Was Western Michigan Game a Wake Up Call or a Warning? The Breakdown

[What’s going on, Michigan fans? Welcome back to another episode of the breakdown. I went back to Ann Arbor this weekend, expecting to come home and talk about how great a weekend it was. And for all its intents and purposes, it absolutely was. Friday night, we launched Hail Media Live at Knight’s Steakhouse.

And it was everything I hoped it would be. Great crowd, great energy, Michigan people coming together, talking about football, telling stories,, celebrating this thing that we’re building called Hail Media. It was just one of those nights where you walk out feeling really great about everything that’s going on. And then Saturday happened and all hell is broken loose. Michigan beats Western Michigan 13-12 on a Hail Mary with essentially the entire season flashing before our eyes in week one.

And I’ve spent the last few days going back through the game, watching it, looking at the numbers, listening to everything being said about the program and Bryce Underwood and all this other stuff. Yes, Michigan technically won the football game, but if we’re being serious about where this program wants to be, Saturday night was just completely unacceptable. It’s a breakdown. Let’s get it. Before we get into this episode, I want to acknowledge our sponsors first.

This episode is brought to you by OLIPOP, the feel-good soda. This week, I am drinking ginger ale. And if you know anything about OLIPOP, it’s a prebiotic soda. It’s very good for you. Good for your gut health. less sugar than most sodas and it’s extremely good, extremely healthy for you.

So, make sure you check that out. OLIPOP, they’ve got different flavors, all kind of flavors. Crisp Apple, strawberry, vanilla, orange cream, cream soda, root beer. They got a ton of flavors, so make sure you check these guys out. Also want to acknowledge the Knight’s Steakhouse.

The had opportunity to eat there for the first time and the food was absolutely phenomenal. The service was great. It was just an unbelievable event. the people there, I mean, they are staple in Ann Arbor. So, you definitely have to check those guys out. Also want to give a shout out to one of our new sponsors, Sher Wine Tribe, over at XP Realy.

She’s your go-to real estate agent in Ann Arbor and all of the surrounding areas. Just make sure you check her out if you’re looking for a home or apartment Ann Arbor. Make sure you check out Cherry Wine Tribe over at XP Realy. And of course, we want to acknowledge Valiant Clothing. They’ve been around for a very long time.

Started by the great John Wangler. They’ve been a staple of Michigan apparel. Make sure you check those guys out as well. Now, let’s get into this episode. Okay, before I go in on Michigan, I want to say something that I don’t think enough people are saying.

Congratulations to Western Michigan. They played a hell of a football game, and maybe we shouldn’t have been as surprised as everybody seems to be. Western Michigan went 10-4 last year. They won the MAC championship. They won their bowl game. once Brock Lowry became their starting quarterback last season, that team went on an unbelievable run.

Lowry came back this year after winning MAC Offensive Player of the Year. They returned a good amount of experience offensively and they have veterans all over that roster. that was a very good football team and I think they’re going to be right back in the MAC race and I would not be surprised if they’re playing for another conference championship at the end of the season. So I’m not interested in disrespecting Western Michigan. They came into the Big House. They weren’t intimidated.

They were physical. They were disciplined for about 59 minutes and 59 seconds. They believed they were going to beat Michigan. so you got to give them credit. But here’s the other side of that. This is still Michigan and there’s a standard attached to wearing that winged helmet.

What I watched Saturday night offensively was nowhere close to that standard. The defense won this game. If you want to know why Michigan is 1-0 instead of 0-1, you got to start with the defense. Western Michigan possessed the football for more than 40 minutes. Michigan defense played nearly 70 snaps and Western Michigan never scored a touchdown.

I mean, think about that. Your offense keeps putting you back on the field. You’re getting almost no help in terms of time of possession. Now, Dom Nichols was outstanding. John Henry Daly showed up.

Troy Bowles was all over the field. Smith Snowden looks solid. Rod Moore is back. The defensive front was disruptive. They weren’t perfect.

There were stretches where I wanted to see more aggression and physicality. And even the players have acknowledged that they didn’t play to their standard. But that defense won Michigan a football game. My problem is the other side because I actually thought Michigan skill position players showed me some things. J.J.

Buchanan was terrific. Six catches, 126 yards, and obviously the catch that everybody’s going to remember. And Andrew Marsh showed flashes when he got opportunities. And Jordan Marshall had moments where I thought he was creating whatever he could essentially out of nothing. problems were where the football games are usually decided. Offensive line and quarterback.

Let’s start up front. Michigan came into the season with an offensive line that had a roughly 54 combined career starts. Blake Frazier, Evan Link, Jake Guarnera, Brady Norton, Nathan Efobi, Andrew Sprague. These aren’t five freshmen who just met each other three weeks ago. There’s experience here.

And Michigan has Jim Harding coaching this group. one of the most respected offensive line coaches in college football. So, I’m not interested in excuses. Michigan should be able to line up against Western Michigan and run the football, period. Instead, Michigan finished with only a little over 100 yards rushing, and Bryce Underwood was the team’s leading rusher with 47. That is unacceptable to me.

And when you go back and actually watch the run game, this wasn’t simply Western Michigan loading nine guys into the box and daring Michigan to throw. There were opportunities. Michigan just didn’t execute the blocks. Jake Guarnera had plays where he lost leverage immediately and got knocked backwards. Andrew Sprague had problems getting cleanly to the second level and securing linebackers.

Blake Frazier had a rep on one of Jason Beck’s trap concepts where Western Michigan’s defensive end basically destroy the whole thing by standing him up and collapsing the running lane. There were bad angles, late blocks, guys off balance, not enough movement at the point of attack. And that’s what bothered me because interestingly enough, the pass protection wasn’t nearly as bad as the run game looked. The grading actually suggests Michigan protected Bryce pretty well through stretches. The bigger indictment was the physicality in the run game.

This is Michigan. When Michigan needs two yards against Western Michigan, I should need Jason Beck to draw up the perfect play. At some point, you should be able to tell five guys, “We’re running the football right here. Stop us.” And then get two yards.

And this brings me to the narrative I’ve heard all week that just drives me absolutely crazy. Michigan wasn’t prepared. Michigan was prepared. Michigan didn’t execute. There’s a difference.

Anyone who has ever played football understands this. You can spend six days preparing for a look. You can practice the exact defensive front you’re expecting. The coach can draw the play perfectly on the board and then Saturday comes and somebody gets beat. That’s football.

Kyle Whittingham can’t reach onto the field and stop you from holding. Jason Beck can’t move your feet for you. Jim Harding can’t physically make you sustain a block. At some point, players have to play. Players have to execute and players have to hold each other accountable.

Kyle Whittingham and his coaching staff didn’t suddenly forget how to coach football over the last eight months. Jason Beck didn’t forget how to coordinate an offense. Jim Harding didn’t forget how to coach an offensive line. And I think the players understand that, which is why they called a players-led meeting to address that situation because the response can’t always be looking toward a sideline. Sometimes the answer has to be inside the locker room.

We didn’t play well enough. I didn’t do my job. That’s on me. Those are the conversations that this team need to have. Player amongst player.

Outside of that opening drive, the offense looked completely out of sync. And worse than being out of sync, there were stretches where they look soft. And trust me, you don’t want to have that label in this conference. No urgency, no violence in the run game, no intensity. That has to change immediately.

Now, I gave Jason Beck a lot of praise during the offseason, but I’m not going to let him off the hook because I had some questions about the offensive approach because Beck wants multiplicity in the run game. We saw long trap concepts. We saw different gap scheme ideas. we saw motion. We saw misdirection. He’s trying to manipulate defenders instead of simply lining up and running the same concept over and over.

I understand what he’s doing and it’s worked everywhere he’s been. His offenses at New Mexico and Utah were among the best rushing offenses in the country. So, I’m not panicking about Jason Beck after one game, but I also think Saturday was a reminder of something. Sometimes you can get a little too cute, especially when your offensive line isn’t executing complicated blocking combinations particularly well. If guys are struggling with timing, struggling getting the linebackers and struggling identifying exactly who they’re responsible for, at some point you’ve got to help them out schematically.

And here’s something else that I don’t understand about the run game that I saw I’ve been watching over the last few years. Why do we keep trying to run the ball right up the middle when it’s clearly not working? At some point, you’ve got to change the picture for the defense. Where are the off-tackle runs? Where are the stretch plays?

Where are the concepts designed to make Western Michigan’s linebackers move laterally instead of allowing them to sit there, read their keys, and attack downhill? Because when you keep running between the tackles and you’re not getting movement up front, you’re making life pretty damn easy for the linebackers. They don’t have to go anywhere. They can sit in their gap, square their shoulders, and come downhill. You have to be able to make them move.

Get those linebackers flowing toward the sideline. Make them run through traffic. Make them work over the top of blocks. Now you’re creating opportunities for guys to get caught in the wash. And more importantly, you’re giving your running back options.

That’s what I want for a guy like Jordan Marshall and Savon Hiter. Give him an outside track. Let him press the edge and force the defense to react. Now, if that linebacker overpursues can stick his foot in the ground, cutback and get north and south. If the edge gets sealed, take it outside.

If somebody gets caught behind the block, there’s your lane. You’re forcing defenders to make decisions instead of letting them attack one spot. And once you establish that outside run, now everything starts opening up. Now the backside cutback is there. Now your play-action game becomes more dangerous.

Now your boot action actually means something. Now the defense has to defend the entire width of the field instead of everybody collapsing toward the middle of the formation. If you’re getting your ass kicked at the point of attack running straight ahead, stop repeatedly asking your offensive line to win the exact same battle that they’re currently losing. Change the fight. Make Western Michigan run.

Make those linebackers get off their spot. Make the defensive line move laterally. Create some confusion. Create some traffic. Create some natural running lanes.

And give your backs opportunity to do what they do best. And because the offensive line was so inconsistent, I don’t even know how to fairly judge the running backs. And here’s what would concern me if I’m in that offensive line meeting room this week., you put that performance on tape and everybody in Michigan plays the rest of the season just watched it. Oklahoma watched it. Ohio State watched it.

Penn State watched it. Every defensive coordinator on that schedule just watched Western Michigan walk into the Big House and physically challenge Michigan’s offensive line. And now they’re all coming. You chum the water and now the Sharks are circling. Every defensive front Michigan faces is going to want to test this offensive line manhood.

They’re going to crowd the box. They’re going to bring pressure. They’re going to slant. They’re going to attack the gaps. They’re going to say, “Prove to us that you’re tougher than us.”

And that’s exactly what Michigan deserves until they can prove otherwise. And then we get to Bryce Underwood. I want to start here because I think sometimes we forget this young man is carrying unbelievable amount of pressure. He’s a quarterback at Michigan. He’s the former number one recruit.

He’s expected to be the face of one of the biggest programs in college football. Everybody knows about the money. Everybody knows about the expectations. Every throw gets analyzed nationally. Very few people listening to this could handle that kind of pressure, including myself, and I understand that.

But here’s the reality. He’s going to get absolutely no comfort from the national media. And he’s certainly not going to get any comfort from this fan base because all they hear is how much money you’re making. Just like when Jim Harbaugh was underperforming and everyone wanted to talk about his $7 million contract, but that’s today’s college football. Fair or unfair, that’s the world Bryce Underwood is playing in.

And against Western Michigan, he wasn’t good enough. Even by his own admission, he wasn’t good enough. 12 of 22, 170 yards, an interception. Should have been more interceptions. a fumble. There were inaccurate throws. His footwork deteriorated as the game went on.

There were situations where the protection was good enough and Bryce simply didn’t deliver the football where it needed to go. And what concerns me most is when we’ve seen this version of Bryce before. When everything is flowing, you see why everybody has been so excited about him. The arm talent jumps off the screen. The athleticism is obvious.

The ceiling is enormous. But when things start to go badly, his mechanics can speed up. his decision-making starts to change and the entire offense feels it. He has to become more consistent. And Kyle Whittingham created some headlines this week when he made it clear that Bryce is the starting quarterback right now, but that doesn’t mean that the job belongs to him forever. And Bryce was asked about it Wednesday and basically seemed surprised the comments had been made before brushing it off.

I don’t have a problem with either response, but Kyle Woodingham is right. He’s here to win football games. That’s his job. Not to protect somebody’s recruiting ranking, not to protect somebody’s NIL valuation, not to make anybody comfortable win football games. And he has to determine whether Michigan can win with Bryce Underwood or not.

I still believe Bryce gives Michigan the highest ceiling, but ceiling doesn’t win games. Quarterback play does. And that makes this Oklahoma game an enormous game for Bryce. And here’s what I mean by that. Michigan could lose to Oklahoma Saturday and I could actually walk away feeling better about Bryce Underwood than I do right now because he needs to look better in a loss against Oklahoma than he did in a win against Western Michigan.

If Michigan loses 3128 and Bryce throws for 280 yards, makes good decisions, commands the offense, and looks like the quarterback everybody believes he can become, I can live with that. But if he looks against Oklahoma the way he looks against Western Michigan, Kyle Woodingham has a decision to make and maybe eventually it’s next man up. Now, I’m not telling you Tommy Carr is better than Bryce Underwood. I don’t know that. Nobody knows that.

I’m not even telling you that Tommy Carr would perform better than Bryce Underwood. But if Tommy Carr proves he can quarterback this offense better, make better reads, distribute the football, protect possessions, and consistently get Michigan into the right situation, then Whittingham has an obligation to consider it. Because this isn’t about who has the biggest recruiting profile. It’s about winning football games. That’s why Saturday against Oklahoma is incredibly important.

Western Michigan showed us Michigan has problems. Oklahoma is going to tell us whether or not those problems are fixable. Does the offensive line respond after getting challenged publicly all week? Does Jason Beck simplify things to establish the run? Does Bryce settle down and command this offense?

Does Michigan come out angry? Because sometimes getting punched in the mouth early isn’t the worst thing to happen to a football team. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need. Now, Michigan survived the punch. They’re 1 and0.

The season isn’t over. Nothing’s been lost. But that free pass is gone because Saturday against Oklahoma, we found out whether or not Western Michigan was a wakeup call or a warning. All right, Michigan fans. I appreciate you rocking with me on this episode of The Breakdown.

Don’t forget to like, share, subscribe, comment. I’ll see you on the next one. If you like this kind of content, please like, share, follow, and subscribe. And as always, go blue!]