Michigan’s football season has reached the kind of point where every move gets scrutinized, every quote gets replayed, and every bit of patience starts to disappear. Through seven games, the results have been brutal, and the frustration around offensive coordinator Jason Beck has only grown louder after another damaging Saturday.
Kyle Whittingham has stuck with Beck, even while criticizing the play calls after games against Iowa, Western Michigan and Indiana. But that loyalty has done little to quiet the criticism.
Trevor McCue of Blue By 90 reported that support for Whittingham is at “an all-time low,” and on X he said the “noise” has gotten too loud to ignore. Monday’s press conference only poured fuel on the fire.
The issue, from the outside, is simple: Michigan is sitting on a $30 million roster and still keeps losing because the offense keeps tripping over itself. Beck has been singled out for the kind of game management that has, in the eyes of critics, cost Michigan at least two games.
Iowa is a tougher case to pin directly on him, but last Saturday is the one that really stuck. The Wolverines, the argument goes, should have won that game.
A competent offensive coordinator would have gotten them there.
The numbers only make the story uglier. Michigan’s run game is outside the top 100, which is shocking given what the Wolverines had coming back.
Even worse, the offense sits outside the top 100 in every major category. That’s the kind of profile that turns every decision into a referendum.
Jon Jansen, the former Michigan standout now serving as the radio color analyst, didn’t dismiss the idea of moving on from Beck. Speaking to Wolverines Wire, he made clear that a change would have been understandable based on how the season has unfolded.
“It would not be an overreaction if this happened,” Jansen said. “I think that moment has passed.
If you're going to do it, you're going to do it like Oregon did, but you have to be able -- you inherit a certain talent and skill set by your offensive line, by your running backs, by your quarterbacks, and if you refuse to call plays that they are good at, then I don't, I don't know what you're doing. I really don't.”
Now the attention shifts to Rutgers. Michigan should win on the road, but that word - should - carries a lot less weight around this team right now. In this stretch, nothing feels safe, and for Whittingham, even a second season suddenly feels like a question instead of a promise.
The basketball side of the program has its own storyline heading into the season, with both the men’s and women’s teams landing in bracketology talk. On the men’s side, Michigan is coming off a national championship and a major roster overhaul after losing three first-round picks and head coach Dusty May. Still, Trey McKenney, Elliot Cadeau and Roddy Gayle are back, and the Wolverines also added promising freshmen and transfers, though five-star Brandon McCoy is out for the season.
In the latest bracketology projection before the season, Michigan is slotted as a No. 5 seed.
On the women’s side, Michigan comes in ranked No. 5 in the AP Poll and is projected to make the NCAA tournament. The Wolverines reached the Elite 8 last season.
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Among the names expected to surface are Candice Story Lee of Vanderbilt, Katie Fraumann with Michigan ties, and UConns David Benedict, each bringing a different background to a decision that may be judged as much by what happens on the football sidelines as in the athletic department. However the search unfolds, the new AD will arrive with immediate pressure to evaluate the current state of the program and decide how much patience, or urgency, is warranted. [Read more 🡒]
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Michigan Now Has A New NIL Ceiling To Navigate
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