michigan has too many leaks right now, and special teams is one of the bigger ones. The bye week has to be about plugging them before the season slips away completely.
In Other News...
Urban Meyer Just Added Fuel To Michigans Biggest Early Debate
Michigans uneven start has already turned the spotlight toward what is going wrong in Ann Arbor, and the latest outside critique only sharpened the conversation. At 3-2, with losses to Iowa and Minnesota fresh in the record, the Wolverines are searching for answers in a season that has not matched the standards the program usually demands. Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, now working as a college football analyst, added his own blunt read on the situation, saying on a podcast that he sees a team lacking passion, energy and toughness.
Meyers comments land at a moment when every issue around Michigan seems to be getting magnified, especially the quarterback debate. He also suggested Bryce Underwood has taken too much of the blame for the teams broader problems, a familiar theme when a struggling offense starts to wear the criticism. The larger question hanging over the Wolverines is whether their issues are about one player, one side of the ball or something more fundamental, and Meyers assessment only made that early-season argument louder. [Read more 🡒]
Former Wolverines Are Sending Michigan Fans Mixed Messages This Season
This season has already given Michigan fans a different kind of scorecard to follow, with several familiar faces now making their marks at new schools. A former starting quarterback has settled into the ACC and looks like he has found a good fit, while other ex-Wolverines are scattered across the country trying to establish themselves in new systems. For a program that has leaned on development and roster retention, the transfer exodus has created an odd mix of pride and frustration for the fan base watching from afar.
The feelings get even more complicated when the schedule brings some of those players back to Michigan Stadium later in the season. A linebacker who has had limited impact at Oklahoma and a group of former wide receivers and running backs with uneven results elsewhere will all carry their own storylines into that return trip. For Michigan supporters, it is the kind of reunion that can prompt both applause and second-guessing, depending on which former Wolverine is lining up across from the home team. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Basketball Schedule Reveals A National Spotlight Fans Will Notice
Michigan basketball fans now have a much clearer view of what the 2026-27 season will look like, as the school and the Big Ten released the full schedule with dates, tipoff times and television information for both conference and non-conference games. It is the kind of early calendar reveal that immediately shows where the spotlight will be, and this one comes with plenty of national exposure.
The slate is spread across a wide range of platforms, with games set for FOX, CBS, Peacock, BTN, FS1 and ESPN, giving Michigan a steady presence on major TV windows throughout the year. The announcement also lays out the preseason, regular season, Big Ten tournament and NCAA tournament portions of the schedule, so fans can start mapping out a season that will be watched far beyond Ann Arbor. [Read more 🡒]