Michigan’s offense gave it another ugly afternoon, and the most glaring moment came on a call that left Kyle Whittingham openly acknowledging it was the wrong one.
The Wolverines had a chance to steal a win from No. 6 Indiana on Saturday and even pushed the game to overtime, but the offense never provided enough help. Michigan scored just six points in the 13-6 loss, and Trey Butkowski missed two kicks that, in hindsight, could have changed everything.
Still, the biggest issue was the same one that has followed the Wolverines all season: the play calling.
Jason Beck drew plenty of criticism for his approach against Indiana, especially with freshman quarterback Tommy Carr making the first start of his career. One sequence stood out above the rest. On third-and-1 at the Hoosiers’ 1-yard line, Beck dialed up a naked bootleg, and Carr ended up taking a 13-yard sack.
That turned what should have been two chances from the 1 into a missed opportunity, and eventually into another missed kick.
Whittingham didn’t try to escape responsibility, but he didn’t hide from the problem either.
"Everything falls on my shoulders, so whatever happens in the course of a game is on me," Whittingham said. "That was not a good football call, no, that was not a good call at that point in time.
"I have the ability to overrule anything in the whole program. And so, like I said, it circles back to me, but it was a very disappointing outcome and a call that I know Jason wishes he had back, because it really was damaging."
The defense did its part, and Michigan actually outgained Indiana. But the numbers still painted a familiar picture of an offense that hasn’t moved forward, even with Carr now at quarterback. Michigan finished with 224 total yards and rushed for only 57, while Carr turned it over twice.
Whittingham, who coached with Beck at Utah last season, also pointed back to what Beck’s offense had done there, while making it clear Michigan has to find answers fast with five games remaining.
"Well, we've got to get better," Whittingham said. "I mean, there's no doubt about it.
It's a long season. I have always judged the season as a whole.
I don't judge the season in segments or game by game. You just look at the whole body of work, and the whole body of work so far, he'll be the first to tell you it's not good enough.
"We've got to get better. There's a lot of areas there's really nowhere you can say, hey, we're doing this pretty good.
We're not really running the ball as effectively as we want to. We did last week, but not in the other weeks.
We're not completing the ball at a high enough percentage. We're not protecting the ball well enough.
We're not good enough in the red zone offensively. So there's you name it, and we've got to work on it.
And so that's our challenge. That's my challenge.
That's Jason's challenge, and it's squarely on our shoulders."
Michigan heads to Rutgers next weekend for a 12:30 p.m. ET kickoff.
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