Kyle Whittingham came to Michigan with a simple message that landed like a warning and a promise: “You will become us, we will not become you.”
That line was supposed to fit the moment in Ann Arbor. After years of scandals, and after the program’s most recent head coach was fired in disgrace over an inappropriate relationship with a staffer that escalated into something far more serious, Whittingham was hired to steady the place. He was meant to be the adult in the room, the guy who could clean up the mess and bring order back to Michigan football.
So far, though, the clean-up hasn’t shown up on the field.
Through four weeks, Michigan has piled up eight personal foul penalties in four games. That’s two per game, and while some of them have been unavoidable, too many have been self-inflicted. The latest example came Saturday against Iowa in the conference opener, when the Wolverines were trying to finish off the Hawkeyes.
Hank Brown’s incomplete throw down the right sideline brought up fourth-and-12. The crowd was roaring, the moment was there, and Iowa’s odds of converting against Michigan’s pass rush looked slim.
Then Zeke Berry saw Tony Diaz, took two steps, and shoved him into the sideline. Maybe Diaz sold it a little.
Maybe not. Either way, Berry turned a manageable moment into a crushing one.
What followed was exactly the kind of outcome Michigan invited. If a team keeps beating itself, eventually someone else will cash in on it.
That has been the story of the Wolverines’ first month. Holding calls have wiped out first downs.
Alignment penalties have erased plays before they ever got going. And the alignment problems are the kind of mistakes that get taught on day one of practice.
Michigan can’t even get lined up correctly.
The defensive personal fouls have been the most alarming part because of who is making them. Jyaire Hill’s personal foul in Week 2 was reckless and selfish.
Berry’s against Iowa was costly in the extreme. Trey Pierce was also flagged for a hands-to-the-face against Iowa.
Those are seniors who played under Sherrone Moore and Jim Harbaugh, which makes the discipline issues even harder to explain away. Maybe the answer is simply that those players have not become us, as Whittingham once said.
Either way, upperclassmen piling up this many penalties over four weeks is flat-out unacceptable.
That’s why the quote from Whittingham matters now more than when he first said it. The honeymoon is over.
Michigan has already lost a game it should not have lost, and it has looked better in stretches than it has played well overall. The standard Whittingham brought with him has to show up somewhere other than the press conference.
College football doesn’t leave much room for patience anymore. The players are paid now. It’s pro football-lite.
And Michigan’s road only gets steeper from here. Iowa was supposed to be a win, the kind of game that would leave the Wolverines needing two victories from Indiana, Oregon, Penn State, and Ohio State to reach the college football playoff, as long as they handled everything else too.
That math looks a lot different now. Michigan may need to go 3-1 against those teams, and that’s before even getting into the question of whether this group can play clean enough to beat a team like Indiana or Ohio State.
Iowa is the kind of opponent that will let you hang yourself if you insist on doing it. Michigan did exactly that on Saturday.
If the Wolverines keep trying to beat themselves, they’ll keep handing away games. The players are part of the problem, but the bigger truth is the old one: attitude reflects leadership.
Whittingham was brought in as the disciplinarian. Now he has to look the part.
In Other News...
Michigan Fans Will Be Second Guessing One Late Coaching Choice
Michigans one-point loss to Iowa was the kind of game that leaves a fan base replaying the final minutes over and over. The Wolverines had their chances in a 20-19 defeat, but the closing sequence is likely to be the part that lingers most, especially with the offense leaning on the run game when the game was hanging in the balance.
The biggest talking point is the late decision to run the ball three straight times, a choice the article attributes to head coach Kyle Whittingham. It is the sort of call that can look sensible in the moment and frustrating in hindsight, and for Michigan it now sits at the center of what went wrong in a game that slipped away by the slimmest of margins. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Loss To Iowa Looks Even Worse After One Brutal Reality
Michigans 20-19 loss to Iowa had all the markings of one of those frustrating afternoons that sticks with a fan base long after the final whistle. The Wolverines controlled plenty of the underlying numbers and even posted a higher success rate, but the scoreboard told a far less forgiving story, one shaped by missed chances and a game that slipped away despite the statistical edge.
Iowas special teams helped tilt the night with a kickoff return for a touchdown, and Michigan did not make enough of its own opportunities in the red zone to compensate. An interception and a failed fourth-down try inside scoring range loomed especially large in a one-point game, turning what looked like a solid performance on paper into a loss that feels even harder to explain in hindsight. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Defense Did Enough To Win Until Two Costly Mistakes
For most of the afternoon against Iowa, Michigans defense did what it had to do. It kept the Wolverines in front, squeezed the Hawkeyes offense and gave the team a chance to ride the lead, with CB Zeke Berry, edge Dom Nichols and S Chris Bracy all drawing strong grades for their work on a unit that generally looked in control.
Still, the game turned on a handful of mistakes that proved too costly to absorb. Michigan finished with seven missed tackles, and a couple of critical penalties and breakdowns helped undercut all the good work that came before them, leaving the defense with the frustrating feeling that it had done enough to win until it didnt. [Read more 🡒]